american fly fisher

SPRING 2006 VOLUME 32 NUMBER 2

American

Journal of the American Museum of Fly Fishing

The

Fly Fisher

TRAGOPAN. GOLDEN PHEASANT. Blue chatterer. WhenErnest Schwiebert spoke of the beauty of our sport, itbecame clear that even the words we use to point to the

objects are beautiful. It’s no wonder that in rememberingErnie, several have quoted the speech he gave at the AmericanMuseum of Fly Fishing’s grand reopening in June 2005.

I was out of town when I got the news that Ernie had died.It caught me completely off guard. I had just met the man, hadjust worked with him to publish his speech in the journal.With very little personal history, I still felt a loss. In a trendymartini bar in Portland, a glass was raised to ErnestSchwiebert—a ritual likely being repeated all over the world.

We include several tributes to Ernest Schwiebert in thisissue, by Gardner Grant (page 22), J. I. Merritt (page 24), andWilliam Herrick (page 26). Gardner Grant gives a touchingtribute to his good friend and reminds us of what Ernie saidabout beauty and the sport. Jim Merritt reminisces about hisearly days with Ernie and gives us a bit of biography. BillHerrick offers us two poems, one for Ernie and one for the restof us, the latter of which strikes a particular chord with thosewho were in the room that night in June.

Now, given the happy murmurings I’ve overheard aboutPart 1, I’m sure many of you are ready to get into Part 2 ofHoagy B. Carmichael’s Red Camp history. In the secondinstallment—excerpted from his upcoming book, The GrandCascapedia River: A History, Volume 1—we find the ownershipof Red Camp firmly in the hands of the Bonbright brothers.Steel magnate Henry Frick, a member of the Cascapedia Club,finally exercised his right to time on the water in 1915. Two ofhis guests, the Phipps brothers, became enamored of the river

that summer, and within a few years began their own dealingsto acquire leases and land. The Great Depression took its tollon many of the players and was the beginning of the end forRed Camp proper. “Red Camp: Part 2: A Recipe for Change”begins on page 2.

It is always a pleasure to share the studies of Fred Bullerwith you. In this issue, Buller surveys ancient hooks—frombone gorges to hooks made of copper, bronze, shell, stone,bone, and wood—discovered around the world (France,Scotland, Egypt, Palestine, Britain, Pacific Islands, theAmericas). “Ancient Hooks” begins on page 13.

Our sport is rich in its literature, and both historians andenthusiastic amateurs love to get their hands on original texts.Books exist, but your access will be limited if you don’t havethe money to buy them, if accurate reprints have never beenreissued, or if you can’t get to that rare book library. In“Fishing Books for the Masses: An Achievable Project,” PaulSchullery makes a plea for scanning older titles that are in pub-lic domain and making them available online. We among themasses look forward to that day. The article begins on page 19.

And speaking of rare books, the museum recently received1,000 books from the estate of museum Trustee Roy Chapin,including limited editions and rare items. For more on this, seeJerry Karaska’s article on page 28.

This season, may you fish because of beauty.

KATHLEEN ACHOREDITOR

“Everything about our sport is beautiful.”! Ernest Schwiebert, 11 June 2005

Museum Trustees Gardner Grant, Ernie Schwiebert, andMike Osborne study aquatic fly life at the Potatuck Club last May.

Keith Fulsher

Executive DirectorCollections Manager

Director of EventsAdministration & Membership

Art Director

William C. Bullock IIIYoshi AkiyamaLori PinkowskiRebecca NawrathSara Wilcox

Red Camp Part 2: A Recipe for Change . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Hoagy B. Carmichael

Ancient Hooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Frederick Buller

Notes and Comment:Fishing Books for the Masses:An Achievable Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Paul Schullery

Ernest G. Schwiebert, 1931–2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Gardner Grant

Reflections on an Angling Legend:Ernest George Schwiebert Jr.5 June 1931–11 December 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

J. I. Merritt

Remembering Ernie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26William F. Herrick

Our Library Grows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Gerald J. Karaska

Museum News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

ON THE COVER: Red Camp before it was torn down, circa 1940. Photo cour-tesy of the Cascapedia River Museum. Hoagy B. Carmichael’s article onRed Camp begins on page 2.

S P R I N G 2 0 0 6 VO L U M E 3 2 N U M B E R 2

the American Museum of Fly FishingJournal of

The American Fly Fisher (ISSN 0884-3562) is published

four times a year by the museum at P.O. Box 42, Manchester, Vermont 05254.

Publication dates are winter, spring, summer, and fall. Membership dues include the cost of the

journal ($15) and are tax deductible as provided for by law. Membership rates are listed in the back of each issue.

All letters, manuscripts, photographs, and materials intended for publication in the journal should be sent to

the museum. The museum and journal are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, drawings, photographic

material, or memorabilia. The museum cannot accept responsibility for statements and interpretations that are

wholly the author’s. Unsolicited manuscripts cannot be returned unless postage is provided. Contributions to The

American Fly Fisher are to be considered gratuitous and the property of the museum unless otherwise requested

by the contributor. Articles appearing in this journal are abstracted and indexed in Historical Abstracts and America:

History and Life. Copyright © 2006, the American Museum of Fly Fishing, Manchester, Vermont 05254. Original

material appearing may not be reprinted without prior permission. Periodical postage paid at

Manchester, Vermont 05254 and additional offices (USPS 057410). The American Fly Fisher (ISSN 0884-3562)

EMAIL: [email protected] WEBSITE: www.amff.com

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The American Fly Fisher, P.O. Box 42, Manchester, Vermont 05254.

THE AMERICAN MUSEUMOF FLY FISHING

Preserving the Heritageof Fly FishingT R U S T E E S

E. M. BakwinMichael Bakwin

Foster BamPamela Bates

Steven BenardetePaul Bofinger

Duke Buchan IIIMickey Callanen

Peter CorbinJerome C. DayBlake Drexler

William J. DreyerChristopher Garcia

Ronald GardGeorge R. Gibson III

Gardner L. GrantChris Gruseke

James HardmanJames Heckman

Lynn L. Hitschler Arthur Kaemmer, MD

Woods King IIICarl R. Kuehner IIINancy MackinnonWalter T. MatiaWilliam C. McMaster, MDJames MirendaJohn MundtDavid NicholsWayne NordbergMichael B. OsborneRaymond C. PecorStephen M. PeetLeigh H. PerkinsAllan K. PooleJohn RanoRoger RiccardiKristoph J. RollenhagenWilliam SalladinRobert G. ScottRichard G. TischDavid H. Walsh

Chairman of the BoardPresident

Vice Presidents

TreasurerSecretary

Clerk

Robert G. ScottNancy MackinnonGeorge R. Gibson IIILynn L. HitschlerMichael B. OsborneStephen M. PeetDavid H. WalshJames MirendaJames C. WoodsCharles R. Eichel

O F F I C E R S

S T A F F

EditorDesign & Production

Copy Editor

Kathleen AchorSara WilcoxSarah May Clarkson

THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER

We welcome contributions to the American Fly Fisher. Before making a submission,please review our Contributor’s Guidelines on our website (www.amff.com), orwrite to request a copy. The museum cannot accept responsibility for statementsand interpretations that are wholly the author’s.

Paul Schullery

James C. Woods

T R U S T E E S E M E R I T ICharles R. Eichel

G. Dick FinlayW. Michael Fitzgerald

William Herrick

Robert N. JohnsonDavid B. LedlieLeon L. MartuchKeith C. Russell

Red Campby Hoagy B. Carmichael

One of the great men who fished the Grand Cascapedia River early in its recorded history was Robert G. Dun of New York. Aftercapturing a 54-pound salmon in 1886, Dun decided to build a small camp on the banks of the river, which was completed the follow-ing year. He called it Red Camp. After his death in 1900, the camp was taken over by Edmund W. Davis, who wrote of his time at RedCamp in the first book about the great river, Salmon Fishing on the Grand Cascapedia, published in 1904, just four years before hismysterious death on the Red Camp porch.

The small, clapboard camp was then purchased by the brothers Bonbright—George, Irving, and William—all of whom enjoyed theexclusivity of the remote river known for its large salmon. George Bonbright designed both wet and dry flies, several of which haveremained recognized patterns, and it appeared to these men of the financial world that their salmon fishing summers would remainunsullied, theirs to enjoy for many years to come. By 1915, the conflict in Europe, World War I, was the news of the day. Steel magnateHenry C. Frick, who was a member of the exclusive Cascapedia Club, did not take his usual European trip that year, but decided ratherto travel to the safety of the Canadian woods for several weeks of salmon fishing. That decision, and the resolve of his two summer guests,would in time change the complexion of the river, as well as alter the salmon fishing that the Bonbright brothers enjoyed, forever.

! Hoagy B. Carmichael

Red Camp, circa 1915. Photo courtesy of the GeorgeEastman Collection; gift of Eastman Kodak Co.

2 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER

SPRING 2006 3

Map of the lower end of the Grand Cascapedia, including Red Camp.

Robert Seaman/Robin Hayes


THE STEEL TYCOON Henry C. Frick(1849–1919) had been a member ofthe Cascapedia Club since 1908,

although by the summer of 1915, he hadnever seen his celebrated salmon fishinggrounds. Mr. Frick was anxious to have asummer away from the heat and bustleof New York. The Great War made hisusual trip to Europe out of the question,so he decided to summer in Canada andjoin his fellow members of the Casca-pedia Club for some fishing. He was ac-quainted with two of the Bonbrightbrothers, who arranged for him to rentthe rooms at Woodman’s, as well as RedCamp, for the month of July so that hecould invite several guests withoutinfringing on any member of the Casca-pedia Club who might still be on theriver. One member of the party was thefamed golf architect Charles B. MacDonald(1856–1939), best known for his design ofthe National Golf Links in Southamp-ton, New York, and the Yale Golf Course.Mr. Frick also invited two of steel mag-nate Henry C. Phipps Jr.’s sons—John S.(Jay) Phipps (1876–1957) and his brother

Howard Phipps (1881–1981)—along fortheir first taste of salmon fishing.

John Phipps normally took his wifeMargarita C.(Dita) Grace Phipps (1876–1957)and their four children to Europe formuch of the summer, but because of thedangers of the European conflict, theytoo decided to take the entire clan to theGrand Cascapedia for the month of Julyat Frick’s behest. The family made therustic rooms at Woodman’s their home,and the children swam, fished for trout,and camped out in tents among thewilds of the Cascapedia valley. The menhad the camp and the water to them-selves, and the fishing was very good,thanks in part to a 4-foot rise in waterthat “juiced” the pools not long after theyarrived on the July 7. Frick caught a 37-pound salmon in the Red Camp HomePool; his friend John Phipps also hadgood sport, landing two fish of morethan 20 pounds. The Phippses stayedseveral weeks longer than expected, andthe experience was not lost on brothersJohn and Howard, who were anxious toreturn to the Grand Cascapedia.

For the first five years the Bonbrightbrothers owned Red Camp, it was visitedmostly by members of the immediatefamily. Jim Harrison had stayed on as theheadman, and the guides and the kitchenhelp were kept busy with a house full ofsports through the end of July. In 1916,the fishermen at Red Camp landed 123salmon, followed in 1917 and 1918 withcounts of 172 and 167 salmon killed. Infact, the Bonbright brothers were killingsalmon at a record pace, and in doing sowere raising the eyebrows of other menwho had privileges on the river. Themild-mannered Benjamin Douglass Jr.noted with ire in his Camp Douglass-Beck logbook that Irving Bonbrightkilled eleven salmon the morning of 25June 1917 and returned in the evening forfive more. The sports at Red Camp killedthirty-two salmon that day.1

George Bonbright was beginning toexperiment with his Dee Iron Amherstflies, some of which were initially tied byJim Harrison, and by the 1919 season, thisfly was a staple at the camp. That yearGeorge caught a 441⁄2-pound fish, and he

Part 2: A Recipe for Change

Henry Clay Frick. Courtesy ofDr. and Mrs. Clay Frick.

SPRING 2006 5

and his brother Irving had several ses-sions when they each landed eight largesalmon in one day, the recognized riverlimit. George was an experienced saltwa-ter fisherman, whose lessons he oftenapplied to fishing for salmon. In order tobetter play a salmon once it was hooked,he had a raised “fighting chair” madelocally that was adapted to fit betweenthe gunnels of a Gaspé canoe. His sil-houette, perched cautiously above theriver, was recognizable to everyone in thevalley. All three Bonbright brothersenjoyed their weeks at Red Camp, andthey now knew that they had investedwisely in some of the best salmon poolsmoney could buy. But the camp itselfwas resting on land still owned by theWoodman family that the previousowner, E. W. Davis, had not bothered topurchase, which chafed at the businessinstincts of the Bonbrights.

In the fall of 1916, the Bonbrightbrothers made an unusual deal with thetwo spinster sisters, Mary and ElizabethWoodman, who had inherited the Wood-man farm, upon which Red Camp andthe adjoining outbuildings stood. In onetransaction, George and Irving Bon-bright purchased a strip of land an acrein depth stretching across the two lots,but which only assured the camp’s fish-ing rights. But, by so doing, they alsoinsured a perpetual, unobstructed viewof the river. Bonbright also bought theground that Red Camp itself and itsadjoining guide house and outbuildingsstood on, as well as reasonable accessfrom the road to their camp and the boatlanding. The deal also included the fish-ing rights to the upper portion of theprolific Judge’s Pool (which was notadjacent to the Woodmans’ property),the dividing line of which had earlierbeen the basis of dispute between Davisand Benjamin Douglass Jr. The twowomen were compensated with a verycreative settlement. Each was to be paid

$400 per year for as long as she liveduntil one of the sisters died, and thenthat sum was transferred to the other sis-ter, whereupon she received $800 per yearuntil her death.2 It was further agreedthat if the surviving sister died before atotal of $8,000 had been paid to the sis-ters, then a lump sum would be paid totheir heirs—the amount that wouldbring the aggregate up to the $8,000 fig-ure. This was an important transactionfor the Bonbrights because Red Camphad been essentially squatting on theWoodman sisters’ land, and GeorgeBonbright correctly felt that his camp wasnot a bona fide asset unless he owned theland that the camp rested on. The dealwas a windfall for the sisters, but it wasnecessary protection and a good businesstransaction for the Bonbright brothers.

George Bonbright was not always suc-cessful when dealing with the local land-owners. His manner was abrupt and ag-gressively dogged, and he was very slowto relinquish an idea that had gainedcurrency in his mind. Albert Robertsonowned the pool at the head of JonathanBrook, which George Bonbright wanted.He visited Robertson at his house intown, offering him a handsome amountof money in exchange for a ninety-nine-year lease on the pool. Robertson polite-ly declined the offer, to which Bonbrightretorted. “My offer is a lot of money!”The sage Albert Robertson replied, “Mr.Bonbright, 99 years is a long time!”3

The Bonbrights were throwing unheard-of amounts of money at the local land-owners for their fishing, but the practiceof acquiring water and tidying up leaseswas paying off in terms of the amount ofgreat water they controlled. Their timingalso could not have been better, becausean old friend was soon to move ontotheir turf and irrevocably change thelandscape.

A GENTLEMAN CALLER

The salmon season of 1919 on theGrand Cascapedia dawned with few gov-ernmental or local issues on the horizon,other than the persistent logging on theriver that often made the fishing diffi-cult. Arthur Barter, who worked for campowner William Mershon, wrote that thesnow was running off gradually and thathe thought the salmon season wouldcome about on time. He had hired Mrs.

Red Camp with loggers clearing the lower end of the famousShedden Pool. Photo courtesy of the Cascapedia River Museum.

Woodman’s Inn, 1915. From the private collection of Westbury House.


Isabel Gilker as the new cook, and he as-sured Mershon that the asparagus patchand the radishes had survived the win-ter. George Bonbright had spent muchof the winter in Florida and, despite anear infection that he couldn’t shake, hetoo was anxious to get back to RedCamp. William Spaulding had decidedto remain in California for the summer,but Jack Spaulding, the co-owner ofLorne Cottage, was determined not tomiss his fishing for the second year in arow, and he was ticketed to leave Bostonon May 29 for Lorne Cottage. The GrandCascapedia had become the sanctuary ofa few good men. No camp had been builtin twenty years (Benjamin Douglass Jr.’sCamp Douglass-Beck, built in 1901, wasthe newcomer), and the fishing, for themost part, rested in the hands of fourcamp owners and the seven members ofthe Cascapedia Club, several of whomrarely used their privilege.

