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SUMMER 2007 VOLUME 33 NUMBER 3

American

Journal of the American Museum of Fly Fishing

The

Fly Fisher

SOMETIMES FISHING ISN’T just about fly fishing. Some -times even the American Fly Fisher isn’t just about fly fish-ing. Sometimes we actually acknowledge other methods of

fishing. And what better time to do that than summer?Think about it. I’m guessing that many of our readers got

their first taste of this sport during long, warm, slightly morecarefree days. I’m also guessing that more folks than not start-ed with a rod not loaded with fly line. Some impaled livingthings on a hook to attract bigger living things. Some traineda thumb to play its part when lobbing line from a bait-castingreel. Some marveled at the efficiency and simplicity of a spin-ning rod. Many of us found our way to fly fishing through oneof these alternate routes.

Not only are these methods part of fishing history, but formost of us, they are part of our personal histories, and there-fore part of who we are as fly fishers.

So I was most enthusiastic to be able to offer you a look atPaul Schullery’s “Spinners and Sinners: Crossing the Dividebetween Angling Subcultures.” Dating his own foray into seri-ous fishing to his acquisition of a Garcia Mitchell 300 spinningreel, Schullery gives a brief history of spinning lures and reels,and of the fast evolution of the sport after World Wars I and II,when progress in materials and leisure time came together inan almost explosive way. He discusses the tensions among bait,spin, and fly fishers in terms of regulations, philosophy, con-servation issues, and class. He debunks some firmly held ideasby and about both spin and fly fishers. Ultimately, he recog-nizes the allure of both methods—at least personally. Thisengaging article begins on page 13.

About the same time I happened upon “Spinners andSinners,” I read another piece that wasn’t really about fly fish-ing per se, but had so much texture and historical sense ofplace that I wanted to find a home for it in these pages. Thetitle pretty much sums it up: “Challenges and Delights: Fishingthe Susquehanna at Steelton in 1943.” D. W. McGary gives anaccount of being a boy fishing that part of Pennsylvania dur-

ing the war years, addressing such details as obstacles to gettingto water in the days of gas rationing, water pollution in daysbefore serious regulation, and motorless boating. But whilegiving a sense of the work of it, he also captures its joys: the rit-uals, the bait gathering (worms, crayfish, minnows, hellgram-mites), and the being-out-in-it that we all love—a world ofturtles and snakes, herons and egrets, sandpipers and ducks,and various flies (horse-, dragon-, damsel-, butter-). When thetwelve-year-old McGary gulps down an ice-cold orange drinkat the end of a hot, dehydrating day, the reader is right therewith him. This memoir about a boy, his grandfather, and somefish is a great summer read. “Challenges and Delights” beginson page 2.

We fly fishers and the rest of the world lost ErnestSchwiebert in December 2005. In January 2007, his friend JimRikhoff was among a small group who gathered to bury hisashes by Argentina’s Caleufu River on Douglas Reid’s estancia.With “Homage to Patagonia: Schwiebert’s Friends Deliver HisAshes” (page 19), Rikhoff shares a little of this journey.

We’re also sad to report the passing of museum friendGerald A. Hayes Jr., who died in February in Pennsylvania. Themuseum has received many generous memorial contributionsin his name. For more about Jerry, turn to page 22.

As always, we report on important happenings in MuseumNews (page 24). We recognize and thank our annual funddonors on page 26. We announce our joint exhibit with thePeabody Museum of Natural History (page 20). And weencourage you to keep those cards and letters coming, as ourfriends have done on page 23.

These sultry summer days, think back to your own fishingbeginnings.

KATHLEEN ACHOREDITOR

Crayfish. Illustration by D. W. McGary.

A Summer Spin

Executive DirectorCollections Manager

Administration & Membership Art Director

Account Manager

William C. Bullock IIIYoshi AkiyamaRebecca NawrathSara WilcoxPatricia Russell

Challenges and Delights: Fishing theSusquehanna at Steelton in 1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

D. W. McGary

Spinners and Sinners: Crossing the Dividebetween Angling Subcultures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Paul Schullery

Homage to Patagonia: Schwiebert’s FriendsDeliver His Ashes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Seeing Wonders: The Nature of Fly Fishing:An Exhibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

In Memoriam: Gerald A. Hayes Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Museum News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

ON THE COVER: D. W. McGary’s photograph of his grandson exploring thesame ledges he did as a child is featured in McGary’s article “Challengesand Delights: Fishing the Susquehanna at Steelton in 1943,” which beginson page 2.

