The American Fly Fisher

Journal of the American Museum of Fly Fishing W I N T E R 2004 V O L U M E 30 N U M B E R 1

The Content in the Context

Out with the old, in with the new. See story and photos beginning on page 26.

F ly-fishing history is in large part an account of people's memories within an historical context. In this issue, writ- ers juxtapose personal story, philosophy, and discovery

with historical literature, a tackle manufacturer, and flies. In "Return to Paradise," Andrew Herd takes a fresh look at

the clues of place that F. D. Barker left behind in his 1929 book, An Angler's Paradise. Barker, who visited Ireland and stayed at "the Gray House" in "Kerra" many times over a period of approximately twenty years, gave accounts of his fishing expe- riences there. Barker described the places he fished and gave them fictional names; a map was even included with the book. A few identities have long been known: the Gray House of the book, for example, is the Clifden House in Corofin, now a guest house. Herd and his friends were staying there when ". . .we happened to sit down one evening with the book, a bot- tle of whisky, and the Shannon Fisheries Board leaflet for the region and realized that the disguise is much thinner than is commonly supposed." Herd's account of this discovery begins on page 2.

Edward Davis describes his article, "Those Captivating Classic Rods and Reels: An S. Allcock Story" as "part fishing story, part history of a now-defunct tackle manufacturer." Davis is the proud owner of a ca. 1938 Conway split-cane fly rod made by the S. AUcock Company of Redditch. He received the rod as a gift at the age of thirteen and fished with it for more than fifty years. Davis first relates a story of his youth-fishing for Salvelinus marstoni in southern Quebec-a trip during which he used this rod. He then goes on to give a short history of both the tackle (the Conway fly rod and the Popular reel) and the S. Allcock Company itself, which was founded in 1803 and eventually disappeared in name after

World War I1 events and subsequent company mergers. The article begins on page 8.

A friend wondering aloud about what had happened to the flies they had loved and fished in 1940 prompted Gordon Wickstrom to take a look at the nineteenth and twentieth cen- turies' evolution of the fly. To him, the change "from presenta- tional artifice to representation of the natural" parallels changes that were happening in society as whole: the disap- pearance of romanticism and its replacement with the scien- tific and technical. Wickstrom compares old and new fly types according to form, material, inspiration, and use. The piece is interspersed with interlinear commentary-reminiscences and asides conversing with the text. "Where Are the Flies of Yesteryear? An Essay with Interlinear Commentary" begins on page 14.

And speaking of reminiscences, in a reminiscent piece about meeting Edward R. Hewitt in 1948, H. Lenox H. Dick shares the memory of first caring for Mr. Hewitt as his physician during a hospital stay and later dining with him at his home. Dick, author of several fishing titles, including The Art and Science of Fly Fishing, treasures this memory of meeting an all-time great. "Edward R. Hewitt: The Last Renaissance Man" begins on page 20.

Late in October, the Museum broke ground on our new building. Of course, this has included partial destruction of an existing building, which makes for more interesting photos. Sara Wilcox has put together some images of the early days of demolition and construction. This spread begins on page 26.

As always, look to Museum News to find out where we've been and where we're going next.

KATHLEEN ACHOR EDITOR

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF FLY FISHING

Preserving the Heritage of Fly Fishing T R U S T E E S

E. M. Bakwin Nancy Mackinnon Michael Bakwin Walter T. Matia

Foster Bam William C. McMaster, M.D. Pamela Bates James Mirenda

Steven Benardete John Mundt Paul Bofinger David Nichols

Duke Buchan 111 Wayne Nordberg Mickey Callallen Michael B. Osborne

Peter Corbin Stephen M. Peet Blake Drexler Leigh H. Perkins

William J. Dreyer Allan K. Poole Christopher Garcia John Rano

George R. Gibson I11 Roger Riccardi Gardner L. Grant William Salladin

Chris Gruseke Ernest Schwiebert James Hardman Robert G. Scott

Lynn L. Hitschler James A. Spendiff Arthur Kaemmer, M.D. John Swan

Woods King I11 Richard G. Tisch Carl R. Kuehner I11 David H. Walsh James E. Lutton 111 Tames C. Woods

T R U S T E E S E M E R I T I Charles R. Eichel David B. Ledlie

G. Dick Finlay Leon L. Martuch W. Michael Fitzgerald Keith C. Russell

William Herrick Paul Schullery Robert N. Johnson Stephen Sloan

O F F I C E R S Chairman of the Board Robert G. Scott

President David H . Walsh Vice Presidents Lynn L. Hitschler

Michael B. Osborne James A. Spendiff

Treasurer James Mirenda Secretary James C. Woods

S T A F F Interim Executive Director Yoshi Akiyalna

Events el- Membership Diana Siebold Art Director John Price

Special Projects Sara Wilcox

T H E A M E R I C A N FLY F I S H E R Editor Kathleen Achor

Design el- Production John Price Copy Editor Sarah May Clarkson

American Fly Fisher

Journal of the American Museum of Fly Fishing W I N T E R 2 0 0 4 V O L U M E 3 0 N U M B E R 1

Return to Paradise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Andrew Herd

Those Captivating Classic Rods and Reels: An S. Allcock Story. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Edward Davis

Where Are the Flies of Yesteryear? An Essay with Interlinear Commentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Gordon M. Wickstrom

Reminiscences: Edward R. Hewitt: The Last Renaissance Man . . . . . . . . 20

H. Lenox H. Dick

Museum News. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

And So It Begins: A Groundbreaking Story . . . . . . . . . 26 Sara Wilcox and George Gibson

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

ON T H E COVER: The S. Allcock szx-strip split-cane rod, circa 1938. See "Those Captivating Classic Rods and Reels: A n S. Allcock Story" on page 8.

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Return to Paradise by Andrew Herd

Clifden House as i t is today

I F CHANCE OR FORTUNE ever bring you to Corofin (or Corro- fin-they have it both ways on the

sign), take the road to Kilfenora, and turn left at the shrine by the wayside. Press on a mile or two, and just before the ruined house, go right, and follow the road that winds up to the mountain. For a few minutes, you parallel the river Fergus, only a field away, and then, as your way plunges into the trees, take the track to the right. This leads you into a narrow avenue, overarched by birch and sycamore in a way that will be familiar to anyone who loves Ireland, and after you have crossed the river using the bridge by the tumbledown mill, make sure to take the left fork up the hill. Then, just as

Photographs by the author

your eyes have adjusted to the gloomth, you burst back into the sun. Before you is the broad sweep of the drive of Clifden House, renowned as "the Gray House" and the centerpiece of the adventures described in Frederick Drummon Barker's An Angler's Paradise.1

The present owners of Clifden House are Bernadette and Jim Robson, who found the place in an abandoned state thirty years ago and have been restoring it ever since, a daunting responsibility, given that one of their first tasks was to remove the 230 tons of broken stone that had once been the roof. Nowadays the Robsons take pay- ing guests, so it is possible to sit in the same room as Barker did and to breathe the same soft air of morning as you rig a rod to fish the loughs he made

so famous. It isn't often that you get the chance to live a little history, though admittedly in Ireland almost anything is possible.

For readers who are unfamiliar with the work, A n Angler's Paradise comes from the same literary stream that gave us The Erne: Its Legends and Fly Fishing (by Reverend Henry Newland, 1851) and The Practice of Angling (by James O'Gorman, 1845), and though it has never quite stood in the first rank of Irish angling literature, the title has always generated interest. The text recounts a series of fishing trips to Ireland undertaken by the author over a twenty-year period. An air of mystery has always clung to the work, not least because Barker concealed the location of the fishing by changing all the toponyms.

T H E A M E R I C A N F L Y F I S H E R

A n Angler's Paradise was published by Faber and Gwyer in 1929 and is an account of the author's experiences in Ireland, which he visited every year from about 1890 for approximately two decades. Barker was an American by birth, worked in London, and ventured over to Ireland for long fishing holidays each May and September. Although first editions are available from booksellers, there is a 2003 reprint available from the Flyfisher's Classic Library, with an intro- duction by Fred Buller, who is well known to readers of The American Fly Fisher. I have a copy of the original, a gift from Jim Robson, and to leaf through its pages is to travel back to days long gone and to stand again in the hall of the Gray House, hearing the steps of Patsey, the ghillie, ringing on the bare stone flags.

The story begins conventionally enough with the author's childhood in eastern Massachusetts, presents a few cameos of his angling experience as a child, then swiftly proceeds to Ireland. There is a caution that "there are no thrilling adventures, no very great fish, no moments of peril, no love interest beyond a deep love of sport and NatureY2 before Barker goes on to write a book full of adventure, big trout, big- ger pike, and at least two accounts of boating in wild storms, but he does keep his promise about the love interest. Then

Some of the gardens at Clifden House. "--I.)

Patsey's brother: and Tom Quinnd who

Arguably, it wasn't a smart move to choose such an alluring title to describe a secret paradise, and if the author's renaming of places, rivers, and loughs was any kind of smokescreen at all, it can't have fooled Irish readers for very long: the description of the landscape alone would have told them that the fishing lay to the west of the Shannon. After that, the most casual perusal of a map would have led a finger to the lakes at Corofin. As you drive into the village, the road signs proclaim it as an angler's paradise, although Barker might be sur- prised to see the type of visitor it receives today. In a way, his secret has survived, because until we made a chance discov- ery, the real names of many of the loughs mentioned in the book remained uncer- tain. But (demonstrating a proper Irish trait) I digress.

In late May 2003, Patrick Grove Annesley, David Burnett, and I (accom- panied by my wife, daughter, and two Labradors) journeyed to Corofin, partly because it is one of the few areas of Ireland we had not fished, partly because there was a mystery to solve, and partly because we wanted to see the Burren, one of the land's most beautiful land- scapes. Should any readers decide to fol- low in our footsteps, there is accommo- dation to suit every pocket and plenty to occupy the family while some serious fishing gets done. For American readers, Corofin has the decided advantage of being less than an hour from the Shannon airport, in a country where dis- tances are so deceptive that even after twenty years, I still have to multiply my original estimate by three to arrive at anything near a realistic enroute time. David Burnett considers afternoon tactics.