The salmon fishing that year was ter-rific. George Bonbright arrived at RedCamp for the first week of June, and onthe 19th he landed a 441⁄2-, a 37-, and a 29-pound fish all in the Rock Pool that wasadjacent to the camp. He followed that

on June 23 by killing eightfish in one day in the HomePool with one of his newsunk flies called the HouseFly. Life was good on theGrand Cascapedia for theBonbright brothers. Thelarge English-styled gardenthat ran beside the Wood-man’s hay field was a con-stant pleasure for the own-ers, and they went to the ex-pense to employ severalmen during the summer tokeep it tended. They hadsome of the best June wateron the river, with a campthey loved coming to. Themen had worked to ensurethe well-being of theirsmall riverside camp, andall seemed to be in order.

Henry Frick invited hisfriend John S. Phipps backto the river in 1919, thistime as his guest at the Cas-capedia Club for some late-season trout fishing. Phippsenjoyed fishing for seatrout, but when he heardabout the large salmon scoresposted that year and sawthat the salmon were asplentiful as ever, he decided to see if hecould get some quality salmon fishingfor himself. Within weeks of Phipps’sdeparture in August, William Mershongot a letter from local merchant EdmundNadeau, explaining that a wealthy NewYorker had decided that he wanted tofind some good fishing waters on theGaspé coast. He was inquiring on behalfof the Phippses as to whether Mershon’scamp on the Grand Cascapedia might befor sale.4 Mershon responded candidlythat he felt salmon fishing was a goodway to spend a month in the summer. “Itis my own little fun and enjoyment andit brings health to me, so I am going tohang onto to it for a year or two, and Ihope I can hang onto it as long as I live.”5

Although Mr. Phipps was not the first tomake such an inquiry, he may have beenthe most persistent.6 Less than a monthafter his return letter to Nadeau, GeorgeOsborn, a Phipps employee, greeted Mer-shon as he stepped off his private duckmarsh in Saginaw Bay, Michigan. Osbornmade it clear that John Phipps was will-ing to pay full market price for goodwater and a suitable site for a camp onthe Grand Cascapedia. He admitted thathe had already bought the future rightsto leases that were still owned by severalestablished camp owners (includingMershon) on behalf of Phipps, but henevertheless asked whether Mershon

would reconsider his position and sell hiscamp. Mershon unwittingly respondedwith a verbal proposal that included ahefty $75,000 price tag. After tellingOsborn that he felt that the Phippses hadno business purloining other peoples’leases, he sent him on his way.

Mershon wrote to George Bonbright—who knew both Howard Phipps and hisolder brother, John—telling him of theconversation. By then, Bonbright hadheard the news from several men in thevalley that the Phipps brothers had qui-etly made deals for some of his own leas-es, and he was incensed. He sent a copyof the Mershon correspondence to JohnT. “Jack” Spaulding, who fired off a letterto Mershon begging him to reconsiderhis hasty, verbal offer to John Phipps.Spaulding was very upset with “thesneaking way in which Mr. Phipps hasgone to work.”7 The owners of LorneCottage had just renewed their leases forten years, so they felt cushioned, but thenormally mild-mannered Jack Spauldingdid not mince words when he furtherdescribed the intrusion that he felt at thehands of the New York newcomer. “I donot personally believe that the men inthe Cascapedia Club would ever counte-nance for one minute the low, under-handed, sneaking way in which Phippshas gone to work, and as far as I can seefrankly admits it.”8

William B. Mershon. Photo courtesy of the BentleyHistorical Library, University of Michigan.

John S. (Jay) Phipps, circa 1895.Photo courtesy of Peggie PhippsBoegner and Richard Gachot.

SPRING 2006 7

In fact, Nadeau had canvassed manyof the riparian owners on the lower endof the river during the summer and fallof 1919, the result of which was the pur-chase or lease of some very good poolson the main stem of the river, as well asseveral on the northwest branch thatWilliam Mershon did not already own.9

The leases were surreptitiously pur-chased in the name of George M.Osborn so that nobody in the valleycould know the real purchaser. ArthurBarter hurriedly warned Mershon thathe had better “be on your guard,” be-cause “the Phipps fellow” was negotiat-ing, and paying very high prices, includ-ing “earnest money” in advance, for leas-es that did not expire for several years—many of which were currently in thehands of the unsuspecting Bonbrightbrothers.10 It was all done rather quicklyand without fanfare. Within a few shortmonths, John Phipps had leapfroggedover several men who had been on theriver for years. It was business. One manhad the money, and other men in the val-ley, who needed money, agreed to take it.

The most important agreement thatJohn and Howard Phipps made was withEdward and Annie Milligan, who owneda considerable amount of land on thewestern (Maria) side of the river, muchof it overlooking Red Camp.11 ThePhipps’s purchase of portions of three ofthe riverside Milligan lots was recordedin the summer of 1920, and it gave themthe desired high-ground land uponwhich to build a camp. It was the toeholdthe Phipps brothers needed, and theybegan construction in the fall of 1920 onthe largest—and by far the grandest—camp on the river, euphemistically knownsimply as the “Phipps Cottage.”

None were more surprised than Irvingand George Bonbright, who felt espe-cially betrayed by the actions of JohnPhipps, a man whom they had countedas a friend. They quickly engaged the ser-vices of the very competent local lawyer,John H. Kelly, and he was able to inter-cede on behalf of the Bonbright brothersand save one of their important leaseswith Edward Milligan for Swallow’s NestPool, and the old Davis lease of JimHarrison’s Harrison Pool. The latter wasparticularly vexing to George and IrvingBonbright because they had reemployedHarrison when they took over RedCamp, and they felt entitled to a greaterdegree of loyalty. George Bonbright wentso far as to call John Phipps “a piker—even if he has lots of money.”12 Althoughthe name-calling subsided in time, Irvingand William Bonbright were left withvery little leverage. Their old and respect-ed investment house, Bonbright & Co.,had been in precarious financial health

since the postwar economic slump, withan array of unrealized assets, not the leastof which was a firm that owned prunefarms in Bolshevist Russia. The youngupstarts Landon Thorne and AlfredLoomis, later successful legends in thefield of finance, acquired the NassauStreet firm in a bloodless coup, and theBonbright brothers were shown the door.So it was with some trepidation thatIrving Bonbright went into negotiationsto keep his salmon fishing. He workedcautiously to forge an uneasy alliance withthe son of the great steel tycoon, HenryPhipps,asking his attorney, Mr. Kelly, tosee what it would take to come to someagreement with the Phipps brothers.

In no time, Mershon rescinded hisoffer to sell Cascapedia Cottage and hiswater holdings at any price to Phipps.The scuttlebutt around the river that fallof 1920 was all about the “Phipps affair,”and William de Forest Haynes (the sec-retary of the Cascapedia Club) put a but-ton on it when he said, “Constant vig-ilance seems to be the price of salmonfishing.”13 In fact, as recently as the win-ter of 1914, the three existing camp own-ers—William Mershon, George andIrving Bonbright, and the Spauldingbrothers—joined the Cascapedia Clubin what was described by William Mer-shon in a letter to George Bonbright as a“gentleman’s understanding in relationto renewing leases on the CascapediaRiver, to not attempt to lease or make abid on any water that is now being fishedby my neighbors up the river from me,without first ascertaining their desires inthe matter.”14

John Kelly, Esq., and Irving Bonbrightmet with Howard Phipps and a phalanxof lawyers in New York over the springand summer of 1920. George Bonbrightknew that the waters that he and his bro-thers had thought were secure had beenirreparably compromised by the suddenactions of Messrs. Phipps, but he wassmart enough to swallow his pride andget on with the job of saving as much oftheir Red Camp waters as he could. Thedeal that was finally hammered out inMarch 1921 between the Bonbrights andthe Phippses was unique in many ways. Itsfundamentals were the following:

It was not an agreement based onmutual trust and friendship. GeorgeBonbright did not allow any of the RedCamp buildings to be included in thedeal, and he and his brother Irving re-tained full ownership of the eastern sliceof the riverbank that fronted the Wood-man farm. The Phipps boys did agree toassume half of the $800 paid to theWoodman girls for the fishing privilegesthat the Bonbrights had bought only twoyears earlier. And Messrs. Bonbrightretained the exclusive right to the Judge’sPool and their rights to a long stretch ofpools on the eastern side of the river,including Outside the Island Pool, Belowthe Island Pool, and the William BarterPool, and down to and including PeterCoull Pool and the Harrison Pool.George Bonbright then set up a blindtrust under the laws of the Province ofQuébec called the Florell Corp. Every-thing on the river that he and IrvingBonbright had retained that was not apart of the corpus of the deal with thePhippses was conveyed to this new cor-poration. The carefree days of salmonfishing for the Bonbright brothers at RedCamp had slipped into the past.

a. The Cascapedia Company wasto be incorporated under thelaws of the Province of Québecand was to take over the lands,leases, options of renewals, andfishing rights held by the twoparties. Messrs. Phipps andBonbright would each holdthree shares in the company.

b. Each holder of a fishing share,or his guest, would be entitled

to fish with one rod during theJune fishing, and if the guest wasfishing, then the shareholderwould not fish, and vice versa.

c. On any day in June when bothsets of fishing shares were on theriver, they agreed to alternateeach day between the “upper”and“lower” sets of pools they jointlyheld. If members of only onegroup of shares were on the river,they could fish both sections.

d. The waters for the months ofJuly and August were to be alter-nately leased each year to one ofthe two shareholding parties for afee of $3,000, of which the Phipps-es were to have the call on the1921 season, the Bonbrights the1922 season, etc. The monies forthose months were to be paid tothe Cascapedia Company, but ifthe set of shareholders entitledto that fishing decided not toexercise their option that year,then the Cascapedia Companywould endeavor to lease thewater. If no one was found totake the water in July andAugust, it was the responsibilityof that group of shareholders tomake the kitty good.

e. The Phippses paid $20,000 toGeorge and Irving Bonbright inthe form of compensation forthe pestilence caused by therecent events.15


GOOD YEARS AND BAD

George Bonbright was never very farfrom his fly-tying vise. In 1921, he firsttested bushy flies that floated on the sur-face of the Home Pool fronting his camp.Although it was not a new idea insalmon fishing, he was the first to beginto experiment with various patterns thatseemed to work well on the GrandCascapedia.16 It is unclear whether Bon-bright first heard about the idea insalmon circles in New York, or whetherhe simply tried a trout-fishing techniquethat he may have used on sea-run brooktrout or for salmon, but hislogbook confirms that hewas using dry-fly patterns onthe long glassy pool in frontof Red Camp several yearsbefore George LaBranchepublished his classic work,The Salmon and the Dry Fly,in 1924.17 Bonbright laterdeveloped two dry flies ofhis own, one of which was alarge yellow variation onthe English May Fly withthree extra-long tail fibers.Colonel Lewis Thompson,who fished the Rogers wateron the upper Restigouche,characterized the fly in theLondon Field, saying,“I havetried all the different pat-terns of dry flies for salmon,by all the different fly tiers,some three hundred in all,and the Bonbright [the LadyAmherst Dry Fly] is the bestone of all.” 18

Bonbright was also thefirst man on the Grand Cas-capedia River to try both acork-bodied fly and a “fore-and-aft” dry-fly pattern, theconcept of which was hard-ly new to trout fishermen,called the Cat’s Whiskers.The fly was tied with long,soft, blue dun hackles,somewhat gray in color, and it tooproved very effective. Bonbright theo-rized that soft-hackled dry flies allowedthe pattern to rest in the surface tensionof the water instead of on it. He was con-cerned that flies were often pushed tothe side and thus missed by risingsalmon, and the lower silhouette seemedto him to ensure a higher percentage offish hooked. George Bonbright was alsoan engaged trout fisherman, havingdeveloped several trout wet flies as well,which he called the Bonbright Red andthe Bonbright Green.19 He successfullyused these flies on the waters of his pri-vately owned trout-fishing club, known

as the Bungalow, which overlooked thebanks of a spring-fed chalk stream calledSpring Creek, just 15 miles from Ro-chester, New York.20 He was not afraid touse his intellect to improve his anglingprospects, and the waters of Red Campand the Bungalow proved to be his labo-ratory.21

Both Irving and George Bonbrighttook advantage of their contractual turnby taking up the lease to the jointly heldwaters in 1922. The fish were so plentifulin the estuary in June that George wastold that one of the coastline Maria net-ters averaged 250 salmon per tide per day

for the entire week. The boys stayed incamp almost to the end of the season(then August 15), and their persistencewas rewarded with a score of 252 salmon.Irving landed two weighing more than40 pounds, and George boated one of40. Fred Kirby, who was a friend of thelate Benjamin Douglass Jr., also gave theBonbrights the use of Douglass’s poolsfor the last several weeks of July, so theboys did not want for good water.

One of the rituals that George andIrving enjoyed at Red Camp was the an-nual golf challenge that they had withthe owners of the Barnes-Spaulding camp,Lorne Cottage. Every year the lads got

costumed in their wooly-plus-four suits,and with makeshift golf clubs, theyswatted balls down to the white woodengate at the end of the long field that bor-dered the riverside entranceway to RedCamp. They fashioned several smallgreens with broom handles for pins, andthe Sunday matches were always fol-lowed by a big dinner at Chez Bon-bright. It is not known who usually wonthese matches, but the competitiveGeorge Bonbright did note in his fishinglog of 1924 that he and Irving bested JackSpaulding and Charles Barnes on June 8of that year.

Much to the delight ofthe Bonbright brothers, thenew electricity line finallyweaved its way up theCascapedia valley in 1924, atlong last reaching the smallservice road in front of RedCamp. In those days, onehad to sign up with thelocal electric company forthe possibility of having Mr.Edison’s invention in one’shouse, and the boys at RedCamp were anxious for thenew service. They quicklyinstituted movie night onthe weekends, turning thecamp living room into atheater, which was oftencrowded with farmers andfishermen as they watchedthe early talkies flickeringagainst the camp wall. Allthe children in the valleycrowded onto the floor atRed Camp when word reach-ed everyone that the Bon-brights had brought in thenewest Charlie Chaplin film.

That year, 1924, was thefifth year in a row that an-glers were enjoying largesalmon runs on the GrandCascapedia. In cooperationwith the Cascapedia Club,the fishermen on the river

decided to increase the limit to ten fishper day from the traditional eight.During the week of June 16 through 23,George Bonbright killed his daily limitthree times, and he landed seven fish onthree of the other days. The averageweight of his fish for the six days of fish-ing (he did not fish on Sunday) was 26pounds. He also caught a beautiful 43-pound salmon on June 27, one of hislargest. True to his innate curiosity, hehad one of the fish’s scales sampled sothat he could learn about the age of thefish, as well as the number of times itreturned to the river for the purposes ofspawning.

Golfing party at Red Camp, 1923.Photo courtesy of the Cascapedia River Museum.

SPRING 2006 9

It was customary for fishermen tosend a portion of their salmon catch tofriends and family, a service that wasrendered by Thomas Willett and his wife,Viola May (Gilker) Willett. They had apackinghouse just behind the train sta-tion in the village, and in the early springthey packed their icehouse with enoughsnow for the season. The boxes weremade from 10-inch spruce boards, whichwere fabricated in Grand Cascapedia at asmall mill operated by Augustine A.Geraghty, who also made paraffin-linedbutter boxes. The salmon were broughtfrom the fishing camp icehouses to theWilletts in time for Willett to pack themsecurely, stencil the recipient’s name inblack paint on the side, and have themstacked, ready for the next train goingwest to Matapedia. In 1925, Mr. Willettgot $3 to ice and box the salmon. Therailway express company charged twocents per pound and a small handlingfee when the box was re-iced in Mon-treal before being moved to anothertrain for the final destination. One couldget a box of three salmon to the Midwestfor less than $10. The men of Red Campkept the Willett family busy during theseproductive years. Packing and shippingsalmon was a business with a never-end-ing series of deadlines, and Thomas andViola May worked hard for their season-al money.

Many on the Grand Cascapedia beganto see the slow diminution of salmon inthe river. The counts after the great yearsof the early and mid-1920s were down,

and few could find the reason why. Theyear 1928 was a very poor one for salmonanglers on the river, and George Bon-bright had to admit that his new dry flieswere not producing. In frustration hewrote in a letter to Mershon: “The temp.of the water was 54 to 59 [degrees], toohot for wet fly, and too cold for dry fly!”22

In fact, the river salmon counts werebeginning a slow, insidious, downwardspiral that, with a few exceptions, wouldlast for more than forty years.