S U M M E R 2 0 0 7 V O L U M E 3 3 N U M B E R 3

the American Museum of Fly FishingJournal of

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

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S T A F F

EditorDesign & Production

Copy Editor

Kathleen AchorSara WilcoxSarah May Clarkson

THE AMERICAN FLY FISHERWe 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.

THE AMERICAN MUSEUMOF FLY FISHING

Preserving the Heritageof Fly Fishing

E. M. BakwinMichael Bakwin

Foster BamPamela Bates

Duke Buchan IIIPeter Corbin

Jerome C. DayBlake Drexler

Christopher GarciaRonald Gard

George R. Gibson IIIGardner L. Grant

Chris GrusekeJames Hardman

James D. Heckman, MDArthur Kaemmer, MD

Woods King III

Carl R. Kuehner IIINancy MackinnonWalter T. MatiaWilliam C. McMaster, MDJohn MundtDavid NicholsWayne NordbergRaymond C. PecorStephen M. PeetLeigh H. PerkinsJohn RanoJohn K. ReganRoger RiccardiKristoph J. RollenhagenRobert G. ScottRichard G. TischDavid H. Walsh

Chairman of the BoardPresident

Vice Presidents

SecretaryClerk

Robert G. ScottNancy MackinnonGeorge R. Gibson IIIStephen M. PeetDavid H. WalshJames C. WoodsCharles R. Eichel

O F F I C E R S

T R U S T E E S

Paul Schullery

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

James C. Woods

2 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER

WHEN THE WATER is perfect, thelate evening air warm and pleas-ant, and you still have energy to

keep at it, it is very hard to accept the real-ity that you are just not going to catchanything. And when that happens, youeither pack it in and go home, or you findsomething else to do along the river. Notso long ago, on a perfect evening in Julywhile fishing along the Susquehanna, Iadmitted defeat, sat on a rock with myfeet dangling in the water, reeled in myline, took off the fly, and headed for theshoreline.

I had been fly fishing, wet wading inthe pockets of water among ledges thatextend out from the west shore of theriver, about a mile downstream from theI-83 bridge leading into Harrisburg andabout 6 miles upstream from the ThreeMile Island nuclear power plant. Theledges are a couple of hundred yards up -stream from a boat-launch ramp andparking area.

In the middle of summer, the launcharea is a busy place. Not only do peopleput their boats in there, others comedown to the shoreline and fish off thelarge rocks that line the edge of thewater. Some people come there and justsit on folding chairs alongside the rampor skip flat stones over the water or gowading. There is almost always someonethere to talk to or something to watch,and I expected to find some diversionthere before going home.

For the most part, after people launchtheir boats at the ramp, they go off down -stream toward the Pennsylvania Turn -pike Bridge a mile away where, it is gen-erally believed, the fishing is better thanit is upstream toward Harrisburg. Butsome anglers do go upstream for a halfmile or more in a channel just offshorefrom the ledges, then drift downstreamand fish along the way. No boats ventureinto the quiet water between the ledges,where I always fish.

As I got about 10 yards from the launchramp, a boat gradually emerged on theramp. It was being backed down on atrailer behind a huge, immaculatelyclean, shiny-black SUV. The boat was atleast 16 feet long, black fiberglass, fleckedwith metallic gold. On the back of theboat was a 225-horsepower outboardmotor, and there was a large electricmotor on the bow. Sticking up along thesides of a central console were six fishingrods, each already rigged with a differentkind of lure. Once the trailer had beenbacked into the river, a man and a boygot out of the SUV and soon had theboat floating free.

While the boy held the boat at theshoreline by a bow line, the man drovethe SUV up the ramp to the parking lot.In a couple of minutes he returned, gotinto the boat, sat at the console, fired upthe motor, and in another two or threeminutes the boat was roaring down-stream toward the Turnpike Bridge.

