Satterwhite retires as Head for the Mountains columnist in Carolina Sportsman.

For the better part of a dozen years, it has been my honor and pleasure to bring to readers of this magazine the flawless prose of Bob Satterwhite.

I became acquainted with him maybe 30 years ago, when he was editing Blue Ridge Outdoors, a monthly, tabloid outdoor publication of the Asheville Citizen-Times newspaper. Our roles were reversed back then; I was writing for him; he was the editor. When I took over North Carolina Sportsman in 2009 and became his editor, I remarked on how the world had turned upside down. What was I doing editing Bob Satterwhite?

Our professional relationship ends this month as Satterwhite closes a chapter that was open for more than 20 years that he wrote the Head for the Mountains column, first for North Carolina Sportsman, then for Carolina Sportsman.

Well into his 70s, he is retiring from trout fishing — he explains why in this month’s column — and he’s also retiring from writing. I am sad for him on both accounts.

A native of Morganton, N.C., he settled in Asheville a long time ago and became the managing editor of the Citizen-Times, at that time, the voice of western North Carolina. When he retired from that job, he wrote for close to a dozen years a weekly outdoors column in the Citizen-Times, as well as editing Blue Ridge Outdoors for a couple of years.

Among old, ink-stained wretches — a name that we aging, former newspaper people often use to describe ourselves — he wasn’t just well respected, no, it was far more than that. From the hires I know he made to stories about him from those same reporters and columnists, I know he was a tremendous judge of talent, and once hired, he got out of the way and let that talent perform.

Who amongst us didn’t wish our bosses would do exactly that?

I don’t know how we’ll replace him; I’m not sure that’s possible. And that’s my ultimate tribute to him.