George Bonbright had an opinion oneverything that he felt adversely affectedfishing counts on his favorite salmonriver. In this case, he was correct in theknowledge that the number of salmon

that the river warden William O’Neil hadcounted on the spawning beds in 1925was well more than six thousand fish—an all-time high since anyone had takenthe trouble to do so. By 1931, the numberof salmon returning to the GrandCascapedia was down by about one-third,according to Mr. Bonbright’s analysis,and that piece of unsettling news he rea-soned coincided with the installation in1926 of the river-spanning coveredbridge that had been funded largely bythe members of the Cascapedia Club. Hewrote to the Hon. J. E. Perreult in 1931,on behalf of the Riparian Association,after several disappointing weeks on theriver with the complaint that the vibra-tion from the cars and wagons thatpassed over the loose boards on thebridge roadway were scaring the incom-ing salmon. He likened the noise to “abarrage of Gatling Guns,” a ten-barrelmachine gun–like weapon used by theBritish as early as 1875.23 Bonbright fur-ther speculated that the fish were proba-bly turning around, falling prey to thefew awaiting salmon nets that wereplaced off the nearby coastal town ofCarleton. He foolishly further surmised,“Others, escaping the nets, have doubt-less left the vicinity altogether for morecongenial fresh water conditions.”24

Bonbright’s own robust salmon score forthe 1927 season, a year after the bridgewas completed, should have beenenough to discredit his “loose boards”notion; he left Red Camp before July 1with a personal best of seventy-nine sal-mon to his credit, only one shy of theyearly limit allowed those who fished theriver.

Although George Bonbright did notoffer a reliable remedy, he vainly foughtthe yearly diminution in the salmonpopulations by blaming the flappingboards, which he came to realize was not

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Willett and Fred Barter witha salmon box prepared for Winston Churchill.

Photo courtesy of the Cascapedia River Museum.

The covered bridge that spanned the Grand Cascapedia River.Photo courtesy of the Cascapedia River Museum.


a popular theory with others on theriver. He tried to get other camp ownersto put up $2,500 for the services of anold woman, known locally as a soothsay-er, to disclose to the men why there wasa paucity of salmon. He was serious, butthe idea was dismissed summarily with-out a vote at a Riparian Association meet-ing. George continued to put his frailargument forward for another five years,even offering to replace the offendingboards at his own expense with new ones,placed at a 45-degree angle, to soften theimpact of the advancing wheels. Withthe growing concerns of the Great De-pression, George’s idea died quietly. Thered-washed bridge was used for anothertwenty years, without complaint fromthe angling community, until the entirelength of the bridge burned to its stonepiers in early August of 1953. With thebridge down, the 1954 salmon count wasa paltry 1,260 fish, of which one-thirdwere harvested. One can only speculatewhy George held fast to the notion thatthe vibration of the floorboards were cur-tailing the number of salmon thatreached his Home Pool. It certainly madefor lively conversation on the river, butthe diminished numbers of salmon thatcame into the Grand Cascapedia contin-ued, and five years after the burning ofthe bridge, the salmon count was downto a meager 650 fish.

In the spring of 1931, Elizabeth Wood-man, the last of Joshua Woodman’sdaughters, died. Ned Woodman inheritedthe farm, and certain doubts arose overwho actually owned the old boarding-house. Woodman’s Inn, known to most asthe Old Joshua Woodman House, hadlong been associated with the Red Campcomplex. Robert Dun and EdmundDavis ordered remodeling of the roomswithin the inn over the years, and Georgeand Irving Bonbright, as owners, furthermaintained them, perpetuating the con-fusion as to rightful ownership. Duringthe later stages of Elizabeth and MaryWoodman’s lives, Ned Woodman had re-cently built a new dwelling for his familyto live in, and it shared a common wallwith that of the old Red Camp boarding-house that Davis favored. The mild own-ership dispute was irrevocably settledwith a new deed in the fall of 1931, andGeorge Bonbright paid $500 to NedWoodman to buy the boardinghouse,which decisively put the question to rest.

By the spring of 1932, Irving and GeorgeBonbright were feeling the pinch of theGreat Depression. In 1929, just monthsbefore the Wall Street crash, the Bon-bright boys were enjoying 1811 brandywith dinner, given to them by JohnPhipps, with little thought of what wasto come. Both Bonbrights’ substantial

wealth had taken a tumble in the pastthirty months. Irving’s wife, Elizabeth, towhom he was devoted, was no longervacationing at the camp, and he decidedthat the time had come to devote part ofthe summer months to travel. George,who was always grumbling about the costsat Red Camp, wrote to William Mershonin the spring advising him that RedCamp was going to be available duringJune and July for $5,000. George also letit slip that they were considering sellingthe camp and the water to anyone inter-ested. The Bonbright brothers had of-fered to sell their three shares in the Cas-capedia Company, as well as Red Campand its waters, to the Phipps brothers, buthad heard nothing from them. They alsooffered Red Camp to Joseph Schlotmanof Grosse Point, Michigan, who was agood friend of William Mershon’s. Heloved the camp and the water, but wasunderstandably cautious as the ink washardly dry on his recent purchase ofMershon’s salmon camp on the hill.George admitted that “it was depressingto even talk about these things. If we couldonly see our way through this Depression,and know where we are coming out!”25

Joseph Schlotman (1882–1951) and hisbrother-in-law, Emory Ford (1876–1942),were eager to share the enjoyment of theGrand Cascapedia with some of theirfriends from Michigan, and the newcom-ers from Detroit quickly answered Georgeand Irving Bonbright’s call for help.They leased Red Camp for late July andthe month of August 1932, and one rodfor the month of June, which theyagreed to use while staying at ThomasLamont’s Salmon Lodge. With much ofthe expenses of Red Camp now sharedby Mr. Schlotman and Mr. Ford, GeorgeBonbright could afford to fish out ofRed Camp for the June month. For thefirst two weeks he shared the camp withStanley D. McGraw, a friend from NewYork, and George’s son, James, who cameinto camp later with his mother, Isabelle,and the young lady that he was soon tomarry, Sybil Rhodes.

The fishing party was lucky, hitting anunexpected upswing in the salmon run,which resulted in several weeks of terrif-ic fishing. Although the river was againplagued by a heavy log drive and anabundance of high water, the Bonbrightsseldom wavered from the use of theirfavorite fly, the Lady Amherst. They puteighty-two fish on the bank that month,with Schlotman’s rod ringing up anoth-er twenty-eight—not including kelts.The average weight of their fish was morethan 25 pounds, and Isabelle Bonbrightcaught one of 41 pounds in Harrison Pool,which was a record fish for her. GeorgeBonbright, in his exuberance, wrote in the

logbook, “May the days to come be forall as happy as mine at Red Camp.”26 Themonths of July and August continued ata blazing pace, producing 109 salmon forthe Schlotman and Ford families andtheir guests while fishing the Red Campwaters, of which three were more than40 pounds and only fourteen were lessthan 20 pounds. The year 1932 provideda grand welcome to the river for the newcamp owners Messrs. Ford and Schlot-man, and it coincidently marked the endof the Bonbrights’ almost twenty yearsof Red Camp ownership.

Howard and John Phipps wasted verylittle time in responding to the Bon-brights offer to sell Red Camp. ThePhippses enjoyed their salmon fishing,and there were enough family memberswho shared their enthusiasm so thateight weeks on the river could be par-celed out rather easily. They didn’t needthe buildings at Red Camp itself, as theirspacious “Cottage”—more than 300 feetlong—on the hill overlooking theWoodman farm and Red Camp con-tained ten bedrooms, but they werekeenly interested in controlling the Junepools that the Bonbrights owned, manyof which were within an easy canoe rideof their new camp. Irving Bonbrightspent much of the summer negotiatingwith David T. Layman, who representedthe Phippses. A deal was finally madeand signed in November of 1932 in whichthe Bonbright brothers sold everything:Red Camp, their rights to Woodman’s,all the pools they owned and leased, andthe waters that had been folded into theCascapedia Company. It was a devastat-ing blow to George Bonbright, whodearly loved the river, but the decisionwas based on necessity, and he and hisbrother Irving signed the agreement.None of the Phippses was present.

The timing of the sale of Red Campwas brutally coincidental. The stockmarket crash had taken its toll on thepocketbooks of almost all of the existingmembers of the Cascapedia Club. Thecomplexion of the club itself, the club-house (New Derreen), and the overnightcamps upriver was about to change. Thefew remaining members of what was tobecome known as the Old Club resignedin the fall of 1932, and a new organiza-tion, the New Club, was hurriedly orga-nized before the lease on the Grand Cas-capedia would have had to been forfeitedand returned to the Québec government.A central part of that reorganizationplan was that a new member of the NewClub, who did not already own a campon the river, could take ownership of oneof the three camps that had been ownedby the Old Club, which included NewDerreen itself and the two stopover,

SPRING 2006 1 1

upriver camps—namely Middle Campand Tracadie Camp, which were built in1881. Each of the three camps was award-ed a portion of the waters that oncebelonged to the members of the OldClub. Although the pools were actuallyowned by the government and leased tothe New Club, a series of pools were ap-portioned in a sublease arrangement toeach of the newly established camps andbecame their camp waters. The Phippseshad the big, modern camp on the hill,and although Red Camp and Woodman’swere now theirs to use as they saw fit, thebuildings were cramped, far older, andinconveniently located across the riverfrom the Phipps Cottage. For the firsttime, Red Camp became a camp withoutpools to fish. With the reorganization ofthe New Club, there was no call for anextra camp that did not own water. Sadly,Red Camp was closed.

FINAL DAYS

George Bonbright couldn’t stay awayfrom the river. He returned in 1933 and1934 in the company of his son and newdaughter-in-law, Jim and Sybil Bonbright,who were stationed at the nearby Amer-ican Embassy in Ottawa. He rented theLorne Cottage and Salmon Lodge water(then owned by financier Thomas A.Lamont) while staying at Osbert Har-rison’s farmhouse, and their fishing wasgood. George’s party of four during the1934 season landed more than fiftysalmon in two weeks. They were amongthe first to use the new smokehouse thathad earlier been built at the behest ofLorne Cottage regular John O. Stubbs,which no doubt greatly increased theweight of George’s outgoing duffel. In1935, Bonbright once again used the ac-commodations at the Harrison home-stead, to which he increased his poolcount by leasing the Mershon water forthe last two weeks of June from Messrs.Ford and Schlotman. Unfortunately, thefishing all over the river was not goodthat year, partly because the river wasunseasonably low and clear. In 1936, herented the Mershon water for the firstthree weeks of June, this time staying inthe old Mershon and Paterson cottageson the hill.27 The fishing was very goodearly in the season, and Bonbright senthis old friend William Mershon two nicesalmon, one of 35 pounds and the otherjust more than 20 pounds. In fact,George’s fishing was, for him, record set-ting. The Bonbright party landed twen-ty-eight salmon, weighing an average of301⁄2 pounds, and George caught four fishfrom 40 to 41 pounds during those weeks.It was a fitting present to the aging cur-mudgeon from the river that he loved.

George Bonbright made one moretrip to the Grand Cascapedia in 1937 forthree weeks of the June fishing at LorneCottage, the place where it all began forhim. He brought Jim and Sybil Bonbright,and although the party did catch twen-ty-five salmon, the fishing was the poor-est in memory. Twenty-seven years hadpassed since he had first rented theLorne Cottage waters in 1910, which wasthe salmon trip that had started his longand fruitful association with the river.Now he spent most of his time in thewarmth of the Florida sun, and his smallbut robust frame was nearing the end ofits journey. It is not difficult to imaginethe thoughts that must have gonethrough George Bonbright’s mind as hiscanoe drifted past the beach that frontedRed Camp, now boarded up and silent.

The old boardinghouse at Woodman’sthat had served as a home for fishermenof all stripes for more than one hundredyears also stood empty. Anglers no longercame to the river looking for a place tostay, and the building was, by deed,owned by the Phipps family. Everyonewho fished on the Grand Cascapedia waseither a camp owner or guest, and theyall happily stayed at one of the sevencamps that dotted the river. There werefew riparian pools to rent, thus no needfor Ned Woodman to keep the attach-ment to his house that had once been sovibrant—and full of history—standing.He made a deal with the late WesleyHarrison in 1941 to dismantle the vener-

able building. Harrison offered NedWoodman $10 per room for the hand-planed boards in the four rooms, towhich Woodman quickly agreed. Thewood was used by Harrison to build ahouse for him and his wife, Lois, and itwas later bought by Harry Robertson,when the Harrisons moved just a fewhundred yards north. Ned Woodmantook the occasion to modernize hishouse. Both it and the farm buildingsproudly stand today on the same plot ofground. The footprint of the old farm-house that Jonathan Woodman built—with the rooms that once served assleeping quarters for Princess Louise,President Chester Arthur, Edmund W.Davis, Robert G. Dun, and many otherinteresting and notable men andwomen—became a grassy knoll. Thecamp nearer the river, Dun’s Red Camp,remained, and as the years went by, itwas often used by the owners of CampChaleur and Lorne Cottage to store boatsand other equipment. Children playedin the empty, now-disheveled roomsthat had once served as the parlor roomfor the late Robert G. Dun. The out-buildings that serviced Red Camp overthe years were systematically razed asthey outlived their usefulness. Teenagersscrawled slogans on the walls, and thefloorboards that had supported theweight of almost everyone who had everbeen on the river slowly began to buckle.

In 1982, Warren Gilker, the managerof Lorne Cottage, was asked by the

Red Camp before it was torn down, circa 1940.Photo courtesy of the Cascapedia River Museum.


Englehard family, who had bought thePhipps’s properties in 1958, to removethe last trace of the compound thatGeorge Bonbright had been so proud of:Red Camp itself. Much of the usablehardware had been stripped from theold frame already. Many of the hand-some, wide boards that had not warpedfrom exposure to the elements wereparceled out to the neighbors, and thebricks were piled in a heap near the river.The rest was buried without ceremony.

From the macadam road that passesin front of the freshly painted barn-redframe buildings with their green-metalroofs that is the Woodman Farm, onecan see the flat on which the great oldcamp rested and the large pine tree thatstill guards the spot. It is unfortunatethat the old camp does not still stand intribute to the years of great GrandCascapedia history that its walls hadknown. Old Jim Harrison, who workedfor R. G. Dun, E. W. Davis, and GeorgeBonbright at Red Camp, claimed that hesaw Mr. Dun’s ghost for many years afterhis death. It is all that is left.

"

ENDNOTES

1. The year 1917 is considered by every-one to be the best salmon season on record.There was a no catch-limit rule for the pri-vate camps, and the Bonbright boys were notshy about killing fish.

2. Mary died in 1929. Elizabeth died in1931.

3. The offer was reportedly for $5,000.4. Mr. Phipps came close to buying the

fishing rights owned by John Hall Kelly onthe Bonaventure River in late 1919. The dealwas never consummated.

5. Personal correspondence, WilliamButts Mershon to Edmund Nadeau, 28August 1919. Letter book 34. William ButtsMershon Papers, Bentley Historical Library,Ann Arbor, Michigan.

6. Personal correspondence, WilliamButts Mershon, to George D. B. Bonbright, 18September 1919. Letter book 34. William ButtsMershon Papers, Bentley Historical Library,Ann Arbor, Michigan. In the September 1919letter, Mershon writes,“Mr. Osborn [Phipps’sagent] said: ‘I supposed you know there is a

membership open in the Cascapedia Club forsale. Would you consider making some sortof trade whereby Mr. Phipps could get ashare [membership] and turn it over to youin turn for some of your water, or privilegeson your water.’”

7. Personal correspondence, John T. Spaul-ding to Willam Butts Mershon, 21 September1919. William Butts Mershon Papers, BentleyHistorical Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

8. Ibid.9. Nadeau was a partner in a company

that was federally sanctioned in 1913. It wascalled the Cascapedia Silver Black FoxCompany, and its principal business was thebreeding and propagating of foxes for the fur-trading industry; it was also licensed to pur-chase, lease, and sell real estate.

10. Personal correspondence, Arthur Barterto William Butts Mershon, 15 September 1919.William Butts Mershon Papers, BentleyHistorical Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

11. Also at this time, the Milligan familywas offered $25,000 for the same water rightsby Edwin Campbell, the son-in-law ofWilliam C. Durant, the founder and presi-dent of General Motors, who had rented theBenjamin Douglass camp the previous sum-mer. His offer came just weeks too late, as thePhipps brothers had already secured theproperty.