Challenges and Delights: Fishing theSusquehanna at Steelton in 1943

by D. W. McGary

A view of the Susquehanna in 2006, taken by the authorfrom the boat-launch ramp on which he begins his story.

D. W. McGary

I watched as the boat became smallerand smaller and eventually disappearedin the distance. And as it did, it carriedme with it, back into a time when I wasabout the age of the boy in the boat, atime when there was a world war goingon, when there was no Turnpike Bridge,when there were no fiberglass boats andno SUVs.

YOU COULD HARDLY GETTHERE FROM THERE

Directly across the 3⁄4-mile-wide Sus -que hanna from the boat launch, the townof Steelton lies on hillsides rising fromthe eastern shore of the river. I grew upin Steelton, and from where I fish amongthe ledges on the west shore, I can lookacross and see the large brick school build-ing that still stands across the street fromthe house in which I grew up. Throughbinoculars, I can see the house itself.

When I was about the age of the boyat the ramp, about eleven or twelve, theyear was 1943. Our family at the timeconsisted of my mother and father, twosisters and me, my mother’s father andmother, and a great-grandmother. Ourhome was in half of a double three-storyhouse three blocks up a steep hill fromthe main street through town—really asection of Route 230, which generallyparalleled the Susquehanna and con-nected Lancaster and cities farther eastwith Harrisburg. Steelton owed its exis-tence to the Bethlehem Steel plant, whichextended almost 3 miles along the river,the whole length of the town, except fora few blocks at the northern end. Locatedas it was, the steel plant effectively isolat-ed the town from the river.

From the upriver end of Steelton, amile-long series of warehouses, business-es, and other establishments connectedthe town with the central area ofHarrisburg. All of these buildings werelocated between the river and Route 230and residential areas of Harrisburg onhillsides to the east, thus separating that

whole section of Harrisburg and Route230 from the river.

The downriver end of both the steelplant and Steelton was at the town ofHighspire, where the Turnpike Bridge nowcrosses the river. Highspire continued foranother 2 miles downstream along theriver to where it ended at what are nowthe runways at Harrisburg InternationalAirport. In 1943, though, HIA did notexist; instead, Olmsted Air Force Baseoccupied the grounds there. The town ofMiddletown then extended from thedownstream end of the airport runwaysanother mile along the river. The ThreeMile Island nuclear power plant, builtlong after 1943, sits on an island in theSusquehanna about 2 miles farther down -stream from Middletown.

In addition to the businesses andindustries running along the river fromMiddletown to Harrisburg, the maintracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad layon a roadbed above the floodplain notfar inshore from the river. Even in thefew sections of the towns where theindustries were not densely concentratedand several streets reached to the tracks,crossing the tracks to get to the river wasdangerous, and the few crossing pointswere guarded as part of wartime defense.Of course, the railroads were privateproperty; crossing them was trespassing.

The geography of the area and thelocations of businesses, industries, andthe railroads in 1943 made getting to theSusquehanna to fish a challenge. Eventoday, the corridor from Middletown toHarrisburg remains mostly isolated fromthe river by the same set of factors thatexisted in 1943. But other conditionshave greatly changed, especially thewartime restrictions and the complica-tions that they created for simple activi-ties, like fishing.

For someone living in Steelton whowanted to fish in the nearby Susque -hanna and who did not want to riskinjury, arrest, or being shot at a railroadcrossing, there were two access points.

One was at Harrisburg, and the other wasat the lower end of Highspire, where theOlmsted Air Force Base runways began.However, reaching those points just toget to the water required transportation,and there were few options. One optionwas to walk, but from the middle ofSteelton, the walk was a minimum of 3miles, and the need to carry everythingto fish with over that distance and backdiscouraged all but the truly desperatefrom walking. A second option was touse the bus line, which ran the whole wayfrom Middletown to Harrisburg. Thethird option was to drive. World War IIwas a deciding factor in making a choice.

We had a car, but during the war, gaso-line was rationed and its use restricted interms of how it related to the war effort.“Nonessential” meant uses not linkeddirectly or indirectly to fighting the war.Owners of cars used for non essentialbasic day-to-day living were give an “A”sticker to put on the windshield, indicat-ing to service stations that only about 4gallons of gas a week could be purchased.