W I N T E R 2004

also ghillied for him from time to time. Barker's characterization is the weakest point of the book, and his portraits are

I anodyne at best. Next he acquaints us with his rod, which is "a greenheart fif- teen feet in length and as near a perfect balance as any I have ever had in my handy4 marking Barker as a traditional- ist in the days when the switch to single- handed bamboo was well under way- the author's would have been a double- handed rod. There is an account of how his friend Bob Trotter tried a rod of 11 feet and found it wanting, which Barker tells with some relish.5 The flies he used

The high street of Corofin. of which I write days do occur, now and then, when svort is almost incredibly good. But th; chances against a visit& happening to hit on such a day are very great, and one has not yet come my waf7 Barker inserted this to balance the stories, which create entirely the oppo- site impression.

And then the enigma. At the begin- ning of chapter three, just as the reader has worked up an insatiable appetite to visit this jewel of a place, Barker writes rather archly, "I regret it is denied me to tell you where Eden really is and how it is named on the map. If I were to do so, it would be Eden no longer. You might be all for taking tickets and trying to engage room^."^ None of the original place names appear in either the text or the maps. As I have already remarked, it wouldn't have confused an Irishman for long, but that is unlikely to have been the author's intention, given that trout fish- ing on the l ou~hs was hardlv the nation-

The limestone country of the Burren in County Clare. alYsport thenuthat it is now. It would, however. have thrown an English reader off the scent. This leads us ;o the first puzzle, because although the endpapers are in the form of maps, showing the principal villages, rivers, and lakes, it is tough reconciling them with the text; just try tracing a couple of Barker's boat journeys and you will see what I mean.

Lough Inchiquin from the top of the "mountain."

T H E A M E R I C A N FLY F I S H E R

1 When we arrived in Corofin, several pieces of the jigsaw were already in place. It has long been known that Clifden House is the Gray House; that Corofin is Kerra, the Junction is Ennis, and Lough Inchicrag is Lough Inchiquin; but our inquiries about the identities of the rest of the lakes drew a blank-we found no one confident enough to name more

than a couple. Given Barker's reticence, this seems understandable, but we hap- pened to sit down one evening with the book, a bottle of whislty, and the Shannon Fisheries Board leaflet for the region and redized that the disguise is much thinner thari is commonly sup- posed. Far from the maps being C M ~ - plete fantasy* as has been suggested to me more than once in idle conversation, they are a direct tracing of the outlines of the loughs, all of which are shown in their correct relative positions, dowing for -a s d amount of vertical compres- sion enforced by the format. It might seem surprising that this hasn't been noticed before, but when you bear in mind that the Irish Ordinance Survey of the area divides it m t l v into four and that few maps of 1rela;d show all the roads, let alone all the lakes, it becomes a little easier to understand why such an impression has arisen, The Shannon Board's helpful leaflet contains the only map I can recall that shows all the loughs without my extraneous detail, and it makes matching. Barker's fictional names to the real ones a trivial exercise. The only significant deviation from the Q d n a n e Survey on the endpaper map ig the transposition of Clifden House to the east side of the Fergus-a strange desisian, given that an angler standing on the east si& of 1nchiquin"s ~uiflow couldn't help but notice the building that lies barely a hundred yards away across the river. It is tempting to specu- late that the cartographer got so carried awa drawing trees and crags on the west b a d that he simply ran out of space for the house. Incidentallx don't get too car- rkd away with the idea of the "moun- tains'' Barker describes, because the highest point in Ireland is Corrin Tuathail, which though spectacular in

Lough Tullymacken.

II

A mayfly dun struggles on the water.

than the name might suggest. This exercise begs an interesting ques-

tion. If it Is so easy to identify the loughs using the endpapers, why did Barker let the publisher bind them in? It is difficult to provide a definitive answer, but it may lie in the delay between publication and the events the text relates. It is common- ly assumed that the story begins in approximately 1890, which would mean that Barker's last visit was in 1910 or so, at which time he had bought a cottage at Ballyline and had taken to describing himself as an old man. It is tempting to speculate that he never returned: war broke out in 19x4, and with it came the

A classic Inchiquin trout.

W I N T E R 2 0 0 4

first stirrings of revolution in Ireland, at that point under the rule of the British crown-two events that would have dis- couraged any travel that wasn't absolute- ly necessary. Barker must have been looking forward to going back after the Armistice was signed in 1918, but the Irish War of Independence broke out almost immediately, bringing further dangers to deter the casual visitor. The War of Independence had barely been won when a bloody civil war began, which, though it lasted barely ten months, was so divisive that the afteref- fects were still being felt years later and have sent ripples into modern times. Effectively, there was a ten-year period when Ireland would have been out of bounds to the author. Perhaps, like many

The map from the endpapers of An Angler's Paradise.

of his contemporaries, he was so dis- turbed by the Troubles that he never returned, in which case, his concern that hordes of visitors would descend on his other Eden had evaporated and he assented to publication of accurate maps, albeit with substitute toponyms. Another plausible explanation is that this crucial decade took an already old man beyond his active fishing years. Or maybe he finally realized that improvements in travel meant that it was impractical to keep his secret completely safe; after all, he was running into danger the moment he first set pen to paper. Whatever the explanation may be, if you use the table at right to substitute Barker's names on the endpapers, you have before you a functional map of the loughs.

Barker's Actual Lough Name Name Inchicrag Inchiquin Daun Atedaun Ballyportree Cullaun White Lakes Ballyeighter Namara George Courah Tdymackenl

Muckanah Nahinch Ballyteige Long Lake Dromore Ballyaar Ballyline Inchicoll Inchicronan Lake of Little Trout Ballyogan Ballymoher Ballycullinan Rath Raha

6 T H E A M E R I C A N FLY F I S H E R

Tullymacken trout.

The final conundrum surrounds the quality of the fishing itself. Visitors often remark either that Barker talked the fish- ing up a great deal, or that it must have gone downhill considerably since the book was written. I think we can acquit the man on the first charg+he made no bones about the fact that there were many slow or blank days. The accusation has its roots in the fact that Barker writes more about good trips than bad ones, but this is a feature common to every book of this kind-the literature would be much poorer if no one ever caught any fish. Yes, Barker does describe days that would be fabulous by modern Corofin standards, but they should be seen as his best memories of twenty years of angling. As to their truthfulness, I can testify to the fact that there are still some very large trout in the loughs.

The second charge is better aimed. The fishing has declined very consider- ably in places, but only comparatively recently-an angler visiting the lakes in the 1950s would have known much the same quality of sport as Barker did half a century before. The decline happened in the 1970s when changes in farming prac-

tices led to Loughs Inchiquin and Dromore, then the best lakes in the sys- tem, becoming eutrophic. Catches plunged, and despite a belated cleanup campaign, they have never returned to their original levels. It is something of a mystery why this should be so, because the water quality appears to be as good as it ever was, but the trouble may lie in the fact that the redds are no longer in good condition, and you may draw your own conclusions from the fact that the area is now promoted and managed more for pike, perch, rudd, tench, and bream than as a trout fishery. It is heart- breaking to see such a natural asset shorn of its former glory, and Barker would no doubt furrow his brow at the new generation of float tubers paddling around his beloved loughs; though as an enthusiastic pike fisherman, I am sure he would spare a moment to examine their tackle and tell them that they needed longer rods.

And yet. There are still some very good trout there, if you know where to look and fish well enough; this being the one part of Barker's code that cannot be broken-unless you are lucky enough to trout there for a lifetime. This May, we fished on one of the minor loughs and

saw a rise that continued into a heart- stopping roll that seemed to go on forev- er. None of us put the fish at an ounce less than 4 pounds, which would make it big even by Barker's standards, and if the ones we caught were anything to go by, that trout must have been in the most superb condition. As a bonus, I also took a pike of at least 6 pounds on a 5-weight fly rod, which was as exciting as you can imagine. But before you rush and make your bookings, let me warn you that Barker is right-there is easier fishing to be had elsewhere in Ireland, and if you go to Corofin, you must be prepared for blank days and the occasional fish. But when you do get a trout, you won't for- get the catching of it. And if you don't? Well, no real loss, because the other thing Barker was right about is that the lakes at Corofin are distractingly beauti- ful, pretty near to paradise, if such a thing is granted to us on this lonely planet. - E N D N O T E S

I. F. D. Barker, An Angler's Paradise (London: Faber and Gwyer Ltd., London, 1929).

2. Barker, 26. 3. Aiso spelled Quin. Like the signs, Barker has

it both ways. 4. Barker, 32. 5. Ibid., 33. 6. Ibid., 33; possibly fiery brown. 7. Ibid., 37. 8. Ibid., 39.

W I N T E R 2004

Those Captivating Classic Rods and Reels: An S. Allcock Story

by Edward Davis

A true and tried rod of graceful proportions and known excellence, which has been the faithful companion on many a jaunt by mountain stream, brawling river, on quiet lake, and has taken its part, and shared the victory in many a struggle with the game beauties of the waters, at last comes to be looked upon as a tried and trusty friend in which the angler reposes the utmost confidence and reliance, and which he regards with a love and affection that he bestows upon no other inanimate object.

-James Henshall, The Book of the Black Bass, 1881

And if the angler catches the fish with difficulty, then there is no man merrier than he is in his spirits.

-Dame Juliana Berners, A Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle, 1496

Photographs by the author

T H E A M E R I C A N FLY F I S H E R

The S. Allcock six-strip split-cane rod, circa 1938.

T H E F O L L O W I N G is part fishing story, part history of a now- defunct tackle manufacturer. My

Conway split-cane fly rod was made by the S. Allcock Company of Redditch in the county of Worcestershire, England, in approximately 1938. I received this rod as a gift in 1940, at the age of thirteen, and used it for more than fifty years to fish for large trout, landlocked salmon, smallmouth black bass, and red trout.