12. Personal correspondence, George Bon-bright to William Butts Mershon, 22 Sep-tember 1919. William Butts Mershon Papers,Bentley Historical Library, Ann Arbor,Michigan.

13. Personal correspondence, William deForest Haynes to William Butts Mershon, 2March 1920. William Butts Mershon Papers,Bentley Historical Library, Ann Arbor,Michigan.

14. Personal correspondence, WilliamButts Mershon to George D. B. Bonbright, 20February 1914. Letter book 25. William ButtsMershon Papers, Bentley Historical Library,Ann Arbor, Michigan.

15. County of Bonaventure Public Of-fices, Deed #6834, 3 August 1920, betweenGeorge D. B. Bonbright and Howard Phipps,paragraph 10. The deal was signed in March1921.

16. George LaBranche and ColonelAmbrose Monell had been experimentingwith surface floating salmon flies as early as1916 and quite possibly several years beforethat.

17. George Bonbright wrote a short notefrom Red Camp to Childs Frick, a member ofthe Cascapedia Club, on 25 June 1925 that this

writer found in one of Mr. Frick’s salmonbooks. He says, “We are glad to send you afew dry flies which I hope you will try upriver. The big yellow one and the grey [sic](“Cats Whiskers”) are the result of experi-menting a number of years and have provenawfully good, both here and on other rivers.”

18. Charles Phair, Atlantic Salmon Fishing(New York: Derrydale Press, 1937), 43. Col-onel Thompson’s suggestions to Edward vomHofe were the inspiration for the multiplyingsalmon reel that was made in the early 1920sby vom Hofe, and which was listed as the“Col. Thompson, hand made, multiplying,dry-fly salmon reel” in his yearly fishing tack-le catalog.

19. Personal correspondence, George D.B. Bonbright to William Butts Mershon, 27June 1910. William Butts Mershon Papers,Bentley Historical Library, Ann Arbor,Michigan.

20. One of the first fish hatcheries in NewYork, known as Caledonia, was built onSpring Creek in 1864 by fish culturist SethGreen. It was here that part of the first ship-ment of fertilized brown trout eggs from FredMather was accepted into North America.

21. In his privately printed book, Big andLittle Fishers, Frank Gray Griswold describesa bright yellow bucktail fly “as large as a half-dollar” called a June Bug, which floated onthe surface and was also quite successful onthe Grand Cascapedia as early as 1924.

22. Personal correspondence, George D.B. Bonbright to William Butts Mershon, 3August 1928. William Butts Mershon Papers,Bentley Historical Library, Ann Arbor,Michigan.

23. Personal correspondence, George D.B. Bonbright to Hon. J. E. Perreult, 9 July1931. William Butts Mershon Papers, BentleyHistorical Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

24. Ibid.25. Personal correspondence, George D.

B. Bonbright to William Butts Mershon, 19April 1932. William Butts Mershon Papers,Bentley Historical Library, Ann Arbor,Michigan.

26. Red Camp logbook. Entry by GeorgeD. B. Bonbright, Thursday, 16 June 1932.Cascapedia River Museum, Cascapedia-St.Jules, Québec, Canada.

27. Bonbright also put Mr. Rhodes, JimBonbright’s father-in-law, up at OsbertHarrison’s for two weeks. While there, he hada stroke and was driven back to Ottawa bygovernmental car.

SPRING 2006 13

IT IS WELL KNOWN that thehook has evolved over manythousands of years. The ear-

liest devices for catching fish,called gorges, were not hooks atall, but straight pieces of stone,bone, or wood attached to somekind of line.

It is axiomatic that gorgehooks depend on the bait beingswallowed, and the ancient artof gorge fishing continued to bepracticed well into the last cen-tury before it was almost uni-versally banned for sportfishing.1

Bone gorges grooved for lineattachment have been recovered from thePerigord district of France and belong tothe Upper Paleolithic Age, which lastedfrom 45,000 to about 10,000 years ago.

BONE GORGES

The bone gorge hooks in Figure 1—one of which is grooved for line attach-ment—appear on page 32 of William

Radcliffe’s book, Fish-ing from the EarliestTimes; (a) and (b) werefound at La Made-laine in France and(c) and (d) at SantaCruz in California.2

Wooden gorges with

points hardened by burninghave probably been used forthousands of years but becausethey decompose, they leave notrace. Juniper is apparently thebest wood and is still usedtoday by Lapp fishermen forgorge fishing.

An image of a pike—themost likely species of fish to betargeted by those who fishedwith baited gorges—found in acave painting at Pech Merle inFrance (Figure 2, top) was exe-cuted 20,000 years ago. A 17,000-year-old bone engraving of a

pike (Figure 2, middle) was found not farfrom there in the Grotte de Gourdon. A14,000-year-old image of a pike engravedon a bear’s tooth was found at Duruthy,also in France (Figure 2, bottom).

The simple mechanics of the bonegorge make it so effective: when a double-tapered gorge with a line attached to itsmiddle is poked down the gullet of a baitor tied to it fore and aft and is then swal-lowed by a pike, it presents no problem tothe pike until the fish attempts to move

away. As soon as the pike feels therestriction of the angler’s line, itstruggles until the pointed ends ofthe gorge penetrate the sides of itsgullet or stomach and becomejammed. This happens because theline, tied at the fulcrum of thegorge, tends to turn the gorge atright angles to the direction of pull.

Ancient Hooksby Frederick Buller

Figure 1. Bone gorges. From William Radcliffe,Fishing from the Earliest Times, 2nd ed. (London:

John Murray, 1926), 32. Previously reproduced in Frederick Buller’s Pike and the Pike Angler

(London: Stanley Paul, 1981).

Figure 2. Top: A drawing of the Pech Merle pike taken fromthe original painting. Middle: The Cougnac engraving (onbone), unmistakably the figure of a pike, was found in the

Grotte de Gourdon. Bottom: The Duruthy pike, engraved ona bear’s tooth. Previously reproduced in Frederick Buller’sPike and the Pike Angler (London: Stanley Paul, 1981).

a. b. c. d.


The bone fishhook (Figure 3, top)found at Risga—which is by Loch Sunartin Argyllshire, Scotland, a place knownto have been settled by Mesolithic orMiddle Stone Age people—is probablyBritain’s oldest hook. This fishhook,along with the evidence of other finds,suggests that they hunted seals, gatheredseafood, and fished for a living. From therelative crudeness of the hook, it seemslikely that it was used as a gorge hook forsea fish or pike.

It is interesting to note that H. Godwinfound pike remains with harpoon heads(Figure 3, bottom) on a peat site nearNorth Atwick in Yorkshire,3 proving thatpike were hunted, or fished for, in Britainin Mesolithic times—about 4,000 yearsago. The fact that pike were hunted atthis time indicates that the species musthave survived the last ice age and werenot, as one writer suspected, reintro-duced by man after a wipeout.

One fascinating aspect of looking atvarious research papers is that when youhave a specialized interest such as angling,it is possible to find exciting data that theoriginal author may not have regardedwith quite the same focus. Research in theRhine delta at Molenaarsgraaf in Hol-land is a case in point.4 On a Neolithic toBronze Age site of the transition period1800 to 1500 B.C. (about 3,700 years ago), a

burial took place.The skeletal remainsof a boy of aboutfifteen years oldfound in a grave re-vealed a 2.16-cm–long bone from apike’s anal fin. Fromits position on thethroat side of thecervical vertebrae, itis assumed that thebone was stuck inthe boy’s throat andcaused death. An-

other grave, next to the boy’s, containedthe remains of a man judged to be aboutthirty years old. His grave goods includ-ed three bone fishhooks.

The bone hooks found inthe second grave of these Cop-per Age Beaker people were4.3, 3.1, and 2.7 cm long andwere without barbs or eyes, butone of the hooks had notchesor grooves to assist line attach-ment (the other two were pre-sumably unfinished). Thedrawing in Figure 4 representsthe hooks life size, showingthat almost certainly they wereused for pike fishing becausethey were too big and clumsyto be used to catch other fresh-water species (apart from welscatfish or huchen, and thesewere unlikely to be present).The interesting inference as faras European hunters are con-cerned is that pike remainedthe prime target for the emerg-ing Bronze Age peoples as theyhad been for the Neolithicpeoples and the Stone Agepeoples before them. I suggest,however, that although thebone and wooden hooks rep-resent an advance on the prim-

itive gorges already dis-cussed, they were never-theless still gorge hooks;proper hooks were notpractical until metalswere available for theirmanufacture.5

FROM GORGETO HOOK

Well-read anglers haveseen images of primitivefishhooks said to havebeen used in differentparts of the world bypeoples of earlier civi-lizations. In many in-stances, I used to find it

hard to believe that fish could be caughton these strange concoctions (Figure 5),unless the baited hook was swallowed orgorged, or—to use the expressionfavored by the old angling writers—pouched. However, since reading HilaryStewart’s book, Indian Fishing: EarlyMethods on the Northwest Coast, and see-ing her explanatory diagrams, I have noproblem believing.6

Although the sequence of transitionsdating from the Upper Paleolithic Age(which lasted until about 8000 B.C.)brought about advances in the technolo-gy of hook making, these advances werenot uniform in all areas of habitation.The Upper Paleolithic gave way to theNeolithic or later Stone Age, which last-

Figure 3. Top: Bonefish hook. Bottom: Bone harpoon.Previously reproduced in Frederick Buller’s Pike and the Pike

Angler (London: Stanley Paul, 1981).

Figure 4. Bone hooks found in a grave of CopperAge Beaker people. From Louwe Kooijmans,“The Rhine-Meuse Delta, 1974,” Analecta

Praehistorica 7. Courtesy of LouweKooijams & Leiden University.

Figure 5. Pencil drawing (c. 1918) of a hook exhibit-ed in the British Museum. A penciled note reads:“British Museum wooden fish hook with a long

barb of a turquoise shell? Shaped like a claw of somelarge bird,” and there is a reference to Louisade

Archip S[outh] E[ast] New Guinea. Having recentlydiscovered how the halibut hook works (see note 6),

I now realize that the above hook—and indeed awhole family of hooks (I have drawings of five

other examples)—should be described as a mouthgorge. They are meant to be baited and are pri-

marily for catching flat fish on the bottom. On dis-covery by a fish, the only way the bait can be fully

mouthed is by sucking in the barbed end first. In itsattempt to swallow the bait, one side of the fish’s

mouth slides down the shank and gets jammed inthe narrowing bend of the hook. The struggle

ensures that the barb penetrates one side of thefish’s mouth. Courtesy of the British Museum.

SPRING 2006 15

ed until about 5000 B.C., followed by theCopper Age, which gave way to theBronze Age about 2600 B.C. JacquettaHawkes, in The Atlas of Early Man,commented on the spectacular progressmade by the Mesopotamians and theEgyptians after 3000 B.C. in workingbronze, once they discovered the blend often percent tin to ninety percent copper.7

The Bronze Age gradually overflowed in-to the Iron Age after the Hittites perfect-ed the smelting process about 1500 B.C.Knowledge of the process had spread tothe near east and the eastern Mediterran-ean by 1000 B.C. and eventually reachedwestern Europe by about 600 B.C.

When Egyptian technology—andpossibly that of other river-based soci-eties in the valleys of the Euphrates andTigris rivers—is investigated, it is plainto see that their technology was clearlyahead of peoples in other countries.During the relatively short Copper Age,which preceded the Bronze Age, theEgyptians designed and made a hookthat is breathtakingly modern.

COPPER HOOKS

In February 2004, I visited theAshmolean Museum in Oxford and wasintrigued by exhibit No. 1932.905 in theEgyptian Gallery: a semi-eyed, copper8

fishhook just like a modern hook to lookat, and yet between 5,200 and 5,500 yearsold! The hook (Figure 6) came from acircular or oval grave located at Matmarin Middle Egypt, where a river-basedsociety lived.

I wrote to Dr. Helen Whitehouse ofthe Department of Antiquities for fur-ther information about the hook andreceived the following reply.

The fish-hook in which you are inter-ested is 1932.905, made of copper rod

with a square cross-section (forged?);from grave 5100 in the cemetery atMatmar in Middle Egypt, and dates tothe prehistoric Naqada 11 period (roughly3500 to 3200 B.C. on current chronolo-gy). It was published by the excavatorGuy Brunton in Matmar (London,1948), p. 16 and pl. xvi.40 but he merelycommented (p. 20) that the copperfishooks found in the cemetery were “ofthe usual type . . . and of the almostunique form with two barbs . . .”9

The photograph of this ancient, eyedcopper fishhook dem-onstrates the similarityin design to a modernhook despite a gap of5,000 years. Because an-other predynastic hook,an anchor-shaped dou-ble hook (No. 1895.984from grave 855, Ballas)now in the Cairo Mu-seum, has two barbs, itis likely that this hookwas originally barbed.Doubtless the eye ringwas also complete whenthe hook was new.

A second importanthook in the museum’scollection (Figure 7) is abronze fishhook (No.1927.897) from Hallstatt

in Austria, made during the EuropeanIron Age (730 to 475 B.C.). On display inthe John Evans Gallery in the HallstattCemetery section, it was discovered in1927 during an excavation conducted byGeorge Ramsauer. If you take a closelook at this 2,700-year-old hook, you willnotice that it is utterly modern—somodern, in fact, that it could be picturedin a tackle catalog and described as aLimerick hook (witness the image of amodern Limerick hook on the right-hand side of Figure 7). Interestingly, al-though supplies of copper and tin formaking bronze were scarce for theMesopotamians and Egyptians, at a laterperiod, Austrian mines provided a plenti-ful supply.

BRONZE HOOKS

In 1995, Professor Peter O’Behan ofGlasgow University, knowing of my in-terest in ancient hooks, contacted mewith the news that an antique dealer inLondon, with the trade name of AncientArt,10 possessed a collection of circa first-century, bronze, spade-end fishhooks. Imet the proprietor, Christopher Martin,and purchased a quantity of the hooks,which had been found in locations closeto lakeshore sites in Palestine and trans-Jordan and were among other objectsassociated with Roman occupation.

Figure 6. Semi-eyed copper fishhook from a grave inMatmar, Middle Egypt. Exhibit No. 1932.905, Egyptian

Gallery, Ashmolean Museum. Photo courtesy ofAshmolean Museum, Oxford.

Figure 7. A hook designed to perfection. TheHalstatt hook was photographed for me

courtesy of the Ashmolean Museum, andthe important information about it came

from Dr. Helen Whitehouse of theDepartment of Antiquities. The hook

on the right, for comparison, is a mod-ern Limerick hook. Photo courtesy of

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.


Nowadays, the hooks would be de-scribed as round-bend spade-end hooks(Figure 8). The finding of bronze blanks(with the spade-ends already forged flat)ready for the next process of pointingand cutting the barb suggests that thesites were hook factories. The smallesthook (size 8 Redditch scale) that I wasable to purchase from Martin was themost delicate of the range and wouldhave been fine enough to catch trout. Sadto say, I stupidly tried to clean off someof the verdigris, which resulted in abreakage.

Although the cache of bronze fish-hooks was dated circa first century A.D.,that does not mean that these hooks hadonly just become available. The finding

of a bronze spade-end hook (Figure 9) inthe River Thames at Grays, Essex, withan estimated age of 2,500 years, mayindicate that trade in hooks was wide-spread at a much earlier date, possiblyeven as early as 2000 B.C.

In Roman Britain, with much higherwater tables than modern times and near

zero pollution, fishwere plentiful andwould have formedan important partof the diet. Figure 10illustrates the typeof barbed hook usedby the Romans dur-ing the latter part oftheir occupation ofBritain. It was foundnear Verulamium,close to the moderncity of St. Albans inHertfordshire. TheRivers Verr and Colnewould have sup-ported, via the RiverThames, considerableruns of salmon in theearly fifth century

A.D., when this bronze hook was made.An image of a fourth-century angler fish-ing for salmon, engraved on a Romano-British fragmented bronze plate, wasfound at Lydney Park in Worcestershire.11

HOOKED LURES FROM THEPACIFIC ISLANDS

It is difficult to study the developmentof the hook in different parts of the worldin a precise chronological sequence, andit must not be assumed that hooks werealways used in conjunction with bait. Forexample, the oceanic peoples of the Paci-fic Islands are expert fishermen and catchfish on mother-of-pearl lures, which theymake from shells, with hooks attached to

them. These sink-and-draw lures, or pirks aswe would call themtoday, may have beenused by the islandersfor many hundreds ofyears (Figure 11).

