BASEBALL LEGEND ALSO EXPERT FISHERMAN.

Byline: BILL BECHER

The sportswriter who dubbed Ted Williams ``The Splendid Splinter'' was referring to the bat swung by the worlds' greatest hitter, but he could have as easily been describing Williams' split-bamboo fly rod.

Williams, who died last week in Inverness, Fla., at 83, took his fly fishing as seriously as he did his baseball. His extraordinary angling prowess went beyond the physical skills of a gifted athlete.

Martyn Vickers fished for Atlantic salmon with Williams off and on for 30 years on the Miramichi River in Canada.

``He was as accurate in making a fly as a jeweler would be in creating a masterpiece,'' said Vickers.

A good fly fisherman with a decent salmon rod should be able to cast 50 to 60 feet at a time, according to Vickers. Ted Williams' average cast was 85-95 feet.

``Each one of his casts was perfectly made,'' said Vickers. ``The fly rolled over the end of the line and dropped into the water perfectly.''

Vickers says Williams' 6-foot-3 height also helped his fishing.

``This was a big man,'' said Vickers. ``I'm 5-9, so I could wade out in the water and I'd be up to my chest and that sucker would have water up to his waist. So he could go farther in the river and with his long casts he'd cover a lot of water.''

Vickers is now a doctor and chief of surgery.

``I used to teach at Harvard,'' said Vickers. ``I've met a lot of intelligent people. (Ted Williams) was a very bright man. This was not your dumb super athlete. I think his brains and attention to detail were every bit as much the cause of his success as his physical skills.''

Williams was not a trout angler. After retiring, he divided his time between his homes on the Miramichi River, where he fished for Atlantic salmon, and in Islamorada, Fla., where he caught tarpon and bonefish.

In Florida, he often fished with Captain Gary Ellis, a guide in Islamorada.

``He's the best fly-fisherman I've had on my boat,'' said Ellis.

Ellis recalled the time he and another guide spent 10 days fishing with Williams and a group of tackle-company executives in prime tarpon water north of Tampa. At the end of the trip, Williams told the guides he would take them fishing the next day.

``Ted put me on the bow of the boat,'' said Ellis. ``I immediately hooked up a 100-plus pound tarpon. We boated it in 19 minutes with Ted screaming at me, 'Get off the bow. Get the rod tip down. Do this. Do that.'

``He gave me an A-minus,'' said Ellis. ``He said he never gave anybody an A.''

Later that day, Williams had a 130-pound tarpon on and talked to it but not in language fit for a family newspaper, according to Ellis.

``He could put expletives together in a stream that became poetry,'' said Ellis.

Jack Gartside, a noted fly tier and author of many angling books, said he lived a dry fly cast away from Fenway Park in the 1950s.

Williams and heavyweight boxer Jack Sharkey were demonstrating fly-casting at a sportsmen's show in Boston.

``They had this beautiful babe in a bikini at one end of the casting pool with a cigarette in her mouth and Ted would try to knock it out of her mouth,'' said Gartside. ``He always did it.''

When Williams tied flies at a table between casting demonstrations, Gartside was fascinated.

``I wormed my way up to the table and asked if he'd show me how to tie a fly,'' said Gartside. ``They sat me down at the vise. Ted went through the motions to show me how to tie a Wooly Worm.''

As a teen-age baseball fan, Gartside saw another side of Ted Williams.

``We used to haunt the entrance to Fenway Park where the ballplayers came in,'' said Gartside.

``My friend got there before me and said, 'You'll never believe this, but Ted Williams talked to me before he talked to anyone else.''

``I said, 'No kidding. What did he say?' ''

``He said, 'Get out of my way, kid.' ''

Boston sportswriters explored Williams' dark side at length. They might have called him the ``Splendid Spitter'' after the famous incident in 1956 when Williams responded to boos for muffing a Mickey Mantle fly ball by spitting at the crowd.

Curt Gowdy, sportscaster and host of the ``American Sportsman'' TV show, said Williams didn't mind when sportswriters criticized his play on the fiel but didn't understand why his private life was fodder for the press.

``I'll tell you a story about how good he was,'' said Gowdy. ``The Red Sox were playing in Washington when the Senators were there. One day about nine in the morning (Williams) called me and says, 'Curt, they're having a national fly casting tournament over at the Reflection Pool.'''

They went.

At the tournament, one of the participants recognized Williams and invited him to try a cast. Williams put on a stripping basket and practiced a few minutes with the unfamiliar rod.

``He made a cast and the line went whoosh, all the loose line coiling out of the basket,'' said Gowdy. ``Ted's cast was about five feet shorter than the guy who won the distance tournament.''

``He was an American hero,'' said Gowdy. ``No one ever mentions that. He flew in two wars - he landed a burning, shot-up plane in Korea. He told it like it was. He was very good with children and people who needed help. I loved the guy.''

Guide Lee Hartman met Williams on the Kola Peninsula in Russia in 1991 fishing for Atlantic salmon.

``I asked (Williams) what his biggest thrill was, and was expecting something from baseball,'' said Hartman. ``He said calling in his first turkey. That's the thrill he remembered best.''

Florida guide Gary Ellis said as much as Williams liked tarpon fishing, he said it didn't compare to turkey hunting. Ellis also saw the kinder Williams.

``He's been criticized for being hard-hearted and cold, but he had the biggest heart in the world,'' said Ellis. ``He helped me start a charity fund-raising event back in 1988.

``I had a daughter born with cystic fibrosis,'' said Ellis. ``We lived right in town and Ted knew my situation and knew my daughter. I went bonefishing with him in 1988 and said, 'Ted, I want to start a tournament.' ''

When Williams said he didn't do tournaments, Ellis told him it was for kids. When Williams said he didn't kill fish, Ellis said it was a catch-and-release tournament. When Williams said he only fly-fished, Ellis told him the tournament had a fly-fishing division.

``Right there we wrote the rules for a tournament called the Mercury Redbone Celebrity Tournament,'' said Ellis. ``Ted Williams took a sketch of himself swinging a bat and at the bottom wrote, 'Help save young lives - fish the Redbone for cystic fibrosis - Ted Williams 1988.' ''

Ellis used the sketch in promotional material for a series of fishing tournaments (www.redbone.org) that have since raised $2.5 million for cystic fibrosis research.

Dr. Vickers saw the same Ted Williams over 30 years of fishing in Canada.

``My family is from New Brunswick and they are work-in-the-woods, very simple people,'' said Vickers. ``And (Williams) always treated them with utmost respect. He has a reputation of being gruff and just doing what he wanted to. That was not truly him.''

``Someone was salmon fishing at our lodge for the first time,'' said Vickers. ``The guy is out there in the river and catches a small salmon. About five pounds.

``Ted Williams came over and congratulated the guy and made him feel like he was a million dollars. Ted Williams had the ability to make you feel special.''

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2) Ted Williams, right, is given the International Game Fish Association's inductee medallion by Hall of Fame broadcaster Curt Gowdy during a 2000 ceremony. Below, Williams proudly displays a bonefish caught on a 1955 trip.

(3) Ted Williams caught numerous fish on his many fly-fishing trips, such as this one on Maine's Ross Lake in 1947.

Associated Press