During my sixty-three years of fly fishing there are, at the very minimum, two dozen stories I could tell that include the use of this cane rod. I have selected one about Half Moon Lake because the trout in this deep post- glacial lake were the red trout of the southern Quebec watershed. The first quarter century of my experience with the rod included catch and release of the Salvelinus marstoni (red trout). My fish-

ing companions and I never retained more than the two-day legal possession catch in the provice of Quebec.

In this story, you will read about how the drama of the fishing changed abruptly from Saturday to Sunday. Sat- urday was a cold dull day. Sunday was a warm and sunny day. The S. marstoni always began their surface feeding after ice-out and when the sun began to warm the surface of the water. This beautiful subspecies of Arctic char was truly one of the special joys of fly fishing during the 1940s and 1950s. You will not read about the Allcock Conway model by name in this story, but I assure you, it was there.

Then I'll share a little history of the rodmakers whose rods and reels have become classic, as well as a bit of my own history and experience with their products.

My Laurentian mountain lake odys- seys are steeped in the tradition of the marstoni of the southern Quebec water- shed. As a young man, I enjoyed the companionship of family and close friends who had inherited the ways of the fly rod, as well as the rich legacy of their experiences.

I had been tying large slate-colored variants and bright attractor streamer flies the long wiLter of my fourteenth year. Anticipatory fever had reached its height. The trout season opened on April 15, and the paramount concern in the minds of my elders was water tem- perature and the possibility of ice on the lakes. Half Moon Lake lies in a region known for harsh winters, and snow is not unknown in mid-April. It is a land of

W I N T E R 2004 9

Frank Charles Sr. (left) and the author with a two-day legal (Qudbec) catch of red trout, circa 1952. The Salvelinus marstoni was named after

the British angler R. B. Marston, editor of Fishing Gazette, London.

breezy highlands, of gentle slopes, and forests untouched by the axe; of fresh cool mornings, the scent of pine and juniper, and the play-acting of mink, otter, and fox.

The exvedition was conceived in the mind of kank Snow, a family friend and business colleague of my father, Ted Davis. Frank was the water biologist of the group, as well as a man who could cast a fly with unbelievable accuracy, the softer rod of the day notwithstanding. Frank, Gilbert Wilding, my father, and I made up that late-April fishing party.

It was early Saturday morning, and the sun was partly obscured by the hori- zon and cumulus clouds. The heater in the car was set to maximum. The road was a rutted track made soft by recent spring thaws. The Oldsmobile rocked over what vassed for a not-so-level un- used farm crossing. A local farmer, known by one of the four members of our fishing party, had offered to garage

the car in his barn. We planned two days at Half Moon Lake, staying in a cabin on its shore. But it would require several hours of the first dav on foot to reach the deep postglacial lake nestled in the mountain terrain.

The farm could have been located by ear. I have not seen. before or since. so many golden retrievers in one fenced-in compound. The minute of our arrival coincided with feeding time. A cacopho- ny of barking greeted us as we stepped out of the car into the farmyard. We unloaded food, fishing gear, and other equipment. After coffee laced with cognac, at the invitation of the farmer, we started across fallow fields. Late A ~ r i l buds stirred in a light breeze on a row of cut-leaf mavle trees, which marked the perimeter o? the field.

The beginning of the trail was muddy and difficult, but passable. I shifted the weight of the 30-30 rifle under the crook of my left arm and skirted a pothole. My

three companions led the way in the early- morning silence. Perhaps their thoughts, like my anticipation, were centered upon the cold waters of the lake we would reach by late morning. The trail dried as we pro- ceeded to higher ground. Suddenly a squealing and scampering sound occurr- ed, and, through a cluster of oak trees, we sighted two bear cubs. We moved forward at a slower Dace and watched these two brownish-black animals scamper up a tree. They climbed with the alacrity of a chipmunk. "Keep a sharp eye for the mother bear," my father advised.

One of our group exclaimed a sight- ing of the lake. We proceeded down a long sharp descent to the shoreline, located the boat, removed the padlock, and, turning the boat upright, placed it in the water. The boat had been built on site and leaked. The water was a2 degrees

a " Fahrenheit. We could see the cabin on a rocky point across the lake. Paddling and bailing close to the shoreline, which was

10 T H E A M E R I C A N F L Y F I S H E R

The Allcock reel with snelled flies, 1930s.

also rocky, it occurred to me that Half Moon Lake resembled the appearance of a typical bass lake rather than a reposito- ry of the red trout.

That afternoon, following a sandwich lunch and with no visible rises on the lake, we tried a variety of flies. Frank caught one trout on a small streamer fly. The marstoni weighed exactly 1 pound, and I admired the bright small scarlet spots along its lateral line and its slender appearance with forked tail. The gill cov- ers were bronzed with an iridescent bluish cast. I watched Frank gently release the fish.

Our party, recapping postmortems around an after-dinner log fire, claimed

that it had tried everything in the fly books. No one in our party possessed nymph tyings during those days. Certainlv. that is. not flies consciouslv , , dressed to imitate nymphs. But wet flies and streamers had been tried at a varietv of depths. I had, as usual, spent consid- erable time hanging up flies in trees along the shoreline and losing streamers in underwater obstructions. With some further discussion, it was apparent that only two or three rising trout had been observed during the afternoon. The pos- sibilities, I reflected, were still good. The red trout has a proclivity to feed right after ice-out and when the sun begins to warm the surface of the water.

I slept sporadically because of the need to keep the fire going. It was bitter- ly cold during the night. If the trout were not feeding tomorrow, I would concen- trate on improving my double haul. I would fish flies that I had not used last year; had not used for years. I would practice roll casting from the bow of the boat. Wind whistled through spaces between the plank walls of the cabin. It was too early in the season for mosqui- t o ~ , and they could not hatch in this cold.

Sunday revealed a cloudless day. After shaving at the edge of the lake, I looked in the shallows at several places and saw a few minnows darting among

W I N T E R 2004 11

the rocks. The sun rose as we breakfast- ed, and we were on the water soon afterward. The air temperature was warming rapidly. Two of our group were in the boat; the other two mem- bers of the party were in a canoe that had been stored in the cabin. The takes were few at first, but as the water sur- face warmed, the situation developed into a surfeit of strikes for the fly fisher- men. The surface of the lake near the shoreline became a madhouse! I forgot about practicing the double haul and the roll cast. We caught and released trout after killing the legal limit. In those days the possession limit was two days legal catch in the Province of Qukbec. Almost every trout taken that Sunday weighed about 1 pound; they appeared to have been cloned.

The Allcock reel with its original box. Note the price at the top left corner of the reel box.

At 2:30 P.M. we headed back to the cabin to pack and store the canoe in- doors. I reflected about the unpredict- able nature of the feeding habits of trout. What had awakened these trout? Had the heat of the sun warmed the water to an extent to which minnow activity promulgated feeding? Almost every trout in the lake must have headed shoreward and chased minnows. It was a classic example of the value of the small streamer fly-in this case, the Harlequin.

We locked the cabin and paddled the boat back to the trail entrance. There were patches of snow on the ground among the trees where violets grew through thin wafers of ice. The shadows became longer as we hiked to the farm- house. I could hear the distant barking of golden retrievers.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE S. ALLCOCK COMPANY

In 1803, Polycarp Allcock founded what would become one of the largest fishing tackle manufacturing companies in the world. The company's home was at Redditch in Worcestershire, England. It was during 1803 that Polycarp Allcock commenced the manufacture of fish- hooks as a sideline to needle manufac- turing.

In 1829, a son, Samuel, was born, and at age ten he entered the business and began work for his father. Samuel matured during the Industrial Revo- lution, and his travels around Great Britain gave him the opportunity to see the potential market for rods and other tackle. It was Samuel who really extend-

1 2 T H E A M E R I C A N F L Y F I S H E R

ed the business and who introduced an early form of mechanization for making fly rods.

Although London's Great Exhibition of 1851 included displays of split-cane rods, they did not become popular at the time, probably because of a lack of qual- ity. However, fly rods came into favor when Allcock's and other manufacturers started producing them during the 1870s.

By 1879, Allcock's was one of the early makers producing the hexagonal split- cane rods. The company's catalog for the year 1881 illustrated both American and their own "Hexagonal Built or Split Cane Rods." Also offered were salmon rods made from hickorv. Allcock's trade- mark, which appeared on a considerable number of their fishing tackle, was a stag.

In the 189os, Allcock's opened a facto- ry at Murcia in Spain for the production of silkworm gut. This product supplied markets all over the world.

During 1884, Samuel Allcock took two sons-in-law into partnership. They were Alfred Williams and G. E. Leach. In 1902, a third son-in-law, Schrimpton, also joined the company and eventually became chairman and managing direc- tor when Samuel died in 1910.

Allcock's sold more than 140 reel models, often with variations df each reel, during its last century of trading. The Aerial reels were the most successful products they marketed. Today these reels are collected and used throughout the world.

At the outbreak of World War 11, pro- duction of tackle ceased, and a misguid- ed decision was made to store all tooling and dies in Birmingham. That city suf- fered some of the heaviest bombing. and ",

all production materials were destroyed. A procession of company mergers

ensued, and eventually this famous name disappeared.

A SHORT HISTORY O F THE

The S. Allcock Conway model fly rod was made from split Tonkin (more cor- rectly Tsinglee) cane. It was a three-piece fly rod with an extra tip and fitted with snake guides. One tip guide was lined with agate; the other rod tip guide was lined with garnet. This feature served to protect the fly line from friction and, hence, excessive wear. The Conway rod was finished a light brown with scarlet windings, as illustrated in the pho- tographs on pages 8 and 9.

The reel seat had a black finish and uplocking with a screw thread. The black finish prevented flashing from sunlight. The Conway model weighed about 6 ounces. I used this fly rod for large trout, landlocked salmon, and sinallmouth black bass for more than fifty years.

During the i97os, my Conway rod required refinishing. The work was done by John Palmer, a well-known Canadian builder of six-strip fly rods. Only the worn snake guides were replaced. The original color windings were used, and the rod was dip-varnished to its original color.