In 1994, I purchaseditem 23 from a rum-mage sale at the Fly-fishers’ Club in Lon-don, a box that con-tained, among otherthings, two fishhooks,once part of the col-lection of Tom Kenny,a popular member ofthe club. The baits inthe box came fromthe Solomon Islands

and were probably made during the latenineteenth century. A label on the lidtells us that the lures are “large forBonito,” and one hook appears to havebeen made from turtle shell. In his com-prehensive study, A History of the FishHook,12 Hans Jorgen Hurum tells us thatthe shanks of Pacific Island bonito lures

were traditionally made of whale bone,with mother-of-pearl edges, and the hookswere made from tortoise shells.

According to H. J. Alfred in The Mo-dern Angler, the Polynesians of Tahiti,New Zealand, and the Fijian Islands madehooks and lures out of pearl-bearingshells, Auricula margarita.13 Alfred illus-

Figure 9. The oldest British metal hook, a spade-end foundin the River Thames at Grays, Essex, now on view at

Colchester Museum. Estimated age: 2,500 years.Photo courtesy of the Verulamium Museum.

Figure 10. This spade-end Romano-British bronze hook was illustrated in

a monograph (I), VerulamiumExcavations III (Oxford: Oxford

University, 1984).

Figure 11. This particular lure made fromshell with a fire-hardened wooden hook is

similar in design to the Solomon Islandlure made from shell with a bone hook (seeFigure 12). From H. J. Alfred, The Modern

Angler (London: Upcott Gill, 1898), 8.

Figure 8. Two of my bronze spade-end hooks together with ablank for making a larger hook (twice actual size). Two thou-

sand years ago, hooks such as these and the technology for mak-ing them (probably originating in Egypt) would have beenspread throughout the eastern Mediterranean by merchants

using well-established trade routes.

Frederick Buller

SPRING 2006 17

trates an example found in use after thefirst landing on the Fijian Islands about1800. This particular lure (Figure 11)made from shell with a fire-hardenedwooden hook is similar in design to theSolomon Island lure made from shellwith a bone hook (Figure 12). The settle-ment of the Polynesias over the Pacificarea started more than 3,000 years ago,so we can only guesswhen the islanders madetheir earliest practicalfishhooks.

The very existenceof a fishhook impliesthe existence of a line,but only in rare in-stances have we know-ledge about the natureand the manufacture ofthese lines. One splen-did exception is theline that was describedby Johann ReinholdForster, naturalist onCaptain Cook’s secondvoyage of the Pacific inhis ship, HMS Reso-lution. In his book,Observations Made dur-ing a Voyage Around the

World, he notes that in Tahiti “their fish-ing lines were made from the bark of theErowa—a kind of nettle, which grows inthe mountains—and were described as‘the best fishing lines in the world,’ bettereven than our own strongest silk lines.”14

They also used the fibers of the coconutfor making threads with which they fas-tened together parts of the canoes, and

presumably for attaching componentparts of their hooks.

AMERICAN HOOKS

According to L. C. R. Cameron in Rod,Pole & Perch, some of the barbless hooksthat were recovered from mining opera-tions on the gravels of the Saija River inColombia were brought to England in1925 (Figure 13).15 A number of these weresubmitted to Professor Murphy of theSmithsonian Institution in New York,who fixed their probable date at 500 B.C.The hooks were found in an area thathad been occupied by Chibcha Indianswhen the Spaniards invaded what is nowColombia in 1536. This tribe skillfullyworked gold and silver in jewelry andornaments, so it is no surprise that ten ofthe hooks with tapered shanks, sizes 3⁄8inch to 11⁄2 inch, and four-eyed hooks,ranging from 3⁄4 inch to 11⁄8 inch, weremade of gold. Two-eyed hooks, sizes 3⁄4inch and 1 inch, were made of an alloy ofgold and copper, determined by assay.These had points of such needlelike sharp-ness that they were much superior. It islikely that the hooks made from an alloysuperseded the soft, pure gold hooks.

North America comes into the pic-ture, as I discovered when I received ascientific paper from John Betts, withwhom I frequently correspond. Writtenby Dale Croes and published in Antiquity,the paper describes fishhooks recoveredfrom archaeological wet-site digs.16

Those in the northwestern coastal re-gions of British Columbia and Wash-ington have revealed large quantities17 ofotherwise perishable wooden fishhooks,some of which are thousands of yearsold. There are three basic types: a com-posite three-piece V-shaped hook con-sisting of two wooden shanks and a bone

barb, a steam-bent V-shaped wooden hookwith a knobbed end forleader attachment, andvarious versions of theclassic halibut hookdesigned to have a lead-er attachment midwayround the bend of thehook and a reversed bonepoint lashed to the endfurthest from that attach-ment.

The first and last areessentially gorges, butthe second type couldbe used as a modernhook is used. Confirma-tion comes from a suc-cessful experiment tocatch Pacific cod on areplicated hook. Some

Figure 13. Gold and gold/copper barbless hooks brought to England byAlexander Gair Davidson of Buenoaventura in the Republic of Colombia.

These American Indian barbless hooks (2,500 years old) were probably used to catch barbudo, majar, and savalo. From L. C. R. Cameron, Rod,

Pole & Perch (London: Martin Hopkinson, 1928), 154.

Figure 12. Notice that the Solomon Island lure (actual size) has seven colored beadsforming an articulated attractor or “rattle” on the back of the lure. The sink-and-draw

motion induced by the angler ensures that the rattle flips and dips attractively. Thehook is attached to the base of the lure with tight binding twine, and the main lineis attached to the purposefully grooved knob at the top of the lure. D. C. Starzcka of

the British Museum’s Department of Ethnology, having studied a photograph ofthese hooks, wrote, “The hooks are indeed from the Solomon Islands [Melanesia],the small pearl-shell one probably from Malaita or Ulawa, the bonito one from

the Central Solomons or New Guinea . . .” (D. C. Starzcka, letter, 26 October 2004).The pearl shell was often jigged from purpose-built platforms.

Frederick Buller


of these bent wooden hooks come fromwet sites that are from 1,000 to 3,000years old (Figure 14).

I am conscious that my research hasnot included any notes on Chinesehooks, and I am aware that this may be abig mistake. Finally, I bring to yournotice what William Radcliffe had to sayabout hooks: “Prehistoric man, oftenwith a limited local supply, was driven toadopt and adapt any material whichcould be forced into his purpose of ahook.”18 He continued, “The most inter-esting natural fish hook known to me(found In Goodenough Island, NewGuinea) is the thick upper Joint of thehind leg of an insect”19 (Figure 15). Frommy inquiries to date, I have concludedthat chronologies revealing progress inhook making in different civilizationsare for all intents and purposes not com-parable; indeed, the evolution of thehook on a worldwide basis is a very com-plex and difficult study that has yet to befully addressed.

"

ENDNOTES

1. Richard Walker’s grandfather was apractitioner of the art, as is evidenced by theadvice he gave his ten-year-old grandsonwhen the latter had just had his bait taken bya pike: “Now my lad, before you strike, give itten minutes by your watch.” (Americans maynot be aware that Richard Walker, who diedin 1985, is Britain’s second-most-famousangling author.)

2. William Radcliffe, Fishing from theEarliest Times, 2nd ed. (London: John Murray,1926), 32.

3. H. Godwin, “British Maglemose Har-poon Sites,” Antiquary (1933, vol. 7), 36–38.

4. Louwe Kooijmans, “The Rhine-MeuseDelta, 1974,” Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 7,published by Leiden University. Four studieson the Prehistoric occupation and Holocenegeology of the Rhine-Meuse delta.

5. Soon after the discovery of the bonehooks, an attempt was made to catch perch

and pike on one of them, but it ended in fail-ure. This was due to using modern methods;the hook should have been hidden inside adeadbait and used as a gorge hook.

6. I draw the reader’s attention to HilaryStewart’s magnificent tome, Indian Fishing:Early Methods on the Northwest Coast(Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas McIntyre; andSeattle: University of Washington Press,1982). This book illustrates how a halibuttakes a baited halibut hook without gorging itand in so doing justifies its curious but prac-tical design.

7. Jacquetta Hawkes, The Atlas of EarlyMan (London: Dorling Kindersley, 1976), 98.

8. In the entry for copper, the OxfordEnglish Dictionary notes: “L. Cyprium æs or‘Metal of Cyprus,’ so named from its mostnoted ancient source.” Doubtless, it wouldhave been exported via equally ancient traderoutes in the eastern Mediterranean.

9. Dr. Helen Whitehouse, Departmentof Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford,personal correspondence to author, 5 April2004.

10. Ancient Art (antique dealer), 85 TheVale, Southgate, London N14 6AT.

11. See Frederick Buller, “A Fourth-Century European Illustration of a SalmonAngler,” The American Fly Fisher (spring 1998,vol. 24, no. 2), 6–12.

12. Hans Jorgen Hurum, A History of theFish Hook (London: A & C Black, 1977).

13. H. J. Alfred, The Modern Angler(London: Upcott Gill, 1898), 8.

14. Johann Reinhold Forster, Obser-vations Made During a Voyage Around theWorld (London: G. Robinson, 1778), 463.

15. L. C. R. Cameron, Rod, Pole & Perch(London: Martin Hopkinson, 1928), 154.

16. Dale Croes, “Northwest Coast ofNorth America Wet-Site Basketry andWooden Fishhooks,” Antiquity (1997, vol. 71,no. 273), 594–615.

17. More than 1,300 have been found.18. Radcliffe, Fishing from the Earliest

Times, 34.19. Ibid.

Figure 14. A Hoko, self-barbed, bent, wooden fishhook from the Pacific Northwest.(During extended burial, the wood had probably sprung back so as to open up the gape.)

Figure 15. This hook is made fromthe spur of the leg joint of a maleinsect of the species Eurycanthalatro and is about 1 5⁄8 inch long.From William Radcliffe, Fishingfrom the Earliest Times, 2nd ed.(London: John Murray, 1926), 34.

SPRING 2006 19

MUCH OF THE HISTO-RY of fly fishing, atleast as we know

that history, has survived inthe books. For much of whatwe want to know about thesport before, say, 1800, weare unfortunately depen-dent on those few voices thatsurvive between the coversof this or that “classic” vol-ume. I say “unfortunately”not because those books arepoor evidence in themselves(they are often wonderfulsources of information), butbecause there is so muchmore we should know buthave little way of finding out.Fly fishing’s other artifacts,such as rods, reels, and flies,are notoriously fragile andshort-lived, and rarely sur-vive even a century after theyare produced. We thus placean unfair burden on thebooks to tell us the full storyof the sport.

What makes this situa-tion even more difficult, in-deed exasperating, is that those histori-cal texts are out of reach. So, though it isfairly easy for someone with access toeither a good university library or theInternet to search and read the scientificliterature on trout and other fly-caughtfish, it remains difficult to get a look atmany if not most of the older fishingbooks.

OBSTACLES TO ANANGLING EDUCATION

I believe that there is reason to hopethat this will cease to be a problem be-fore many more years pass because therare fishing books have for far too longbeen the exclusive province of thosepeople who happened to live near one ofthe few good public fishing libraries orwho happened to have spectacular quan-tities of money to buy their own. Most ofthe time, I have not been in the former

category, and I am sure I will never be inthe latter.

For those of us who have to find ourway to the older fishing books in anycheap way we can, the interlibrary loanservice at our neighborhood library isoften a big help. But in the case of thetruly rare old books, libraries are under-standably reluctant or unwilling to shipsuch treasures off to other libraries.

It is the good fortune of anglers thatover the years a good many pre-1900fishing books have been reprinted by thisor that publisher. As well, some of thebest-known of these older books werefrequently republished in revised or atleast later (and therefore usually cheaper)editions. By these means, and perhaps bysacrificing a few luxuries, it is possiblefor the determined reader to cobble to-gether a fairly respectable library, if youhave patience and time, and vigilantlykeep a lookout in the used bookstoresand antiquarian angling book catalogs.

It is especially possible ifyou, like me, are willing tosettle for a decent photocopyof a book. I always prefer theheft, textures, and otherwonderful physical charac-teristics of a real book, butI’m primarily interested inthe words rather than in theactual object of the book, soI’ll settle for almost any-thing.

It’s still surprisingly hardto get hold of a great manytitles, however, and too of-ten the publishers of thoseever-welcome reprints ofotherwise unobtainable booksconfuse matters even as theytry to help.

THE REPRINTINGDILEMMA

Not that publishing neweditions of historic books isan easy thing, even if youcan make it work financially.For one example, consider

the problem of some important bookthat in the course of an author’s life wasrevised and republished several times.This happened quite often in earlier gen-erations of fishing writers. A writerwould create his book, and then, ratherthan crank out a sequel, he would devotehis life to enlarging and otherwise per-fecting that original work through latereditions.

This presents the publisher who isconsidering a reprint of an old bookwith an interesting dilemma. It is admit-tedly not simple to decide which editionof some rare old classic to reprint:should it be the initial edition or a lateredition? On the side of the initial editionis the historian’s desire to see the author’sprimary contributions as first intro-duced to the angling readership. On theside of some later edition is the equallycompelling need to know how theauthor’s opinions were altered andenriched by additional experience over

N O T E S A N D C O M M E N T

Fishing Books for the Masses:An Achievable Project

by Paul Schullery

From Izaak Walton, The Complete Angler(Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1889), 361.


the course of many years, or, in somecases, over several decades.

For example, by far the most often-reprinted edition of Walton’s The CompleatAngler is not the first, but the one usual-ly referred to as the fifth, that being thefinal one published during Walton’slong, eventful life. If we want to knowhow Walton viewed the state of the sportin the year he first published, we natural-ly should prefer the original edition(1653). By being the first offering of hisgreat work, it also has a special spark oforiginality as the freshest exercise of itsauthor’s brilliant vision.

But if it’s the author’s expertise andhis text’s literary “completeness” we’reafter, we should arguably prefer the fifthedition (1676), that being the final edi-tion published during Walton’s life.Indeed, we might prefer it not onlybecause it is the edition that contains thefullest, most considered rendition ofWalton’s own insights and instructions,but also because it is the first to containCharles Cotton’s wonderful essay on flyfishing (itself a great milestone in fly-fishing writing).

If it’s a more complete accounting ofthe author’s life, the continued develop-ment of the sport after his time, and ahost of related matters and details thatinterest us most, then we probably wouldbe happiest with one of the superb edi-tions published in later centuries. Anedition that I lately enjoy for reading andgeneral browsing was published in 1897(I have a recent paperback reprint of thatedition). I am not happy that its editorhas modernized Walton’s language, butthis edition has other important attrac-tions for me. Besides containing hun-dreds of beautiful drawings of the fishingcountry it describes, it includes appen-dices with much additional informationon everything to do with Walton. I onlyhave a couple Waltons, so I’m glad this isone of them.

Choosing which edition of a givenbook, especially an historically signifi-cant book, to read or acquire is not asimple matter. In the best of all worlds,we would have all the important editionsat hand, and when some topic vexed us,we would have the luxury to pursue itthrough the convolutions of the author’s

life and experience. In thisone small realm—the find-ing and reading of fishingbooks—I believe that thebest of all worlds is not veryfar in the future.

A DEFIANT ASIDE

Allow me to pause hereand acknowledge the raisedeyebrows in the crowd. Justso you don’t think I’ve lostit completely, I will admitthat the average angler hasno interest in this sort ofstudy. The modern com-merce of fly fishing trainsits enthusiasts to spend theirtime and especially theirmoney in other ways. Trac-ing the sport’s heritage, the-oretical underpinnings, anddeeper meanings is of nointerest to those people.Some of them would actu-ally be opposed to it. I men-tion this so you know that Irealize that I’m speaking onbehalf of a tiny minority ofangling readers, and thatthe rest of the sport’s read-ers—and all the nonread-ers, I suppose—may regardus as hopeless geeks for fol-lowing what they see asobscure intellectual trailsinto such meaningless littlecorners of history. But that

is, frankly, their problem. I can’t helpthem if they don’t get it. Those of us whowant to understand how fishing got towhere it is today consider these ques-tions worth the trouble of answering,and we enjoy the trail for its own sake.And if the trail was a little easier, I thinkmore of those others would come alongwith us.

