We often get this question from customers.
Who is J. Stockard?
Joel Stockard is the grandfather of one of our founders. Born in Texas, Joel was a life-long outdoorsman who loved fly tying, fly fishing, collecting old fishing rods and tackle and building birch bark furniture.
Early on, Joel was a stockbroker in Detroit but the Great Depression put an end to that. He then moved from the city and spent the rest of his life in North Carolina and Canada where he built a fishing camp on one of the large Muskoka lakes north of Toronto. Each year, Joel and his extended family spent the summer in Muskoka in the log house that is the centerpiece of “The Eyrie” (Eagle’s Nest). Each day would find Joel in his canoe out on the lake fly fishing for the lake trout and small mouth bass that used to be plentiful.
Today, The Eyrie is still family owned and used by dozens of Joel’s descendants. No one is lucky enough to spend the whole summer there but everyone takes a week or two each year to enjoy Joel’s fishing paradise, take the kids out in Joel’s fishing canoe and try catching a few of those elusive trout or bass.