A suverb flv rod to work with has a numbe; of definable characteristics. When casting and moving the point of the rod forward, the tip of the Conway rod would return quickly to the straight position without vibration. There was no vibration in the vertical or horizontal plane. The Conway model was rather more stiff than limber, ensuring the per- formance of what is sometimes termed a "dry-fly action." The rod was flexible enough for accuracy in close work, yet stiff enough to assist the caster's arm when distance casting was required.

The fly line is integral to the rod. The first two silk fly lines I used were desig- nated as HEG and HDG. It was 1941, however, at Abercrombie & Fitch in New York City, that I obtained a silk line, which initiated the best action for this cane rod. The line size was designated as

an HCF-the equivalent of a w ~ 7 today. By 1962, the American Fishing Tackle Manufacturers' Association (AFTMA) had adopted the numerical designation standard.

During the years that followed, I learned that this Allcock fly rod func- tioned equally well with a w ~ 7 or a DTS line, with 30 feet or more fly line in the air. The W F ~ line became the line of choice on the Allcock Popular fly reel, illustrated in the photograph on this page and on page 12. This trout reel, with regular maintenance. was reliable over a " period of many decades. It was designat- ed no. c753 with a 31-inch spool. This combination of rod and lightweight reel, with its capacity for adequate backing, provided for a reservoir of pleasures on lake and stream. - BIBLIOGRAPHY

For a history of S. Allcock and Company, see G. Turner, Fishing Tackle: A Collector's Guide (London, 1989). Information courtesy of Tohi1 A. Moldenhauer, Ph.D., president of Rising Trout Sporting Books, Box 247, Hanover, Ontario, Canada, N ~ N 3c4.

For more detail about the red trout, see Ed Davis, "The Red Trout: Profile of a Rare Gamefish during the 1930s in Quebec," The American Fly Fisher (vol. 12, no. I), Winter 198j,ii-13.

The Allcock reel.

W I N T E R 2004 13

Where Are the Flies of Yesteryear? An Essay with Interlinear Commentary

by Gordon M. Wickstrorn

Displayed o n a vintage package of si lkworm g u t leader, these fly patterns represent some of the classics of the previous century.

J UST RECENTLY a friend, in a fine fit of devotion to the past, wondered out loud what had happened to the

old flies we had all loved and fished, say, around 1940. Why couldn't we still use them? Wouldn't they be as effective now as they ever were? What happened?

It's a good question. What happened, I believe, is that the

change in trout flies over the past centu- ry and a half from presentational artifice to representation of the natural-of which we are all aware-took place as a result of the same historical-cultural

This essay will be included in Gordon Wiclistrom's new book, Late in an Angler's Life, which will appear this winter from the University of New Mexico Press and is published here through their courtesy.

pressures and ideas that affected the rest of our evolving, sometimes revolution- ary, society.

In my last days before going off to World War 11, I worried about my flies that had to be put aside for "the dura- tion." I put them in mothballs and tight containers, and provided every other security I could think of.

Here's a catalog of the old flies from which mine were selected: Rio Grande King; Western Bee; Captain; Coachmun; Royal Coachman; Lead- Winged Coachman; Cowdnng; Blne Bottle; Jock Scott; Silver Doctor; Wickham's Fancy; McGinty; Greenwell's Glory; Blue Quill; Ginger Quill; Black Gnat; the Gray Hackles: yellow, red, green, and peacock; Grizzly King; Gold- Ribbed Hare? Ear; White Miller; Yellow

Sally; Badger Palmer; Blue Dun; Call'farnia Hackle; the Brown Hackles: peacock, red, and yellow; Flight's Fancy; Professor; Pink Lady; Mosquito; Montreal; Queen of Waters; King of Waters; Red Ant; Black Ant; March Brown; Cahills, light and dark; Rube Wood; Red Ibis; Governor; Parmachene Belle; Blne Upright; Whirling Blne Dun; Warden's Worry; Willow; Dusty Miller; Seth Green; Deer Fly; Iron Blue Dun; Mormon Girl; Mister Mite and family: Sandy, Buddy, Dina, and Lady-and the Major Pitcher. When in 1946 I had lived to open up

my cache of flies for the first postwar season, I found them curiously disap- pointing. They didn't have the same hold on my imagination as they had before I went awav.

Something new was in the air. Everything seemed on the edge of

14 T H E A M E R I C A N F L Y F I S H E R

T h e earliest representation of angling, c. 2000 B.C. Reproduced i n Wi l l iam Radcli f fei Fishing from Earliest Times (London, John Murray, 1921, J p . 314).

change, and my dear old flies looked somehow "old fashioned," though I would then have been hard put to explain why. I could not have guessed back then what seems quite apparent to me now: that trout flies and their devel- opment came under the same pressures and influences as every other aspect of our lives, and that the course of the trout fly in the twentieth century reflects and parallels the intellectual and cultural his- tory of that tumultuous time.

Many of the flies that I had stored away for "the duration" were traditional wets because where I grew up in the West, we were an old wet-fly culture. Their range. as in the list above. was con- " , siderably more limited than the spectac- ular array of national wet fly patterns found in the painted plates of Ray Bergman's influential Trou t (1938). Perhaps, among those hundreds of mostly fancy Bergman flies, the Royal Coachman best illustrates the old-fly type. This American development from the Coachman of English origin is a model of the type considered the con- ventional "wet fly": all peacock, red, fiery brown, and white, with a tail of various material. It's probably the most famous of all flies in North America and was common to almost every old fly book.

Now to the matter of fly types, old and new. I'd like to discuss them accord- ing to a four-part abstract: form, materi- al, inspiration, and use. What can we say first about the old order of flies accord- ing to these categories?

Form: The flies were traditional and conventional; that is to say that in phys- ical shape they were all pretty much

alike, had been around for a very long time, were widely accepted, and bore only incidental connection, here and there, with natural insects.

Material: The flies were tied from what we might call imperial stuffs, from all over the world, made possible by the imperial hegemony of Britain and America. These materials were often lux- urious, exotic, and expensive-beautiful feathers, furs, and hair for the greater glory of ladies' hats and trout and salmon flies.

Inspiration: The inspirations for these flies were rather more limited: they were academic and circumscribed by authority not unlike the great academies in nineteenth-century Europe that sought to protect language, art, and cul- ture from corrupting innovation.

Use, or utility: Their use was reflexive; that is, they had to be useful within the convention, the tradition. Seemingly numberless patterns were invented, but within the convention, few outside it. The proper use of a proper fly was to be a proper fly.

On this side of the Atlantic, the old flies worked particularly well in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic states for the native brook trout who never-or hardly ever-turned a blind eye on the fancy, the pretty, and the colorful. These flies were part and parcel of a lingering romantic inspiration.

Truth to tell there were those few stapleflies, subversives in the ranks of the old fancies, which suggested the real thing by virtue of their subdued and "natural" colors. They took lots of fish. I'd nominate the Ginger Quill for a leader in that pack. The seeds of change had been planted

long before I waded in after my war. The change had begun, in fact, in the shank of the nineteenth century and the late romantic period with such pivotal fig- ures as that hard-fishing William C. " Steward, who proposed in 1857 that we work uvstream to a aosition behind or below a' fish, out of iis line of sight, and cast upstream over it. Essential to this revolutionary idea was the need for flies of a new type. And so began the end of the time-honored, across-and-down- stream, cast-and-drag of old flies inher- ited from the Treatvse of 1496. and later ,, ,

from Izaak Walton's dear companion Charles Cotton. down to those of Marv Orvis Marbury, and, in the mid-last cen- tury, Ray Bergman.

But fishing, fly fishing especially, has always moved slowly indeed, cherishing its old ways and resisting the new. It's remarkable how few and how slow have been the fundamental changes since the " first image of rod fishing in that famous Egyptian drawing of zoo0 B.C. (see above illustration).

Yet from the mid-nineteenth century on, something really new in Western cul- ture and intellectual life was stalking the old ways of thinking, seeing, and doing. Modernism was looming over every aspect of our cultural lives. If Modern- ism meant anything, and it was begin- ning to mean everything, it was a speed- up in all things, even changes in fly fish- ing. The full brunt of the new movement was felt suddenly and with history- changing force at the "scandalous" Armory Show in New York in 1913. The radical paintings shown there, which so profoundly shocked the "academy" and

W I N T E R 2004 15

A plate, of classic fly patternsfram Ray Bergman's Trout.

outraged public taste, would change for- ever how we would look at and value aesthetic objects, social and political life, even reality itself.

Dadistpainter Marcel Duchamp's infamous and wonderful Nude Descending a Stair- case tended to sum up the experience of the show and incite to near riot.

Nothing would escape Modernism's fierce analysis. Not even the trout fly could escape the powerful vortex of its influence.

And, following hard upon the Armory

Show was the First World War, with its unspeakable horror, universal disillu- sionment, and despair. Young men were forced to put away their flies for the duration of that war, too. In England, nearly an entire generation of young men never saw their flies again. In the face of disaster on this scale, something had to change!

Change, both for better and worse, did take place-and fast. Reform of the trout fly, like everything else, accelerated greatly in the barely thirty years between 1918 and 1948, from the end of onp

immense war to another. While most anglers, especially out West, in, let us say, 1940, were happily using their heavy gut straps of two reliable old wet flies, in the greater world the integrity of those very flies was already being undermined, even before the "Great War."

I can only list the most influential of those who changed the fly. Suffice it to say that Frederic M. Halford, as early as the 18g0~, had defined the new floating fly in England. G. E. M Skues followed Halford, reimagining the sunk fly and inventing the nymph on the same

T H E A M E R I C A N FLY P I S H E R

From the collection of Gordon Widistrorn

These are examples of laterfly tying from the author's collection.