THE REPRINT LAMENT

But the trail is not easy. Even at thebest libraries, it is often not possible totrace the development of an importantauthor’s thinking through the severaleditions of his book that may haveappeared over the course of his lifetime.A good university or public library col-lection may have a representative sampleof an author’s work, but only one of theeditions. We can only hope that whatev-er edition we do luck into is goodenough for our purposes.

As I say, some of the reprint publish-ers seem not to care about any of this. Iam shocked at the number of reprintpublishers who don’t even feel a need toprovide the briefest of forewords, placingthe book in its proper historical or theo-retical context. But I would be grateful ifthat was the biggest problem. The pub-lishers of a few recent reprints I havebought erase even the basic facts of theoriginal publication from their reprints.Clearly, such publishers don’t want thebuyer to know the real age or intellectu-al provenance of the book.

I’m sure many of us have mixed feel-ings about whether we prefer our re-prints to be, on the one hand, typesetanew, with new illustrations and othernew supporting text, or, on the otherhand, facsimiles of the original book. It’salways fun to read a splendidly designedand illustrated book, but there is also alot to be said for seeing an author’swords in the same type and design as theauthor saw them. Naturally, the quickest,cheapest way to reproduce an old book isby facsimile reprint; it involves no newtype except perhaps for the title page andsome new front matter. Since the 1700s,all of the greatest editions of Walton havebeen retypeset. They are distinguishedby their richness of illustration and com-mentary, and I am grateful for them. ButI’ve always wanted to own a facsimile ofWalton’s first edition, just for the closersense it would give me of what it wouldhave been like to sit in a tavern or along astream 350 years ago and read the realthing when it first came out. Unfor-tunately, the facsimile option, at least asit is exercised by some reprinters, has ledto some serious discourtesies to unwarybook buyers.

From Izaak Walton, The Complete Angler(New York: Ward, Lock & Co., 1891), xi.

SPRING 2006 21

A recent reprint edition of AlfredRonalds’s The Flyfisher’s Entomology,originally published in 1836, is amongthe worst of these. It actually seems thatthe publisher hoped to so thoroughlyeliminate any evidence of the book’s trueage and meaning in fishing literaturethat naive readers, perhaps new to flyfishing, would assume that this was anewly published book. Not only is thisunkind to those readers, it is annoying tothose of us who know what the bookreally is because it makes it all the moredifficult for us to determine just whichedition they reprinted.

THE ANSWER

I mentioned earlier that I have hopesthat we may soon leave this confusionbehind and solve the problem. My dreamis that one of the institutions with a spe-cial interest in this subject (I think first ofthe Salmonid Library at Montana StateUniversity and the library of theAmerican Museum of Fly Fishing) willlaunch a project to digitally scan everyolder book in their considerable collec-tions and to seek out others in private orpublic collections to scan as well. Allbooks published before the early 1900sare in the public domain and are thuslegally free for such treatment and elec-tronic redistribution. A consortium ofthe foremost public angling book collec-tions in this country—the ones men-tioned already, plus Harvard, Yale, andPrinceton, to add a few more—could getthis job done in splendid fashion.

To read some of fly fishing’s mostboosterish writers, one would have theimpression that there are countless olderfishing books, and that such a scanningproject is dauntingly huge. In fact, theyare not countless; thanks to some dedi-cated bibliographers, we actually have afairly good count, especially of the olderbooks. There are many, and if one in-cludes all the editions of all the bookspublished before, say, 1900, there are cer-tainly thousands. But of the books before1800—those being the hardest to comeby—there are far fewer. And it wouldseem sensible to start at the known be-ginning and get those oldest, rarestbooks into public view first.

In any case, this is a tiny project com-pared with many other web-book pro-jects of far broader scope already underway. And it has the added advantage ofbeing focused on such a narrow field ofinterest that a concerted effort over aperiod of several years could actually fin-ish it, at least to the point to which onlyroutine upkeep and occasional additionswould be necessary.

Once the bulk of the work is done andthe scans are available on the web, a newliterary age will dawn in the world ofangling, and the democratization ofangling literature will be complete.

There have been a number of veryimpressive and comprehensive such pro-jects under way in the greater field ofworld literature. By going to several web-sites, it is now possible to find and readmany thousands of older books, on aremarkable array of subjects, on the web.

As well, e-publishing has itself be-come big business in the world ofnewly written books. There are count-less examples to learn from, and noend of readily available technology.

Fly fishing’s commentators arealways puffing up and braggingabout how wonderful the sport’s lit-erature is, but it has always been thesad truth that most fly fishers can’tget a look at most of that literature.We are now in a position to bypassthe traditional publishing industry,which—in fairness, it must besaid—is only able to help us to apoint. The institution that takes thelead in creating an exhaustive weblibrary of fishing literature (at leastthat portion of it that is now in thepublic domain, which certainly in-cludes everything published before1900) will earn the lasting gratitudeof many of us and will occupy animportant leadership role in thesport’s intellectual community.

And that’s only a start. Once thebooks are thus “republished,” themany important periodicals should

immediately follow, along with a varietyof other materials, including early tacklecatalogs, brochures, and other fascinatingephemera that have been generated by flyfishing’s commerce and conversation.

It’s a very exciting prospect. It may putthose of us who write about the litera-ture, and invoke it so frequently, out of ajob, but just think how fine it will be forreaders, whether they have a fortune ornot, to be able to get their fishing advicedirectly from so many of their ancestors.

Last, let me inject a note of realismfrom my own experience. When I wasexecutive director of the American Mu-seum of Fly Fishing, I well remember allthe times a bright, well-meaning personwould call me up and bestow upon mesome grand brainstorm he or she’d hadfor what I should be working on insteadof all the urgent things I already didn’thave enough time to get done. So pleaseunderstand that I am not suggesting thatthe caretakers of our great angling li-braries stop doing all the importantthings they’re doing and do this. I amonly suggesting that all of us interestedin the future of angling literature raiseour sights a bit and add a global publicangling library to our wish lists. Onceenough of us believe in it and realizewhat a gift it would be to ourselves andto anglers everywhere, we’ll find a way tomake it happen.

"

An illustration depicting a fish’s line of sight.From Alfred Ronalds, The Fly Fisher’s Entomology (London: Longman,

Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1836), facing page 8.


ERNIE SCHWIEBERT was a remarkable human being.I met him shortly after moving to New York in 1962,

fished with him on the Paradise Branch of the Brod-heads, and joined him in forming the Henryville ConservationClub shortly thereafter. In the ensuing years, he introduced meto the trout of Argentina and the Atlantic salmon of Iceland. Ina friendship spanning more than forty years, I learned a greatdeal about angling for trout and salmon, mostly by observing amaster of the sport. I learned even more about the man.

Ernie excelled at anything he set his mind to. He is perhapsbest known for his writings over more than half a century, start-ing with Matching the Hatch in 1955. I think the work that pro-vides the best insight into the author is Remembrances of RiversPast. In this, one recognizes the sensitivity, compassion, poetry,and romance that were all part of him. I often marveled howone who possessed a mind grounded in the disciplines of sciencecould embrace these qualities. But there were more surprises.

Ernie was recognized for his knowledge of salmonids, thetactics and tackle required in their pursuit. Seldom was heextolled for his casting ability, but after more than seventyyears on the water, a bit of this time with acknowledged cast-ing masters, I have never seen his peer on a salmon river ortrout stream. His clean, elegant stroke delivered the fly on tar-get time after time. His mastery of the slack-line cast allowedthe smallest fly to dance as if free floating in the most confus-ing currents. He was a fine athlete and a magnificent caster.

Ernie was an artist, as evidenced by his paintings in Salmonof the World and by his sketches accompanying his books andarticles.

He amazed all who knew him with his photographic mem-ory. He could fish a stretch of water once and days later pro-duce a scale drawing showing every holding lie, every rock andriffle, every feature important to the angler. He could take acareful look at an insect and later produce a detailed drawingof it. He was a prodigious reader, whose memory allowed himto store and recall a surprising volume of information.Without this capability, I wonder if he could have produced hismagnum opus, the two-volume Trout.

With a degree in architecture from Ohio State and a PhDfrom Princeton, Ernie was a member of a large New York firm.Two of the projects he worked on were the Dallas–Fort Worthairport and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Amore personal testimony to his architectural skill is his charm-ing home in Princeton, New Jersey. Fortunately for the fly-fish-ing community, he left his firm in 1977 to pursue his interest inangling-related research, travel, and writing.

Ernest was eloquent with both the written and spoken word.He was a fine speaker, widely sought after by angling groups.Often, these presentations were augmented by his color slidesof fishing subjects and faraway places. Yes, he was a talentedphotographer as well.

Some years ago, he visited at my home on the upperBeaverkill. One evening we fished a long pool together, Ernie atthe head while I worked the tail shallows. As the light faded,trout started the rhythmic sipping that I knew was triggered bya spinner fall. Every spinner pattern I threw was ignored. Indesperation, I took out my insect net and captured a couple ofthe naturals which looked unlike anything I had in my fly box.

Ernest G. Schwiebert1931–2005

by Gardner Grant

Keith Fulsher

Gardner Grant and Ernie Schwiebert studyingaquatic fly life at the Potatuck Club on 11 May 2005.

SPRING 2006 23

I walked up the bank and told Ernie of my frustration. Heasked: “What does it look like?” Before I could reply, he con-tinued, “Don’t bother! The last time you told me you were fish-ing a green-bodied fly, it was brown. I’d better go down withyou and have a look.” (He never failed to chide me on mycolor-blindness and enjoyed critiquing my efforts at the tyingvise.) At the tail, he netted a couple of the bugs and placedthem in a specimen bottle he always carried in his vest. Later,at the fly-tying bench, he took out a reference book whileexamining what he had collected and announced, “It’s Epeorusvitrea! I never knew you had them here.” Needless to say, nei-ther did I. It seems the vitrea is a first cousin to the pleuralis,generally imitated by the Quill Gordon. He then tied two spin-ners, two for each of us. (Ernie was a marvelous fly tier—inno-vative, meticulous, and artistic—his flies really too beautiful tobe mangled by fish.) The following evening found us at the tailof the same pool, and now the fall was heavier with more fishworking on the insects. Ernie and I alternated casting, and Ibelieve we never had a refusal and hooked just about everytrout we saw rise. Then Ernie spoke the words I often heardhim utter. “You see? Science does work!”

He owned and used graphite rods, but he most enjoyedtrout fishing with his 8-foot cane Thomas & Thomas. He lovedelegant, classic tackle.

Ernie knew and appreciated good food and wine and wasgreat fun to be with on or off the water. He was warm, gener-ous, eminently fair-minded, widely knowledgeable, and intelli-gent. Fly fishing was a great part of his life, and in one of hisfinal talks—in June 2005, celebrating the opening of the new

facilities of the American Museum of Fly Fishing inManchester, Vermont—he explained why:

People often ask why I fish, and after seventy-odd years, I amstarting to understand.

I fish because of Beauty.Everything about our sport is beautiful. Its more than five

centuries of manuscripts and books and folios are beautiful. Itsartifacts of rods and beautifully machined reels are beautiful. Itsold wading staffs and split-willow creels, and the delicate artificeof its flies, are beautiful. Dressing such confections of fur, feath-ers, and steel is beautiful, and our worktables are littered withgorgeous scraps of tragopan and golden pheasant and blue chat-terer and Coq de Leon. The best of sporting art is beautiful. Theriverscapes that sustain the fish are beautiful. Our methods ofseeking them are beautiful, and we find ourselves enthralledwith the quicksilver poetry of the fish.

And in our contentious time of partisan hubris, selfishness,and outright mendacity, Beauty itself may prove the mostendangered thing of all.

I have lost a dear friend.Fly fishing has lost a towering intellect and its finest

spokesman."

Gardner Grant is a trustee of the American Museum of FlyFishing. His tribute to Ernest Schwiebert originally appeared inthe Anglers’ Club Bulletin, the publication of the Anglers’ Clubof New York.

Ernest Schwiebert and Gardner Grant during the American Museumof Fly Fishing’s reopening celebration, 11 June 2005.

James Hardman


Late on a sultry June morning in 1977, I sat on a bank of theParadise Branch of Brodhead Creek in eastern Penn-sylvania watching Ernie Schwiebert try, against the odds,

to catch a fish. The day was bright and the water low andwarm. We were at Ernie’s club, the Henryville Flyfishers. Otheranglers lounged on the grass. They had mostly gone fishlessand had hung up their waders to await the evening hatch.Schwiebert was the only one fishing.

His target was a stream-bred brown trout rising in a desul-tory way under some rhododendrons on the far bank. In latexwaders and cradling a split-cane rod, Schwiebert stood thigh-deep in the current, focused on the fish. Bedecked in his trade-mark Tyrolean hat and with a red bandanna knotted aroundhis neck, he looked his usual stylish self. At age forty-six, he wasin his prime, with a broad, muscular physique and grayingtemples and sideburns. With the imminent publication of hismonumental two-volume, 1,750-page Trout, he was also at thetop of his game as America’s (indeed the world’s) foremostauthority on fly fishing.

There was another rise. Ernie pumped his rod and laid a castabove the fish. The drift was perfect. The brown trout rose and gavethe fly a leisurely inspection, but refused to take. Schwiebertlaughed. “That’s not your average brook trout that acts like he’shad a frontal lobotomy,” he said. Warming to the challenge, hetied on a longer, finer tippet and a smaller fly. He cast again.This time the brown took and was quickly brought to the netand released. Ernie flashed a grin at his fellow anglers on theshore. “These fish are so darned picky. Every time you get oneon, you feel like you’ve earned another PhD.”

Schwiebert in fact had a PhD—not in anything remotelyrelated to fishing, but in architecture and urban planning,from Princeton University. At that point in his life, he hadworked on large-scale planning projects in Europe, SouthAmerica, Australia, the Caribbean, and the United States,including the Dallas–Fort Worth Airport and the Jamaica BayExtension of JFK Airport. As his fame as a fly fisherman hadgrown in recent years, however, he found his avocation sup-planting his vocation, and his time was increasingly spent writ-ing about fishing, leading angling tour groups, and travelingthe lecture circuit talking about fishing.

The Henryville brown he’d caught was no bigger than 14inches, about average for the water, but it was a wild fish, whichby Ernie’s standards was all that really mattered. He lamentedthat for the benefit of the membership’s “geriatric set,” the cluboccasionally stocked hatchery-reared “slob trout”—big, tame,

stupid fish he disdained: “A pound-and-a-half wild trout willrun one right out of here.”

I had first met Schwiebert three years before, while workingon an article for Princeton’s alumni magazine about notableangler graduates, who besides Schwiebert included such vener-able personalities as Edward Ringwood Hewitt and Eugene V.Connett, the founder of the Derrydale Press. The inspirationfor the article was a sentence about Princeton in “Homage toHenryville,” one of Schwiebert’s richly evocative pieces foundin Remembrances of Rivers Past, a collection of essays thatchronicled his worldwide fishing exploits from Norway toTierra del Fuego and seemingly everywhere in between. Likehis other books, it was illustrated with his own exquisite art-work—in this case, elegant black-and-white washes of people,birds, flies, and fish.

My research included a visit with Ernie at his home inPrinceton, a vaulting cedar house of his own design in thewoods north of town where he lived with his wife, Sara, a pri-vate-school teacher and administrator, and their young son,Erik, a budding angler and fly tier. At the time he was deep intothe writing of Trout, and the floor of his den was piled withsource books. More books were stacked on a coffee table, nextto a manuscript he’d been working on steadily for the last four-teen months. It was 9 inches high and growing, each page filledwith his neat block printing, which after countless hours overa drafting board he found easier than longhand.

!

Schwiebert’s magnum opus appeared in 1977. Trout was anencyclopedic tome of formidable erudition and range, cover-ing every aspect of fly fishing for trout and salmon, from biol-ogy and behavior to the history of the sport and the evolutionof equipment and techniques, leavened with anecdotalvignettes culled from the author’s four decades of fishing. Afew months before its publication, I convinced the editors ofPeople magazine to profile the author. The assignment led tothe Henryville outing, whose main purpose was to rendezvouswith a People photographer. We made the two-and-a-half hourdrive from Princeton together, up through the Jersey High-lands and across the Delaware Water Gap. Not knowing if mealswere on the agenda, I brought along a peanut-butter-and-jellysandwich, but I needn’t have bothered: in a wicker picnic bas-ket covered with red-checked cloth, Ernie had packed agourmet lunch of imported wine and beer, French bread, brie,

Reflections on an Angling LegendErnest George Schwiebert Jr.5 June 1931–10 December 2005

by J. I. Merritt

SPRING 2006 25

and gravlax made from a salmon he’d caught in Iceland andcured the traditional way, in river gravel.