English waters. Theodore Gordon was doing his important work on the American dry fly in the Catskills, work that others such as Art Flick would bring to fruition. At midcenturv. Tames , , Leisenring in Pennsylvania was working his own magic on nymphs and wets with precisely selected materials and an acute attention to translucence and texture. Also in Pennsylvania, Vincent Marinaro would do his important work on terres- trial insect patterns and "discover" the hidden hatch, the Tricorythodes, that would lure us away from our old size 8s, los, and 12s, through the smaller 14S, 16s, and 18s-and most importantly down to size 20,22, and 24! This relentless down- sizing of our flies was crucial. and its

U

importance cannot be overestimated. The tiny hooks left the old flies stranded.

When I read Marinaro in 195.2, I immedi- ately tied some of his size 24 Jassids, took them up the South Fork of the Shoshoni River, and made fools of those browns.

And yet another Pennsylvanian, Ed Koch, came along in the 1960s to tell us how trout feed heavily on minuscule midges. He developed dressings for- and promoted them as essential to-any

well-appointed fly box of the new dis- pensation. Who would have thought that these wretched little creatures- these inconsequential, annoying midget insects-were a primary food for trout! We called them "gnats" in the old days and wanted only to shoo them away.

A decade earlier, artist-angler John Atherton proposed an elegant theory for an effective new series of flies. Impres- sionism, in which reflected, not inciden- tal, light was the secret of the brilliant life of those paintings, was the working prin- civle in Atherton's radiant flies. And in the present moment, John Betts, a leading innovator. has discovered and introduced many remarkable synthetic materials to fly tyers. Their wide and innovative use has brought on immense and exciting changes in fly design.

In general, then, duck slip wings were coming off the traditional flies. Trans- lucent and reflective materials, natural and synthetic, were replacing opaque silks, wools, chenilles, and duck slip wings. Hackles were thinning down "just enough" (except in some attractor dry flies). Flies were getting "buggier" and more effective. And. not to be over- looked are ultralight, strong nylon tip-

vets down to 8x and hooks down to size 28. They have played a decisive role in the changeover to the new flies.

The oG flies, of that now antique type, carried within them the seeds of their own demise.1 As we continued to fish our tandem two wet flies mostly across and downstream in the old pre-Steward manner, we were slow to realize that the flies themselves were too big, too coarse, often too flamboyant, too often modeled upon prevailing commercial examples- too generally unlifelike for our trout, who were wising up to the old stuff.

I knew a commerc~al tyer of wetflies back in the 1930s who winged every pattern with duck primary slips and trtmmed them into an absolutely regular back-sweep shape. To those of us who knew no better, they looked really neat. And they were two for a quarter. Those trout, for whatever genetic,

evolutionary, behavioral scientific rea- son, were growing steadily more selec- tive, warier, more easily put down, and reauired more careful stream tactics from the angler, who could no longer be so casual about fishing. Countless trout were now being caught and released repeatedly; and though they are crea- tures of "little brain," still they can

W I N T E R 2004 17

Erolu the collection of the Amrrlcan Museum of Fly Fashine

A sampling of some snelledjlies as they hang f rom a dryer, displayed w i th a period spool of thread, varnish, and scissors.

learn-especially with the constant from the given type of old fly headed lot of the hackle in the same operation, and, opportunity to get a lesson from the now toward the new. When I dress a Rio my good Lord, did he catch fish on that and endless numbers of us stomping through Grande King on a size 20 hook, it's no a ~ e l l o ~ - ~ ~ l l i e d gray hackle!Neither he nor their riffles. longer the same creature as the size lo I I knew thefi"t thing about thoraxes and the

Some argue that if we would dress the used when I began throwing flies in 1938. anatomy of insects.

old flies on smaller hooks, dress them Anglers are conservative and slow to W e n I was a kid, a neighbor, Nick Shons, change, but they won't reject a killing fly lightly and fish them lighter a the emes i s of t o in Boulder r e . pattern. And so, if evidence is needed for tippets, they would still work on selec- take a new Grande King with its

tive trout. No doubt that's true. But no white duck quill wing and chew that wing the demise of the old fly type, a peep into doubt also that those flies tied in that down to a mere nubbin o f a thorax ahead of the fly boxes of the contemporary angler, "new" way would be a transformation the black chenille body. ~ e ' d then chew o f f a or into the endless little compartments

of flies for sale in the fly shops, and into the commercial catalogs will prove the point. If the painted plates in Bergman's Trout are the measure of the old order of things (see the illustration on page 16), let the lavish photographs of new flies in the U m p q u a Enflycopedia2 stand as the measure of the present dispensation. The long-argued tensions between paint and photography in art would, in fact, seem to suggest similar tensions between the old and the new flies.

The flies of the new type have taken on many forms, with a representative shape or form for each of the major aquatic insects: for mayflies, for caddis, for stoneflies, and midges (nymph, emerger, and dry). This is to say nothing of the renditions of countless land insects, crustacea, minnows, even fish eggs of the stream.

On top of all that, it proved a bold and productive move in fly fishing clearly to admit the distinction between flies sug- gesting actual insects and the spectacular attractor flies that suggest who-knows- what and a little bit of everything-even chunks of fish flesh. These invaluable patterns, and the principle behind them, got up their head of steam in the 1950s in the northwest part of the country and never looked back.

This development has cleared the field for entomology of the actual aquatic insects to move in and claim its essential place in our angling. We wanted to know this mayfly from that one and to under- stand the life cycle of the caddis. Where we used to see only mosquitoes and gnats and maybe anant , tohay we can recite, even in Latin, dozens of midges, a dozen or more mayflies, all the stone- flies. and who knows how manv caddis varieties. Hard evidence that the new angler rejoices in amateur entomology for the fishing day is, again, his fly boxes, with, for instance, row upon row of exquisitely arrayed tiny midge larvae patterns. Even we old-timers now have something of a love affair with those insects that trout love. It was the noted Ernest Schwiebert and his Matching the Hatch (1950) who produced the first American fly fisher's entomology. He deserves the lion's share of credit for inciting this new and now basic concern u

of every serious angler. Nature has come barging into our fly

boxes: that's all there is to it. And where we draw the line-or the space in our boxes-between nature and our never- seen-before attractor flies is a matter of keenest interest to each of us. We have all of us become technicians of the new fly and of the trout stream.

What, then, is the new fly type accord- ing to the four-part abstract of form, material, inspiration, and use?

In Form: The flies are improvisation- al. No holds are barred. Tvers invent endlessly, but of primary concern is the imitation of trout foods. In Material: Materials now come from protected environments, both wild and commercial, and are greatly augmented by synthetics. In Inspiration: Nature, science, and virtuoso tying are the spirit of the thing. In Use: The primary use of the new flies is to catch fish, to match the hatch, and to display the craft.

One of the powerful ideas of the last century was that of the gestalt, a concept that emerged from the Bauhaus in Germany before Hitler suppressed it. Gestalt translates out that form follows function, that the shape of a thing (its form) depends upon how and for what it's used. This was to become a controlling idea in the new fly tying: catching fish.

By the heyday of the Bauhaus in the 193os, Modernism had swept the field in aesthetics, thought, and every walk of life-even svorts, for that matter. The

L .

pleasant romanticism of our old fishing was fast disappearing in favor of the sci- entific, pragmatic, empirical, and "tech- nical." The old fixed idea of a fly, dragged along on a heavy gut snell, no longer had any credit.

As noted above, the new flies moved farther and farther away from the old forms. Thev tended to use less and less material, became simpler and simpler, duller and duller (even in their names)-one might say they became minimalist.

I a m told and believe that wise trout are to be caught on a small bare hook, sometimes painted, and most likely suggesting a midge larva. This may be as far as minimalism can go. I'm reminded of Samuel Beckett's late plays, which distilled the theatrical event down to a bare hook. Where can anglers-or actors-go from there?

All this suggests movement beyond the modern toward the postmodern, a set of mind at once more skevtical. susvicious.

A , L

and analytic, and yet almost playful, cer- tainly debunking, playing alarming varia- tions on themes and inventing new ones. The postmodern critic, with a blast-off of energy from the counterculture move- ment of the 1960s, is generally scornful of the past and what is seen as its record of conspiracy on behalf of white, male, straight Europeans-but not so foolish as

to disregard it entirely. Please do read or re-read Richard Brauti- gun's crazy-brilliant little novel Trout Fishing in America (New York: Dell, 1967) as a wild and compelling way to live in a radically dangerous time and find its mean- ing in trout fishing. If the author could not survive it, the reader can.

The postmodern impulse in our lives, almost in spite of itself, has sought appropriate places in art and thought in which to maintain what it treasures from the past. I'm thinking now especially of vostmodernism in architecture. in hhich established motifs of the past are recalled not in the engineering of struc- ture, but as formal ideas, decoration, and detail, often quite playfully, a sort of tribute to the past of which many of us old-timers remain fond.

So, and finally, that question in the title: W h e r e are the flies of yesteryear? Unlike the snows of yesteryear, we have seen that trout flies responded, like everything else, to the historical, cultur- al, and intellectual pressures and urocesses of their times. from the romantic, to the modern, through wars and rumors of wars. on to the vostmod- ern. The old flies disappeared at stream- side, almost forgotten, certainly out of fashion and outmoded for catching trout; but the postmodern idea took them up again and found them a worthy place in our greater angling lives where they remain as singular objects of art and devotion. They hook us affection- ately into our past where they can be remembered, studied, and treasured in dedicated museums. svecimen collec- , L

tions, in frames on walls, in books and luxurious magazines. and in the ritual " exercises of memory of those of us old enough to have used them and. when u

their time came, to have given them up. - E N D N O T E S

1. The only effort that I know of to study the relative popularity of fly patterns over time as recorded in manufacturers' records of actual sales to anglers is that of Arthur H. Carhart in his near- ly forgotten, but still valuable, Fresh Water Fishing (New York: Barnes, 1949). The estimable Carhart published lists of twelve most-purchased flies, first for 1892, then 1935 and 1947 These lists show a marked movement toward the popularity of flies that suggest nature.

2. The Urnpqua Enflycopedia is a complimenta- ry publication of at least one thousand current flies as developed by leading fly tyers and offered for sale by Umpqua Feather Merchants. Among the one thousand, I could find only about a dozen to represent the old order.

W I N T E R 2004 19

R E M I N I S C E N C E S --

Edward R. Hewitt: The Last Renaissance Man Pharmacist, Organic Chemist, Engineer, Inventor, Writer, Entomologist, Fish Biologist, Fish Hatchery Expert, Advisor to Francisco Franco on Spanish Salmon Fishing, and One of the Leading Fly Fishermen of His T ime

by H. Lenox H. Dick

T HE STORY OF MY MEETING Edward R. Hewitt begins in 1947. I was just out of the U.S. Army Medical

Corps and was a resident physician at the Guthrie Clinic in Sayre, Pennsyl- vania, which was an offshoot of the Mayo Clinic, but not directly connected with it. Many prominent people stayed at the clinic for several days for an annu- al checkup. Two of these were Mr. Hewitt's daughter, Candace, and her husband, Gordon Stevenson. Dr. Donald Guthrie, for whom the clinic was named, knew of my passion for fly fishing. Consequently, when Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson finished their checkups, Dr. Guthrie invited me to spend a day with them fishing a section of a small trout stream he owned near the clinic. Mrs. Stevenson was the fly fisher of the two; her husband was an artist.

I had read many of Mr. Hewitt's books on fly fishing for trout and salmon and was thrilled to have a chance to talk to the great man's fly-fishing daughter. She was a charming person, a delight to talk to, and obviously knew a great deal about the science of fly fishing. She showed me her father's Neversink Creek flies, and I showed her the typical ones used on the Deschutes and McKenzie rivers in Oregon. I had a marvelous time talking with her.

In 1948, I was chief resident at the New York Medical School's Internal Medicine Service at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. One lunch period I suddenly met Mrs. Stevenson in the cafeteria. Naturally I asked what brought her there. "We have Father here," she told me. He is one of Dr. la Chappel's patients." The chief of service, my boss, was Clarence de la Chappel, a famous cardiologist. Just at that moment I received a call to go to room 623. Mrs. Stevenson said, "That's Father's room."

I could not have been more excited and felt like the village priest who is sud- denly asked to take care of the pope. There were several of Mr. Hewitt's books

in my office. I very quickly outlined to Mrs. Stevenson that I would give Mr. Hewitt a complete physical examination. His therapeutic orders and tests would be written by Dr. la Chappel.

I went to his room and sitting there upright was Mr. Hewitt. He was about 5 feet, 8 inches in height, stockily built, moderately overweight, and pleasant appearing. I introduced myself and he returned my greeting graciously. I went over him quickly and called Dr. la Chappel, who dictated his orders based on my findings. Mr. Hewitt recovered from his heart problems promptly. He was, however, confined to his room for the next five days. He was obviously very bored with his forced stay. I sloughed off as much of mv work as I could to the assistant residents and interns. Mr. Hewitt and I went fishing in his room. We spent most of our time reading water. I made crude sketches in my Hewitt's Handbook of Fly Fishing during these sessions. Shortly after he left the hospital, he invited me for dinner at his house.

Hewitt lived in a small, three-story, old brownstone house in Gramercy Park, squeezed between two tall apart- ment buildings. The interior was Victorian with many beautiful antiques. There was no attempt to have any of the so-called modern decor of the 1920s or 1930s. His wife, Mary Ashley Hewitt, was a charming gray-haired lady who, in my mother's description of such women, was "to the manor born."

At dinner Mr. Hewitt wanted to talk about his health problems, whereas I was anxious to talk about fly fishing. He won, of course, so I discussed all aspects of his health. The meal, served by a maid, was delicious. No wonder Mr. Hewitt was overweight.

After dinner, Mr. Hewitt invited me to go up to the third floor to his shop. We climbed the stairs to the second floor. Then Mr. Hewitt reached up to a rope with a knob on it, pulled down a set of

steep stairs with rope rails that led to his attic shov. I looked at the steevness of the stairs, plus the rope rails, and I thought it would make an impossible barrier for Mr. Hewitt. I decided to wait until he either fell backward down the stairs or made it to the top. If I were directly behind him when he fell, it would be bad for both of us. With much huffing, puffing, and grunting, he made it uv the stairs. I followed him ravidlv. L ,

His shop was actually a combination machine shov and laboratorv. There was a bewildering combination of ovens, lathes, bench saws, chemical reagents, and lots more that I cannot remember. He showed me some plastic that he talked about making into a fly reel. He grunted, "Modern fly reels are no damn good."

In the course of my being shown about the shop, I asked, "Would you please show me some of the trout and salmon flies you have tied?"

He handed me a box. Miracle of mir- acles! Joy of joys! They were as poorly but sparsely tied as mine. If he could catch trout and salmon with flies like these, then I had nothing to be ashamed of. After quite a long time in his shop, just before I departed, he invited me to come and fish the Neversink with him. I never saw him again. We did not fish the Neversink River together; I was too shy to call him and remind him of his invi- tation.

There was no auestion that he was arrogant and opinionated. I have heard that many members of the Anglers' Club of New York thought he was conceited. I instinctivelv liked him and feel that this phase of his character should be called "very self-assured."

A secondhand story I heard about him: Hewitt went to Scotland to fish for Atlantic salmon and was skunked. The Anglers' Club of New York figuratively stood up and cheered.

m

20 T H E A M E R I C A N FLY F I S H E R

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WINTER 2004 21

H a p p y f a ~ u at the Philadelphia dinner/auction (18 to rgght): Joanie Brenton, Aleta iznnell, Mark Lukenda, Bob Moser, John Richards and John Richards IIZ,

zoo3 Fall DinnerIAuctions Philadelphia. This year's Philadelphia

dinnerlauction was hosted by Eleanor Peterson and the folks at Radnor Hunt in Malvern, Pennsylvania, on September 25. The event kicked off our fall fund- raising season in style!

Thanks to the hard work and dedica- tion of our committee members, the evening was a resounding success. This group pulled together a strong, albeit unusual, auction for us. In a live-auction first, all of the offerings were trips, both day trips and overnight outings. Our sincere thanks go to committee chair Lynn Hitschler and committee members Dr. Jane Griffith, Pat Harner, Ted McKenzie, Lynn Norley, Eleanor Peterson, Lee Pierson, and Jay Tolson. Additional thanks go to the Delaware Valley Women's Fly Fishing Association and the Anglers' Club of Philadelphia for providing the table wine for the evening.

Our hats off also to our auction donors: Roy Chapin, Peter Corbin, Dr.

Jane Griffith, Mary Kuss, Ted McKenzie, Michael Osborne, James Prosek, and Dr. Ernest Schwiebert.

Hartford. On November 1, we ven- tured back to the Avon Old Farms Inn. Sixty guests enjoyed the inn's hospitality and were generous in their support of the Museum. The raffle increased a bit in size this year, as did the silent auction. Many items in the silent auction were solicited by our committee, with a few extra goodies thrown in by the Museum. We received numerous welcome compli- ments on both.

The live auction had six day-trip or weekend excursions, including a round of golf for four at the Golf Club of Avon, a Christmastime luncheon for two at the Anglers' Club of New York with John Mundt Jr., and a midweek Manchester, Vermont, getaway with lodging provided by the Equinox Resort and Spa. Other noteworthy items included a Heritage Spey rod, kindly donated by Phil Castleman, and a set of Beaverkill prints that accompanied the book Land of Little

Rivers: A Story in Photographs of Catskill Fly Fishing, donated by David Foley.

We are indebted to our dinner chair John Mundt Jr. and committee members Jerry Bannock, E. Arroll Borden, Phil Castleman, David Egan, David Foley, Larry Johnson, Richard Kane, Steve Massell, R. Tracy Page, Bill and Marie Pastore, Roger Plourde, Vincent Ring- rose, and Ed Ruestow. The committee- most of them auction donors them- selves-did an outstanding job this year (as always!) of soliciting items for the dinner and for bringing friends and fel- low anglers to the table. Thank you one and all.

A hearty cheers! to our auction donors: John Betts, Bistro Henry, Phil Castleman and Castle Arms, William Chandler, Jack Coyle, Robert Demarest, the Equinox Resort and Spa, David Foley, Richard Kane, Tony Lyons and the Lyons Press, John Marona, John Mundt Jr., the Orvis Company in Avon, R. Tracy Page, George Pardee, Roger Plourde, Ed Ruestow, Jack Smola, and Karl Van Valkenburgh.

22 T H E A M E R I C A N FLY F I S H E R

Back in Print by Popular Demand!

$29 a 95 plus shipping

Call (802) 362-3300

A Treasury of Reels Available once again from the American Museum of Fly Fishing, A Treasury of

Reels chronicles one of the largest and finest public collections of fly reels in the world. Brought together in this richly diverse and popular book, which includes more than 750 reels spanning nearly two centuries of British and American reel- making, are antique, classic, and modern reels; those owned by presidents, enter- tainers, novelists, and angling luminaries; and reels owned and used by everyday anglers.

Accompanied by Bob 07Shaughnessy's expert photography, author Jim Brown details the origins of this fascinating piece of technology, from a 13th-century Chinese painting depicting a fisherman using a rod and reel to later craftsmen like Vom Hofe, Billinghurst, and Leonard.

Out of print for almost ten years, A Treasury of Reels is a must-have for collec- tors and enthusiasts alike. It can be ordered for $29.95, plus postage and han- dling, either through our website at www.amff.com or by contacting the Museum at (802) 362-3300. Proceeds from the sale of this book directly benefit the Museum.

W I N T E R 2004 23

LIIC l l C W l y IF.Il"VLLLLU I*laC.I"lUIICI, L\CUI I I I

in Healdsburg, California, on November 15. The Gallo family purchased the prop- erty a few years ago and has set about renovating each building on the acreage, as well as producing some fine wine from its grapes. We ate dinner in the barn where Fred MacMurray kept horses dur- ing his lifetime. As our guests checked in, there were gasps to be heard and a few wows to boot, mirroring our own initial reaction to the redone interior.

During cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, our guests had the opportunity to cast antique bamboo rods from the Muse- um's teaching collection out on the lawn, bid on our silent auction, and preview the live auction merchandise. When it came time for dinner, our forty guests sat Tuscan style around one very large table and feasted on the terrific food provided by Park Avenue Caterer; wines from Gallo of Sonoma, MacMurray Ranch, and Murphy-Goode were a few of the potable delights we sampled. At dinner we were also treated to com- ments and thoughts by Fred's daughter Kate MacMurray, who shared a bit about what life was like growing up on the farm and its history.

With no natural lighting in the barn, we had gas lamps hanging from the beams. We believe it was our first time holding an auction by candlelight. The new ambiance worked out weu-it was our best winery event ever from a fundraising standpoint. The live auction was spirited, to say the least, with some folks competing heavily against each other for the winning bid. Museum Executive Director Gary Tanner acted as auctioneer, and he had as much fun con- ducting the auction as our guests did participating in it.

There were many new faces at the din- ner, mostly courtesy of committee mem- ber Ed Beddow, who rallied sixteen of his friends to the dinner and, shortly after the dinner, e-mailed me and said "Darn-had four more we should have had there. Please add them to next year's mailing list." Some folks trekked across the country for this dinner: Trustee David Nichols came from Maine to join his friend Ed Hope, himself flying in from Hawaii, and Scott and Carol Patten came all the way from Colorado. We'd like to raise our glasses to all who attend- ed and express our gratitude for their incredible suvvort.

Eleanor Peterson, our host at Radnor Hunt, shares a moment with Pat Harner. Diana Siehold

Phil Castleman, Dick Bell, and Roger and Pierrette Plourde join fellow anglers at our annual Hartford dinner-and yes, this table was having

just as much fun as was caught "on tape"!

Cheers al&-go to dinner chair Roger Riccardi and committee members Committee member Ed Beddow (with his back to the camera), along with Edward Beddow and Jon Rosell. And, as sixteen of his angling friends, joins other guests at the MacMurray Ranch always, a very special thanks to our auc- for what was a superb meal, setting, and auction for the Museum.

24 T H E A M E R I C A N FLY F I S H E R

Dinner chair and Trustee Roger Riccardi holds a 3-liter bottle of zinfandel at the zoo3 annual winery dinner/auction at MacMurray Ranch. Turns out Roger was the win-

ning bidder and shared the bottle with our guests. Thank you, Roger, and cheers!

tion donors: Alexander Valley Vineyards, zine articles that featured him and salt- R. Valentine Atkinson, John Betts, Gallo water fly fishing. of Sonoma, Dr. Jane Griffith, the Lyons George Angstadt of Philadelphia, Press, Martini Vineyard, Dennis and Pennsylvania, donated three William Katie Murphy ancl Murphy-Goode Winery (who supplied 2001 fum6 blanc for our dinner), Roger Riccardi, and Dave Van Winkle.

-DIANA SIEBOLD

Recent Donations Nathaniel Reed of Winter Harbor,

Maine, donated ten Moise River salmon flies tied by Megan Boyd. Bill Adams of Cambridge, New York, gave us a lo-foot, three-piece, eight-strip bamboo fly rod made by New York rodmaker C. B. Fitz- Maurice, c. 1880-1895. Charles M. Harden of Barnstable, Massachusetts, donated a framed plate of flies painted by Austin Hogan.

Barry Serviente of Plainfield, Pennsylvania, sent us "Come Fish With Me" (Battenkill Production, 1975): a set of six records featuring stories written and read by Arnold Gingrich, Ernest Schwiebert, Dana S. Lamb, Ed Zern, Art Flick, and Nick Lyons.

Arthur Frey of Placentia, California, donated the four issues of volume 1 (1974) of The American Fly Fisher. Bill Catherwood of Tewksbury, Massa- chusetts, gave us photocopies of maga-

Mills & Son, Inc., fishing tackle catalogs: 1 February 1964, 6 March 1964, and 1 February 1966. He also donated sixteen books: The Fine Bamboo Fly Rod by Stuart Kirkfield (Stackpole Books, 1986), Odyssey at Limestone Creek by Chuck Robbins (Tussey Mountain Publishers, 1997), Further Guide to Fly Dressing by John Veniard (A. & C. Black Ltd., 1964), Fly Tying by Helen Shaw (The Ronald Press Company, 1963), Nymphs and the Trout by Frank Sawyer (A. & C. Black Ltd., 1970), Chalk Stream Flies by C. F. Walker (A. & C. Black Ltd., 1953), Fly Dressers' Guide by John Veniard (G. P. Bond & Co. Ltd., 1952), The Soft-Hackled Fly by Sylvester Nemes (Chatham Press, 1975), Any Luck? by Eugene V. Connett I11 (Garden City Publishing, 1939), The Well-Tempered Angler by Arnold Gingrich, first edition (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1965), The Lure and Lore of Trout Fishing by Alvin R. Grove Jr. (The Stackpole Company, i951), Fly Tying by William Bayard Sturgis (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940), Wit & Wisdom of Fishing by Louis Bignami (Publications International, 1998), Minor Tactics on the Chalk Stream by G. E. M. Skues, third edition (A. & C. Black, 1924), Nymph

Fishing for Chalk Stream by G. E. M. Skues (A. & C. Black, Ltd., 1960), and The Way of a Trout with a Fly by G. E. M. Skues (A. & C. Black, Ltd., 1967).

Susan Cronin of Manchester, Ver- mont, gave us five books: Fishing the Flats by Mark Sosin and Lefty Kreh (Nick Lyons Books, 1983), Striper by John N. Cole, first edition (Little Brown and Co., 1978), Fly Fishing in Salt Water by Lefty Kreh (Nick Lyons Books, 1986), Bonefishing by Stanley M. Babson, third edition (self-published, 1965); Fly Fishing by Tom McNally (Harper & Row, 1978).

In the Library Thanks to the following publishers for

their donations of recent titles that have become part of our collection (all titles were published in 2003):

Pruett Publishing Company sent us A. K. Best's Production Fly Tying, 2nd ed. Stackpole Books donated Mike Lawson's Spring Creek.

Frank Amato Publications, Inc., sent us Brent Curtice's Fly-Fishing for Trophy Trout: A Complete Guide for the Begin- ning Fly-Fisher; Dan Blanton's Fly Fishing California's Great Waters; a paperback edition of Paul Ford's Beloved Waters: for Steelhead and Salmon, Bone- fish and Tarpon; and Rainland Fly Casters' Northwest Fly Patterns and Tying Guide.

W I N T E R 2004 25

And So It Begins: ocket scientist Wernher von Braun once noted, "We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming." After months of learning just how accurate von Braun's statement was, work on the Museum's R

future home finally got under way in the last days of October 2003. Things inside the Museum did not hum along quite as efficiently as usual, as the staff all kept succumbing to the urge to go watch the demolition in action; we con- sidered closing up shop and settling down outside with some popcorn. But even when the dust had finally cleared and the less dramatic work of pouring the foundation began, it was still very exciting for all concerned to see this tan- gible evidence of a future that before had only existed on paper. We hope these pictures will infect you with the same delight and anticipation we at the Museum feel as we continue to watch the dream become a reality.

SARA WILCOX SPECIAL PROJECTS

Moments after this image was shot, Yoshi Akiyama. He'd wanted a close-up via

he probably shouldn't be quite that clost Dust rag, anyone? Here the excavator works on separating the frontpart of the

structure, which will remain standing, from the part to be razed.

As workproeded, the crew discovered a new~r portion of the roof had simply been built over the old, Both roo$ lfsltimately came down Note how the smallt?r

of the two chim~leys is about to grab some ground as well. The back portion is no more as

26 T H E A M E R I C A N FLY F I S H E R

Photogra~hs bv Sara Wilcox

the chimney in question almost landed on ojthe chimney's collapse, but as i t fell realized Luckily for all of us, Yoshi is fast on his feet.

mnstruction crew go U U U U ~ their labors.

New support beams help stabilize the remainingpart of the building while the excavation team works on the new foundation.

The walls come tumbling down as demolition commences.

A fter eighteen months of planning, meeting with architects, and satisfying var- ious levels of bureaucracy in the state of Vermont, we finally broke ground on the main building at Brookside in late October just as the trustees met for

their fall board meeting. Since then, we have demolished the existing building, except for the oldest section

right along the road, and at less than we'd budgeted for. We then dug out the old base- ment and put footing drains around the entire structure. The weather stayed mild into early December, allowing us to complete the framing and pouring of the new base- ment; by simplifying the original foundation plan, we also saved a considerable amount of money in the process. The decking for the first floor has been completed over the new foundation and is being heated to 40 degrees F to prevent frost problems. By early February, the timber frame for the exhibition gallery will be on-site and erect- ed above the first-floor gallery walls. Despite a snowy and bitterly cold winter-with lows of lo to 15 degrees below zero-we are on schedule and have had no unusual sur- prises to date. We welcome all, if you are in town, to drive by and take a look. We wdl have a beautiful new museum open in 2004. Thank you for your support.

GEORGE GIBSON CHAIR, BUILDING COMMITTEE

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

W I N T E R 2004 27

Mid-November: Thefirstpart of the foundation is in, rebars at the ready for more concrete.

In early December, the foundation is nearly complete. This was thefirst time the crew needed to get the snow shovels out, and it certainly was not the last.

With the decking in place, the walls begin to take shape in mid-January.

The American Museum of Fly Fishing Box 42, Manchester,Vermont 05254 Tel: 802-362-3300. Fax: 802-362-3308 EMAIL: amff@together.net WEBSITE: ww.amff.com J O I N ! Membership Dues (per annum)

I N D I V I D U A L Associate $35 Sustaining $60 Benefactor $125 Patron $250

G R O U P Club $50 Trade $50

Membership dues include four issues of The American Fly Fisher. Please send your payment to the Membership Director and include your mailing address. The Museum is a member of the American Association of Museums, the American Association of State and Local History, the New England Association of Museums, the Vermont Museum and Gallery Alliance, and the International Association of Sports Museums and Halls of Fame. We are a nationally accredited, nonprofit, edu- cational institution chartered under the laws of the state of Vermont.