On the drive he talked about the genesis of his passion forfly fishing. His father, a professor of history and political sci-ence at Northwestern University and several other Midwesternschools, spent vacations angling in the lower Michigan lakeswhere the family summered. The elder Schwiebert fishedmainly for bass, and it remained for the son to succumb towhat he called his “trout fixation.” Ernie was six years oldwhen, from a bridge, he saw his first fly fisherman, wading astream and sweeping his line in graceful loops over the water.The vision changed his life. He had seen fishing before, but ithad always been lake fishing, in a boat,“where people sat aroundand watched corks on the water, or trolled up and down, orheaved immense plugs at bass,” he recalled. “This was a differentkind of thing altogether, and the difference was beauty.”

Not long after this youthful epiphany, his father presentedhim with a fly rod on his seventh birthday. He quickly went outand caught a trout with it, on a wet Cahill. By the time heturned ten, he was tying his own flies and casting to rising trouton the streams of Michigan and on the headwaters of theArkansas River, in Colorado, where his mother’s sister owned aranch. While still in his early teens, he sought out one of thecountry’s top fly tiers, Bill Blades, and a champion fly caster,Frank Steel, for advanced lessons in their esoteric skills. By agesixteen he had begun the collecting and cataloguing of streaminsects that would lead to the publication, in 1955, when he wastwenty-four years old and still a senior in college, of Matchingthe Hatch, the first angler’s guide to both eastern and westernmayflies.

Ernie was an only child, and his parents indulged his obses-sion. “They never insisted that I take a summer job. From thetime I was old enough to drive, they allowed me to take thefamily car and wander around Michigan and the Rockies fish-ing alone or with friends.” He was a senior at New Trier HighSchool, near Chicago, following World War II when his fatherwas appointed an adviser in political and cultural affairs toU.S. forces in occupied Germany. At his parents’ suggestion,Ernie took two years off to accompany him. Much of his timeoverseas was spent fishing the Traun and other legendarystreams of Bavaria and Austria. “The whole plateau north ofNuremberg—the Franconian Upland—is a limestone plateau,”he said. “It was a golden era in European fly fishing becausethose rivers hadn’t been fished during the war.”

For “immense amounts of charm, picturesque landscapes, asense of history and beauty, plus better fishing than you’d thinkin terms of the fish,” Schwiebert still regarded the fishing inEurope (including the British Isles) as the world’s best. In thecontinental United States, he favored the Henry’s Fork of theSnake and a stretch of Silver Creek near Sun Valley, Idaho, thathe and his friend Jack Hemingway had recently helped pre-serve by raising $650,000 for the Nature Conservancy. (WhenI called Hemingway seeking anecdotes about Ernie, he was lessthan forthcoming—“I’m saving that for my book,” he said. Hedid allow that I shouldn’t believe “anything Schwiebert tells youabout fishing morning rises because he’s never made one yet.”)

Following what he called his two-year “bath” in continentalfly fishing and culture, Schwiebert matriculated at Ohio StateUniversity. He majored in architecture, and after college wascommissioned in the Air Force. He spent most of his activeduty helping oversee construction of the Air Force Academy inColorado—yet another fortuitous opportunity for fishing.

He and Sara met at Ohio State and married while Ernie wasin the service (their honeymoon was a Colorado fly-fishingtrip). The woman whom Arnold Gingrich, in The Joys of Trout,called “the Patient Griselda of all the fishing widows of bothhistory and legend,” took her husband’s single-mindedness in

stride. She recalled an early gathering with his family. “This wassupposed to be my initiation into trout fishing. Ernie gave meall the right equipment, and we went fishing. Then it started torain, and then it poured, and I was still out there when every-one else had quit. I went along with this for a while, until I real-ized it was not an absolute necessity in terms of my marriage.”

!

Although we lived just a few miles apart, I saw Ernie infre-quently in later years. “One of the things I like about living inPrinceton,” he said, “is that people here leave you alone.” Therewas little chance to intrude on him anyway. His consulting andfishing-related “work”—which in the last decade of his lifeincluded leading innumerable Atlantic-salmon trips to Russia’sKola Peninsula, a sport fishery he helped pioneer—kept himaway most of the time, and when home he was usually in seclu-sion writing or working on other projects.

His father lived into his nineties, and given Ernie’s robust-ness and vigorous embrace of life, I had assumed he would,too. It was a shock to see his obituary in the New York Timesjust a day after I’d been talking about him with a mutualfriend. He was seventy-four and had died of renal cancer.

I will remember him for his charismatic personality andhow he could fill a room with his presence. He was articulate,sharp-witted, and gracious in his praise of others. I marveledat his skills as an angler, writer, artist, raconteur, polymath, andlinguist (he was fluent in at least two foreign languages, Ger-man and Spanish, and conversant in several more). Genius isan overused word, but in Ernie’s case I believe it fits. He hadsomething close to a photographic memory; as his angling palChuck Fothergill once told me, tapping his head,“Ernie likes tosay that when it goes in here, it stays.” His eidetic powers wereon full display in my last encounter with him, in the spring of2003, at a Princeton fund-raiser for the Greater YellowstoneCoalition. When I approached the knot of admirers surround-ing him, he was holding forth on a book I had written twentyyears before on British sportsmen in the American West. I wasflattered, of course, but also astonished at his ability to recalldetails I had long forgotten about one of my subjects, Sir St.George Gore, who had fished some of the same Coloradostreams where the teenaged Ernie had honed his angling skills.

He also had a healthy ego and could be prickly toward crit-ics who complained of his idiosyncratic and ultimately formu-laic style. At least some of the criticism was justified. Althoughhis best writing is peerless, he didn’t work hard at his prose—the first draft was invariably his last—and he resisted editing.

Still, no one I’ve known personally has better expressedwhat draws us to fly fishing. Along with the beauty of placeswhere trout and salmon live, there is the challenge of catchingthem. As he observed in one of our interviews, “Fishing a dryfly over selective trout takes more skill and delicate art thanputting, and distance casting in a high wind can be as athleticas javelin throwing. Fly fishing is the only field sport I knowwhich has the ritual of hunting and stalking and doesn’t actu-ally kill. It ritualizes the kill because you have the opportunityto release the fish. It’s the only sport I know which combinesthe old blood rhythms with the new sensibilities.”

"

J. I. (Jim) Merritt lives in Pennington, New Jersey. He is the edi-tor of We Proceeded On, the quarterly journal of the Lewis andClark Trail Heritage Foundation, and the author of TroutDreams: A Gallery of Fly-Fishing Profiles (Derrydale Press,2000), which was reviewed by Paul Schullery in the Winter 2003issue of this journal.


WHEN I THINK of Ernie, I thinkof his hat: the pins and the biggrin under a brim that could

have been shaped by Charlie Ritz. Iremember the intensity of his eyes whenhe took issue with an opposing view ordescribed what it is like to catch a mam-moth salmon in Iceland. I have fond rec-ollections of fishing the Beaverkill andWillowemoc on countless weekendsduring the ’50s and ’60s and meeting upwith Ernie at the Antrim Lodge on theglorious weekend nights when grownmen scrapped for a chair at his table.And why not? The author of Matchingthe Hatch was an authentic star inangling’s firmament.

But of all my memories, the ones Itreasure the most are the meetings of theMidtown Turf Yachting and PoloAssociation and the Williams Club andthe Manny Wolf lunches described byErnie in the 2005 Fall issue of theAmerican Fly Fisher. It was sitting at thefeet of those exceptional writers andartists where I fell into such bad habits asfishing too much, drinking martinis,and learning how to make 12-inch fishgrow several inches overnight. Erniecould tell a story like none other. If youhaven’t read his books, do yourself afavor. I’m happy to know that there’smore unpublished work to come fromthis truly remarkable man.

Remembering Ernieby William F. Herrick

Ernest Schwiebert, Bill Herrick, andGardner Grant enjoyed reminiscing duringthe American Museum of Fly Fishing’s re-opening celebration, 11 June 2005.

James Hardman

Gardner Grant

AMFF file photo

Here’s a poem for you, Ernie.

Catch and Release

A trout caught a little boyAnd carried him to the deepest partOf the river and held him thereLong enough to teach himWhat a trout’s world is like,Then released him.

The little boy had written down onlyA portion of all he had learnedWhen the trout summoned himTo return to the river,

Where he is now Making notes.

SPRING 2006 27

Pale

Sulp

hur

Dun

(Eph

emer

ella doro

thea). Illustr

ation

byErn

est Sc

hwieb

ert.

And one for us.

The Word

We never saw it coming.He was clear. Every wordHe spoke at the banquet was sharp.When he said it was all about beautyThe room was silent Like a deep pool.

The end wasn’t far off,Though no one knew itBut the family. All we knewWas the legend, standing up there,Telling us about trout and beautyAnd hours spent on rivers.

Now he’s gone. Just weeks later.Too suddenly for those of usWho knew him. No longer there.No longer there. The words hurt.

What his genius gave usWas greater than trout rising,Salmon wearing coats of mail,A hatch of flies soaringThrough the evening air.

He gave us that word beautyTo carry it with us long pastThe days when we can no longerMake the long cast.

William F. Herrick is a trustee emeritusof the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

Roy Chapin fishing at the Fontinalis Club in Michigan.


FOUR YEARS AGO, Roy D. Chapin Jr. donated nearly 1,000books to the Museum’s library. A year later, Nick Lyonsdonated his magnificent collection of more than 1,500

books.And now, we recently received another 1,000 books from

Roy Chapin’s estate. This group of books is significant andincludes a large number of limited editions and rare items(many of which have been on our wish list). For example, thecollection includes most of the books of Frank Forester, F.Gray Griswold, Frederic Halford, some unusual books byRoderick Haig-Brown, as well as some rare books from the

Derrydale Press. Further, and of considerable interest, there aremany books inscribed with notes and letters from the authorswho were friends and companions of Roy. We sincerely feelprivileged to be the recipient of his complete library.

It is a pleasure to report that the museum’s library wouldnow rank as one of the largest public collections of fly-fishingbooks in America.

GERALD J. KARASKAAMFF LIBRARY VOLUNTEER

Our Library Grows

Photo courtesy of Lois Chapin

SPRING 2006 29

Angler of the YearLongtime museum friend John Betts was recently honored

by Fly Rod & Reel magazine as a 2006 Angler of the Year and wasfeatured in an article by Darrel Martin in the January/February2006 issue. An introduction to the piece states: “Of . . . earlyinnovators, none was more influential than a fly-fishing renais-sance man named John Betts. Not only did Betts introduce anumber of still-popular synthetic tying materials in the 1970s,but his 1980 book, Synthetic Flies, served to open the eyes of flytiers around the globe.” The article gives a good background onall things Betts and even quotes his museum pals KathleenAchor and Gordon Wickstrom. We encourage you to get yourhands on a copy.

Napa Winery DinnerThe Napa Winery Dinner and Sporting Auction was held on

Saturday, November 12, at the Louis M. Martini Winery in St.Helena, California. Executive Director Bill Bullock and Mem-bership Director Rebecca Nawrath made the journey fromVermont.

This dinner, once again chaired by museum Trustee RogerRiccardi, was a glorious gastronomic affair that was thorough-ly enjoyed by everyone in attendance.

The evening commenced with a beautiful reception in thegarden, featuring one of Martini’s many cabernets. The groupthen was given a tour of the winery’s facilities. An auction pre-

view and reception was held in the barrel room, which featureda candelabra and a wonderful assortment of hors d’oeuvresand companion wines. The museum also arranged for a trav-eling exhibit to accompany the dinner, so our guests were ableto enjoy some highlighted reels from our permanent collec-tion, along with a beautiful display case featuring the flies, art-work, and books of Mary Orvis Marbury.

One of the highlights of the evening was an hour-long wineeducation course with Martini Wine Ambassador JerlynNicholson. Jerlyn did a magnificent job of introducing thegroup to a wonderful assortment of Martini wines. Each of thedinner attendees was seated at a place setting with ten differenttasting glasses and an electronic keypad (imagine the Jeopardy!game show). Then an engaging wine-tasting course began, fea-turing a PowerPoint presentation with real-time quiz ques-tions. At the end of the seminar, prizes were awarded to thefuture sommeliers in attendance.

The group returned to the barrel room to enjoy a sumptu-ous feast provided by the hospitality staff of the Gallo Familyof Wines. The dinner featured the wonderful cuisine of chefBruce Riezenman of Park Avenue Catering.

The live and silent auctions featured a wide array of art-work, fishing tackle, and fishing trips and drew great interestfrom the crowd. Our auctioneer for the event was DamonCasatico, who did a great job of engaging our guests.

Outgoing Museum Board of Trustees President DavidWalsh journeyed from Wyoming for the event. Fellow Trusteeand Collections Committee Chair David Nichols and his wife

Martini Wine Ambassador Jerlyn Nicholsonguided the Napa dinner attendees through a

fun and informative blind wine tasting.

Bill Bullock

2006 Angler of the Year John Betts brought his art, flies,and other works to the museum for an exhibit in 1997.

Kathleen Achor


Margaret made the journey from Maine, as did Trustee PeterCorbin and his wife Lillian from New York. We offer a bigthank you to all our guests.

We owe much gratitude toRoger Riccardi and his team atMartini for the wonderful job theydid in putting together this fantas-tic event. We also wish to thankdinner committee members EdBeddow and Jon Rosell.

In addition, we’d like to recog-nize the following sponsors, with-out whom we could not have hadsuch a successful event: Gallo ofSonoma, Martini Winery, Dr. JaneGriffith, Tony Lavely and Ruth’sChris Steak House, Lone MountainRanch, Boardwalk Lodge, NorthFork Crossing, the Orvis Company,Roger Riccardi and Ruby theWonder Dog, Kristoph Rollen-hagen, and Dave Van Winkle.

Marlborough FlyFishing Show

The museum once again presented its booth at the FlyFishing Show in Marlborough, Massachusetts, on January 21and 22. Executive Director Bill Bullock and Collections Man-ager Yoshi Akiyama were on hand to renew old friendships andpresent the museum to a new group of anglers.

We introduced many to our new building through photosand graphics at our booth. In addition to selling items from ourgift shop, we signed up many new members and gave out copiesof our journal and our new brochures.

We were pleased to see many friends, including Stan Bogdan,Fred Kretchman, David Ledlie, Pamela Bates, Bob Hilyard, BobWarren, Peter Castagnetti, Barry and Cathy Beck, Roger Plourde,Paul Rossman, and Brandt and Bill Newcomb.

Special thanks go out to our hosts at the Fly Fishing Showfor providing us with complimentary booth space.

Somerset Fly Fishing ShowMembership Director Rebecca Nawrath and Executive

Director Bill Bullock journeyed to Somerset, New Jersey, forthe January 27–29 Somerset show. This was Becky’s first trip to

a fly-fishing show, and she thoroughly enjoyed meeting thewonderful people in the industry.

Trustee Jim Hardman joined us at the booth and was a greatambassador for Becky and Bill, introducing us to his countlessfriends. Jim Becker, an accomplished rodmaker and greatmuseum friend, also journeyed down to help us with thebooth and display his gorgeous AMFF commemorative bam-boo fly rod.

Museum friends Per Brandon, Carmine Lisella, and GalenMercer stopped by to help out and spread the good word aboutthe museum. We were also pleased to see museum TrusteeBlake Drexler, former Trustee Curt Hill, and others. Many ofour visitors are planning a spring trip to the museum to seeour new home and sample the fine fly-fishing waters of theBatten Kill and other area rivers.

Marketing and Program NewsThe museum continues to focus its marketing efforts local-

ly, and we have forged a relationship with two Manchester-based organizations: Hildene (home to Abe Lincoln’s descen-dants) and Southern Vermont Arts Center. We are creating athree-way admission ticket that will allow a guest to visit all lo-

cations for a reduced ticket price.Each organization will sell the tick-ets, and we have plans to expandthe program in 2007.