S U P P O R T ! As an independent, nonprofit institution, the American Museum of Fly Fishing relies on the generosity of public-spirited individuals for substantial support. We ask that you give our museum serious consideration when planning for gifts and bequests.

B A C K I S S U E S ! Available at $4 per copy:

Volume 6, Numbers I, 2,3,4 Volume 7, Number 3 Volume 8, Number 3 Volume 9, Numbers 1,2,3 Volume lo, Number z Volume 11, Numbers 1, 2, 3,4 Volume 13, Number 3 Volume 15, Number 2 Volume 16, Numbers 1, 2,3 Volume 17, Numbers 1, 2, 3 Volume 18, Numbers 1, 2 , 4 Volume 19, Numbers 1, 2, 3,4 Volume 20, Numbers 1, 2,3,4 Volume 21, Numbers I, 2,3,4 Volume 22, Numbers 1,2,3,4 Volume 23, Numbers 1, 2,3,4 Volume 24, Numbers i , 4 Volume 25, Numbers 1,2,3,4 Volume 26, Numbers 1, 2,4 Volume 27, Numbers I, 2,3,4 Volume 28, Numbers 1,2,3,4 Volume 29, Numbers 1, 2,3,4

-

28 T H E A M E R I C A N FLY F I S H E R

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Incredible accuracy, quiet power, unparalleled durability and exquisite beauty come at no extra charge. 4%- Hexagraph is more than just a great fly rod that fishes better than anything you own - it's a tradition in the ma mg."'**P"*aY"m

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W I N T E R 2004 29

American Fish Decoys by Steven Michaan J

"This book must be seen to be appreciated. The pages. are black, causing the color decoy images to pop from the page, Edges are silver-gilded, and the cover is sparse, yet magnificent." -

"Michaan begins his first chapter of this handsome book by questioning whether 'there is some intrinsic magic in the image of afifh. 'After flipping thourgh a few more pages of the American Fish Decoys, Michaan answers the question for himself; yes, there is a magic and it becomes evident with the turning of each page of this book"

Art &l' 'mes, De- - 17, ; - - 3

American Fish Decoys is fast becoming one of the classics of American fishing collectibles.

Written by the co-author of Beneath the Ice, the Art of the Spearfishing Decoy, the book is 208 pages long and features more than a hundred images from the author's collection of significant folk art ice fishing decoys, Included are early works from New York State as well as sections on the most important Michigan carvers, including Oscar Peterson and Hans Janner, Sr. There is

also a section devoted to the carvers of Depression-era Mt.Clemens, Michigan, the self- proclaimed "Capitol of Ice Fishing"

Printed in Europe by one of the foremost museum printers, American Fish Decoys is an important addition to the library of every sportsman and every lover of American folk art.

Available in Hard Cover (shown above) and in a Deluxe Leather-Bound edition which features a large fold-out poster of an Oscar Peterson store sign in the form of a Pike. -

Avalable onllne at www.flshdecoy.com, toll-free at 1-888-3YO-kl3H (3424) or on Ebay (search :'American Fish Decoys")

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

Edward Davis is a native of Montreal and a retired quality controllassurance specialist. He graduated in 1985 and 1990 from Sir George Williams University in Montreal. He has authored technical papers for Paperboard Packaging Journal (1967) and Canadian Training Methods (1976), and facilitated research and development projects for Donitar Research while superintendent of quality control for Donitar Packaging.

Davis is an avid outdoorsman, and a former golfer and swim instructor. His passion for fly fishing was launched at age eleven, the year he dressed his first trout fly. Salmon fishing in Canada's maritime provinces and bone fishing in the Bahamas have become frequent pursuits. He is ardent about conservation and the restocking of trout waters, particularly in the Haliburton Highlands region of Ontario. Davis has served as chair- man of lakes for the Stonecrop Trout Club in the Caledon hills of southern Ontario. In recent years, he has been an instructor of fly tying and photography, as well as giving fly-casting lessons for the outdoor club of the Royal Canadian Military Institute, of which he is an honorary member. A major highlight of his fly-fishing career included twenty-one years of fly fishing for the red trout (Salvelinus marstoni), one of three known subspecies of Arctic char and now a very scarce game fish in the southern Quebec watershed.

During the past three decades, Davis has contributed more than thirty articles about fly fishing and fly tying to journals such as Fly Tyer, The Fly Fisher, Fly-fishing (Oregon), American Angler, Fly Tyer, and the Atlantic Salmon Journal. His book Patterns and Places (Winchester Press) was published in 1991. Davis's trout and salmon fly pat- terns were displayed in William Cushner's fly-fishing museum in Florence, Oregon. Davis lives in Toronto, Canada.

H. Lenox H. Dick is a retired physician. He is the author of three books published by Frank Amato Publications, Inc. His first, The Art and Science of Fly Fishing, was first published in 1967 and is now in its fourth edition, with nineteen other expert fly fishermen providing chapters. He is also the author of Experience the World of Shad Fishing and Walleye Fishing Simplified. His collection of short stories and memoirs, Just After You Left, was pub- lished in late 2003 by Freestone Press.

Andrew Herd was born in London and has lived in the north of England for many years, within a few miles of the beck on which Canon Greenwell learned to fish. He has had a lifelong interest in history, which has led him all over the world. His first book, a mono- graph on medieval fly fishing, was published by the Medlar Press in 1999, accompanying a facsimile of The Treatyse of Fysshynge wyth an Angle. He maintains a website devoted to the history of fly fishing (www.flyfishinghistory.com), and his second book, The Fly, a history of fly fishing, was published by the Medlar Press in 2001, with an introduction by Fred Buller (www.medlarpress.com) and a preface by John Betts. The Fly has just been released as a paperback, complete with an index and color section, and is available in the United States from Callahan and Company (603-924-3726).

Dr. Herd fishes for almost anything, but trout and salmon are his main interests. He is a member of the Flyfishers' Club, London. His latest contribution to the journal, "Fly Fishing for Coarse Fish before 1900," appeared in the Summer 2002 issue.

Gordon Wickstrom is native to Boulder, Colorado, a World War I1 navy veteran, and graduate of the University of Colorado. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and is professor of drama emeritus at Franklin and Marshall College. He retired to his native Boulder in 1991. He has written for Gray's Sporting Journal, Fly Tyer, Angler's Journal, The Art of Angling Journal, Wild on the Fly, Streamside, and is a not infrequent contributor to The American Fly Fisher. He has published a popular linear display of the history of fly fishing and currently publishes The Bouldercreek Angler, "a gazette for those who fish" and The Bouldercreek Actor, "a gazette for those who make theatre." His Notes from an Old Fly Book was published by the University Press of Colorado in 2001. His Late in an Angler's Life will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in January 2004. Wickstrom most recently contributed to the Summer 2003 issue with "A Portrait of the New Fly Fisher."

W I N T E R 2004 31

A Letter from the President

Feathers, drawn by Miss Sambourne, in ?: C. Hofland, Esq., The British Angler's Manual.

London: H.B. Bond, 1848, new edition, p. 200.

Fellow Fly Fishers: In late October 2003, the American Museum of Fly Fishing took a major step forward when it

commenced construction of its future home on the recently acquired Brookside property. Importantly, this property is adjacent to the Orvis Company's flagship store in Manchester, Vermont. Although AMFF is not affiliated with Orvis, our new location is ideally situated to beck- on the large number of fly fishers who annually visit that facility. Most importantly, the new Museum will offer a substantial increase in display space, allowing us to present to the public a much larger cross section of the collection that we have been building for more than thirty-five years, a collection of which we are very proud.

In addition, the Carriage House, located immediately behind the new Museum, is nearing com- pletion. It provides expanded, modernized archival space that will allow room for important growth of the collection. The Carriage House will also, in its new library, finally allow us to display and make more readily available AMFF's extensive book collection.

If all goes as planned, construction should be completed by summer, permitting a grand opening of these expanded facilities to take place in September 2004. We hope you will be able to join us in Manchester at that time. A few photos of and comments about the construction currently under way can be found on page 26.

Change came to AMFF in another way recently when Gary Tanner, executive director for more than six years, decided to pursue other interests. During his tenure, Gary made a number of con- tributions to AMFF, and the Board of Trustees-and all our members, I am sure-wish Gary well in the future. Fortunately, especially with construction proceeding apace, Yoshi Akiyama, who was hired by Gary as AMFF collection manager, has agreed to act as interim executive director while the board conducts a search for Gary's replacement. We have every confidence that Yoshi, who will write this column in the magazine's next edition, will do a superb job.

Tight lines, DAVE WALSH

PRESIDENT, BOARD OF TRUSTEES

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF PLY FISHING, a nationally accredited, nonprofit, education- al institution dedicated to preserving the rich heritage of fly fishing, was founded in Manchester, Vermont, in 1968. The Museum serves as a repository for, and conservator to, the world's largest collection of angling and angling-related objects. The Museum's col- lections and exhibits provide the public with thorough documentation of the evolution of fly fishing as a sport, art form, craft, and in- dustry in the United States and abroad from the sixteenth century to the present. Rods, reels, and flies, as well as tackle, art, books, manuscripts, and photographs form the ma- jor components of the Museum's collections.

The Museum has gained recognition as a unique educational institution. It supports a publications program through which its na- tional quarterly journal, The American Fly Fisher, and books, art prints, and catalogs are regularly offered to the public. The Museum's traveling exhibits program has made it possi- ble for educational exhibits to be viewed across the United States and abroad. The Museum also provides in-house exhibits, related interpretive programming, and research services for members, visiting schol- ars, authors, and students.

The Museum is an active, member-orient- ed nonprofit institution. For information please contact: The American Museum of Fly Fishing, P. 0. Box 42, Manchester, Vermont 05254,802-362-3300.