We have also created a relation-ship with the Arlington School inArlington, Vermont (about fifteenminutes south of Manchester). Ex-ecutive Director Bill Bullock willbe hosting several fly-tying classeswith students at the school, andthen they will visit the museum.Bill has ties with the school, mak-ing it a natural fit to institute thisprogram. Our goal is to work withother local schools as well.

We are excited about these newprograms, and we will continue todevelop more of these in the com-ing year.

The museum recently hosted acocktail party for Manchester-

based Orvis employees. Our goals were to show our apprecia-tion for the support Orvis gives us and to show off the muse-

Upcoming EventsMay 20Annual Trustee Meeting and DinnerHildeneManchester, Vermont

October 7Annual Winery DinnerParaduxx Winery, a Duckhorn subsidiaryNapa Valley, California

Currently in the works:Sporting Collectibles and Antique Show FestivalManchester, VermontStay tuned for more details!

For more information, contact Lori Pinkowski at(802) 362-3300 or via e-mail at [email protected].

Museum Trustee Pam Bates and reelmaker Stan Bogdantook in the sights at the Marlborough Fly Fishing Show.

Executive Director Bill Bullock and Membership DirectorRebecca Nawrath chatting with one of the many

visitors to the Fly Fishing Show in Somerset, New Jersey.

Bill Bullock

James Hardman

SPRING 2006 31

um to those who may have not yet had the opportunity to visit.Seventy-five people turned out for the event. Our guests hadthe opportunity to view our incredible Anglers All exhibit, aswell as admire the private library and (of course) the gift shop.Everyone enjoyed the light hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and goodconversation. There was a lot of interest expressed about mem-bership, and we even recruited a few volunteers. The eveningwas a great success. We thank all those who attended andexpress our gratitude for their continued support.

On the Road with theAmerican Museum of Fly Fishing

In conjunction with the Orvis Company’s 150th anniversary,the American Museum of Fly Fishing has put together an ex-hibit that will be appearing at an Orvis store near you. Thisexhibit features three separate displays. The first features thehistoric fly rods and photographs of Babe Ruth and TedWilliams. These National Baseball Hall of Famers were alsoavid fly fishermen. The second details the history of the JockScott Atlantic salmon fly, chronicling eleven unique fly-tyingmaterials from all over the world. The third highlights the richhistory of the sport, with examples of fly reels from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. For more informationabout this traveling exhibit, call the museum at (802) 362-3300,or e-mail us at [email protected].

Recent DonationsAnn Crudge of New York City donated a Hardy Marquis no.

5 fly reel; a Hardy St. George 3 fly reel; a Fenwick HMG no. 4,two-piece, 7-foot graphite fly rod; a Hardy three-piece, 8-foot,6-inch bamboo fly rod; an Anglers Roost two-piece, 10-footfiberglass fly rod; and a three-piece, 8-foot bamboo fly rod,maker unknown.

Bruce Dix of Exeter, New Hampshire, donated a collectionof eighty flies tied by Henry Myotte of Amesbury, Mass-achusetts. Myotte was an innovative fly tier who was known tosupply Ted Williams with certain patterns.

Dr. Alan Scriggins of South Burlington, Vermont, donated athree-piece, 8-foot H. L. Leonard bamboo fly rod with oneextra tip that belonged to the late James Angleton, who servedas chief of the CIA’s counterintelligence from 1954 to 1973.

In the LibraryWe are happy to have received the following donations of

books that have become part of our permanent collection: TheUniversity of New Mexico Press sent us Gordon M.Wickstrom’s Late in an Angler’s Life (2004). Peter Corbin sentus a copy of his new book, An Artist’s Creel (Hudson HillsPress, 2005). And Victor R. Johnson Jr. sent us a copy of hisbook Fenwick: Fenwick’s History and Rods, Including theDevelopment of the First Graphite Rod (EP Press, 2005).

Collections Manager Yoshi Akiyama alwaysenjoys attending fly-fishing shows.

BACK I S SU E S !Volume 6:Volume 7:Volume 8:Volume 9:

Volume 10:Volume 11:Volume 13:Volume 15:Volume 16:Volume 17:Volume 18:Volume 19:Volume 20:Volume 21:Volume 22:Volume 23:Volume 24:Volume 25:Volume 26:Volume 27:Volume 28:Volume 29:Volume 30:Volume 31:Volume 32:

Numbers 2, 3, 4Number 3Number 3Numbers 1, 2, 3Number 2Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4Number 3Number 2Numbers 1, 2, 3Numbers 1, 2, 3Numbers 1, 2, 4Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4Numbers 1, 2Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4Numbers 1, 2, 4Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4Numbers 1, 2, 3Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4Number 1

Back issues are $4 a copy.To order, please contact Rebecca Nawrath at

(802)362-3300 or via e-mail at [email protected].

Bill Bullock

May 26–29June 1–4

June 8–11June 15–18June 22–25

June 29–July 2July 6–9

July 13–16July 19–23July 27–30

August 3–6August 10–13August 17–20August 24–27

October 26–29November 2–5

November 9–12

Buffalo, New YorkRichmond, VirginiaArlington, VirginiaDowningtown, PennsylvaniaDarien, ConnecticutAvon, ConnecticutBoston, MassachusettsGreenvale, New YorkNew York, New YorkIndianapolis, Indiana Deerfield, IllinoisDenver, Colorado Pasadena, CaliforniaPalo Alto, CaliforniaJackson, Wyoming Seattle, WashingtonChicago, Illinois

Orvis Traveling Exhibit Schedule


After a career in television and films, Hoagy B.Carmichael turned his attention to bamboo rod-making. He wrote A Master’s Guide to Building aBamboo Fly Rod (1977) with Everett Garrison andproduced a film chronicling Garrison’s work. He isa leading expert in the field of antique fishingtackle and has fished for trout and salmon forforty years. In later years, he has concentrated ontrying to catch a few fish on the Grand CascapediaRiver while helping to develop their fine museum,the Cascapedia River Museum. Working to under-stand that river’s great history has been a life-giv-ing force.

C O N T R I B U T O R S

Paul Schullery was executive director of theAmerican Museum of Fly Fishing from 1977 to1982. He is the author, coauthor, or editor ofabout thirty-five books, including several relatingto fly fishing and fly-fishing history: American FlyFishing: A History (1987), Shupton’s Fancy: A Taleof the Fly-Fishing Obsession (1996), and RoyalCoachman: The Lore and Legends of Fly Fishing(1999). He is coauthor, with Bud Lilly, of threebooks on western fly fishing, the most recentbeing Bud Lilly’s Guide to Fly Fishing the NewWest (2000). He was scriptwriter and narrator ofthe award-winning PBS film Living Edens:Yellowstone (2000). For his work as an historianand nature writer, he is recipient of an honorarydoctorate of letters from Montana State Uni-versity and the Wallace Stegner Award from theUniversity of Colorado Center of the AmericanWest. His book Cowboy Trout: Western Fly Fishingas if It Matters, is to be published in 2006 by theMontana Historical Society.

Frederick Buller, a retired London gunmaker,has spent most of his spare time during the lastforty years researching angling history. In 2002 hewas awarded Country Landowners AssociationLifetime Achievement Award for Services toAngling He is the author of nine books, the mostrecent of which—Dame Juliana: The AnglingTreatyse and Its Mysteries, coauthored by the lateHugh Falkus—was published in 2001 by theFlyfishers Classic Library. His most recent contri-bution to this journal was “A Hoard of Myster-ious Salmon Flies,” which appeared in the Fall2004 issue.

SPRING 2006 33

Our sincere thanks to those who contributed tofund the Museum’s important work in 2005.

Museum Donors

PLATINUM

GOLD

SILVER

Daniel DuckhomJack Larkin

Matthew Scott

James Specter, DDSDickson Whitney

Agatha BardayChristopher BarrowChristopher Belnap

Thomas Doolittle, DDSPaul Jennings

James LeeMorse Family Foundation

Vincent Pacienza, MDDavid Pennock

Sandra ReadThayer Talcott

Richard TrismanTrout UnlimitedMitch Whitford

AnonymousEdward BeddowGeorge BennettRichard BernardMichael BettenPaul Bofinger

Jim and Judy BowmanJohn Butterworth

Philip CrangiDonald ChristMichael Coe

Edward CollinsThomas CoxBill de RecatDavid DeenBruce Duff

Peter EngelhardtRobert EvansScott Farfone

John FeldenzerRobert and Connie Ferguson

Dick FinlayKeith FulsherRonald Gard

Donald GrossetOswald GutscheDavid HasheyIrene HunterSamuel Jones

Michael KashgarianThomas KnightStephen KozakMaxwell Lester

Van LewisChauncey Loomis

William LordJames LynnNick Lyons

Diana and Barry MayerJoseph McCulloughMelvoin Foundation

Edward MigdalskiChuck Mlakar

Paula “Stick” MorganPaul Murphy

J. Louis NewellRobin NewmanChuck Newmyer

David NotterDon Palmer

Gerald PhilkillMichael Quartararo

Robert Richr. k. Miles Inc.

Edward RuestowJuan Facundo Santucci

Franklin Schurz

Appleton SeavernsJohn and Monica Shanahan

Jeffrey SmithJames Spendiff

Richard StantonWallace StenhouseJim and Judy Stone

Virginia UrsinR. P. Van Gytenbeek

Albert VeshneskySheldon Weinig

Dave and Emily WhitlockMegan WintersJames WoodsWilliam Zapf

Jerry Zebrowsky

From

Gen

io S

cott

, Fis

hing

in A

mer

ican

Wat

ers

(New

Yor

k:T

he A

mer

ican

New

s C

ompa

ny, 1

875)

,17.

BRONZE

E. M. BakwinMichael Bakwin

Foster BamPamela Bates

Steven BenardetePaul Bofinger

Duke Buchan IIIMickey Callanen

Peter CorbinDay FoundationJerome C. Day

James Donnelly

Tom DonnelleyBlake Drexler

William J. DreyerChristopher Garcia

Ronald GardGeorge R. Gibson III

Gardner L. GrantChris Gruseke

James HardmanJames Heckman

Lynn L. HitschlerArthur Kaemmer, MD

Woods King IIICarl R. Keuhner IIINancy Mackinnon

Walter T. MatiaWillliam C. McMaster, MD

James MirendaJohn Mundt

David NicholsWayne Nordberg

Michael B. OsborneRaymond C. Pecor

Stephen M. Peet

Leigh H. PerkinsAllan K. Poole

John RanoJames Reid

Roger RiccardiKristoph J. Rollenhagen

William SalladinErnest Schwiebert

Robert G. ScottRichard G. TischDavid H. WalshJames C. Woods


F I N E A R T A U C T I O N S , L L CCOPLEY

The Sporting Sale, July 27th & 28th, 2006, Boston, Massachusetts

This sale will feature a rare selection of sporting paintings, antique decoys, antique fly fish-ing equipment, fish carvings, fine shotguns and other unique items.

Consignments and purchases will be accepted until June 1st or until full.

Native American Creel, Eastern United States, c. 1880.

H.S. Gillum 8'6", two piece, two tip Salmon rod.

John Tully (1862–1931), Sea Trout, 7lbs 4 oz, carved in 1913.E. Garrison 7'6", two piece, two tip Trout rod.

Online Catalog Preview, Reception Information and Catalog Consignmentswww.copleyart.com & Auction Jon Nash Stephen O’Brien Jr.

July 27th & 28th,2006 617.536.0536 617.536.0536Boston, Massachusetts [email protected] [email protected]

STEPHEN O’BRIEN JR.FINE ARTS

A

Company

SPRING 2006 35


Rio MansoLodge

THE TERM FORTUNATE SON is usually associated withCreedence Clearwater Revival’s Vietnam War protestsong of the same name. For me, the term sums up my

luck of growing up in a fanatical fishing household. There arefew pictures of me as a young boy without a rod and/or fish inmy hands. Summers were all about saving money for tackle,lures, and worms.

The whole paradigm shifted when my father decided to takeme along on a fly-fishing weekend with my grandfather. Sud-denly, my eyes lifted from the red and white bobber and beganto focus on those creatures flying above the water.

It was in this context, at the age of eleven in 1978, that I pur-chased my first fly-fishing book. I bought Matching the Hatch,by Ernest Schwiebert, without even opening the cover becausethe title told me all that I needed to know. I heard that phraseevery time I went fishing and was frustrated at my inability todo so myself. Surely this was a smart way to spend my hard-earned $10.

I recall being initially disappointed with the book, but Iattribute that sentiment to the lopsided ratio of words to pic-tures. It was clear to an eleven-year-old boy that Mr. Schwieberthad his ratio backward.

But press on I did, and I grew to love that book because everytime I returned to it, there was something new to learn. Eachday on the water became a fun homework assignment inwhich I would match my usually fruitless experiences againstthe voice of reason and knowledge. Hatched insects were relo-cated to my bedroom, where I would carefully place them onone of the four color plates or the many black-and-white imagesto decipher what pattern Mr. Schwiebert would use.

The final phase of these studies, much to the chagrin of myfather, was to visit his tackle bag and fly books and “shop” forthe appropriate patterns. I recall how impressed he was withmy growing fly collection, but I never remember him accusingme of my etymological crimes.

As I grew older, I read other fishing books and expanded myknowledge, but I always returned to my old friend. Part of meattributes passing my ninth- and tenth-grade Latin classes toMr. Schwiebert, given the healthy doses of scientific names

found in his book.I regret that I never offi-

cially met Mr. Schwiebert,although I saw him at themany shows and events Iattended when I worked atOrvis. My first fishing adven-

ture to Argentina was in his shadow as he was departing thelodge when we were arriving.

When I joined the museum this past fall, I was so excited tohave Mr. Schwiebert sign my dog-eared copy of Matching theHatch. I had the occasion to speak with him by phone this pastOctober before my first trustee meeting. He was gracious andpatient with me as I fumbled with words in the beginning ofour conversation. At the time, he was poring over our rodinventory, highlighting the holes and planning our acquisitionstrategy for the coming years.

Clearly, the museum and the fly-fishing community havelost a great friend. Although his contributions to the sport aretoo numerous to list here, there can be no doubt that his placein the history of the sport is reserved, given his tremendousbody of work. Thankfully, his letters and publications havebeen preserved for future generations of thoughtful and caringfly anglers

BILL BULLOCK

Remembering Ernest Schwiebert

Bill Bullock peruses a copy of Ernest Schwiebert’sMatching the Hatch in the museum’s library.

Yoshi Akiyama

A memorial service forDr. Ernest G. Schwiebertwill be held at the PrincetonUniversity Chapel on Fri-day, 5 May 2006, at 3:00 P.M.

The American Museumof Fly Fishing

Box 42, Manchester,Vermont 05254Tel: (802) 362-3300 • Fax: (802) 362-3308

E-MAIL: [email protected]: www.amff.com

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF FLY FISHING,a nationally accredited, nonprofit, educa-tional institution dedicated to preservingthe rich heritage of fly fishing, was found-ed in Manchester, Vermont, in 1968. Themuseum serves as a repository for, andconservator to, the world’s largest collec-tion of angling and angling-related objects.The museum’s collections and exhibitsprovide the public with thorough docu-mentation of the evolution of fly fishingas a sport, art form, craft, and industry inthe United States and abroad from thesixteenth century to the present. Rods,reels, and flies, as well as tackle, art, books,manuscripts, and photographs, form themajor components of the museum’s col-lections.

The museum has gained recognition asa unique educational institution. It sup-ports a publications program throughwhich its national quarterly journal, theAmerican Fly Fisher, and books, art prints,and catalogs are regularly offered to thepublic. The museum’s traveling exhibitsprogram has made it possible for educa-tional exhibits to be viewed across theUnited States and abroad. The museumalso provides in-house exhibits, relatedinterpretive programming, and researchservices for members, visiting scholars,authors, and students.

J O IN !Membership Dues (per annum)

Associate $40International $50Family $60Benefactor $100Business $200Patron $250Sponsor $500Platinum $1,000

The museum is an active, member-ori-ented nonprofit institution. Membershipdues include four issues of the American FlyFisher. Please send your payment to themembership director and include yourmailing address. The museum is a memberof the American Association of Museums,the American Association of State andLocal History, the New England Associationof Museums, the Vermont Museum andGallery Alliance, and the InternationalAssociation of Sports Museums and Hallsof Fame.

S UPP ORT !As an independent, nonprofit institution,the American Museum of Fly Fishing relieson the generosity of public-spirited indi-viduals for substantial support. We ask thatyou give our museum serious considera-tion when planning for gifts and bequests.

american fly fisher

Documents