SUMMER 2007 3

The Bethlehem Steel Works, ca. 1896.Panoramic photographs collection, Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress, pan1993001131/PP.

A gasoline rationing “A” sticker. Farm Security Administration—Office ofWar Information Photograph Collection,Prints & Photographs Division, Library

of Congress, LC-USE6-D-004667.


Pleasure driving, including driving some-where to fish, was definitely nonessential.

Of course, someone could drive up toHarrisburg, park along the river, andfish. But both rationing and gas use werestrongly enforced, and a car with an Asticker parked along the river and withsomeone fishing nearby would havebeen a red flag waving to attract theauthorities. We had an A sticker, and wedid not drive to go fishing.

The continuity of industries, busi-nesses, and the railroads along the routefrom Middletown to Harrisburg pre-cluded walking over to the river fromtown. Distances from Steelton to Harris -burg or to High spire mainly ruled outwalking to an ac cess point.Gas rationing elim inateddriving. Buses, then, provid-ed the best way to get aroundthe restrictions and gainaccess to the river at Harris -burg or below High spire. Butthen the state of the riveritself be came a discouragingreality.

It was generally acceptedby many at the time that fish-ing along the eastern shoreor in the eastern half of theSusquehanna from the lowerend of Harris burg down-stream through High spirewould be a waste of time, ifnot a threat to health.

Above Harrisburg to thenorth and east lay anthra citecoal mines in the ridges andvalleys of the mountainsrunning east-west out to the PoconoPlateau. The coal fueled many of theindustries that were running at capacityduring the war. With little regulation ineffect or observed, mining provided aconstant flow of coal to run wartime fac-tories, and it produced a constant flow ofcoal dust into the Susquehanna water-shed, producing fine deposits of blacksilt over the beds of streams and theSusquehanna. Although not directly poi-sonous, the silt created an unnaturalenvironment for plants and animalswhile, at the same time, other effluentsfrom mining further degraded thewatershed. Mining, however, was onlyone contributing factor to the conditionof the water.

Industries and municipalities allalong the main stem of the Susquehannaand its tributaries contributed a widerange of contaminants to the water.Combined with the effluents from themines, these additions produced acumulative effect that seemed to be verypronounced in the river as it flowedalong the Harrisburg–Steelton–Highspire

shore line and the eastern half of theriver. Although the water appearedunpolluted—except when raw sewagesometimes floated in it—it was notamenable to most common species ofplant and animal life. The overall resultwas an ecosystem consisting of hardybottom feeders and minimal plant life.Along much of the eastern stretch ofriver from Harris burg to Middletown,the river was a wasteland of sorts, bothaesthetically and physically.

For someone living in Steelton, fishingthe nearby Susquehanna for somethingedible in 1943 was limited to two options.The first was to take a bus to Harrisburg,walk the mile across the Market Street

Bridge to get to the unpolluted westshoreline, and fish there; but that meantwalking back across the bridge later andtaking the bus back home. For variousreasons, this was an option we tooksometimes, but fishing was limited to theshallow, mostly un productive wateralong the rocky shoreline.

The second option was to get a boat,cross the eastern wasteland to the cleanwest half of the river, and fish there. Butbecause there was no access betweenHarrisburg and the Olmstead Air ForceBase, using a boat meant either keepingone tied up at Harrisburg or at a pointsomewhere below Steelton. We had a boat.

BASS TRACKER, CIRCA 1943

The boat was 12 feet long and 4 feetwide at the middle, 2 feet at the squareends, and not more than a foot deep. Itwas made of pine planks and was paintedgreen. There was a seat in the stern, one inthe middle (where there were oarlocks),and one at the bow. It was the standardriver fishing boat design at the time.

The boat had belonged to someonewho lived near the Rockville Bridge,about 4 miles north of Harrisburg. I re -member my father and grandfather peri-odically discussing its purchase over aperiod of weeks and then finally scrapingup the 4 dollars to pay for it.

For some practical reasons that will beclear later, it was agreed to keep the boatat the lower end of Highspire, at WhiteHouse Lane, the upstream end of OlmstedAir Force Base. This meant, of course, thatthe boat north of Harrisburg at Rockvillehad to be moved to Highspire, a distanceof about 15 miles. There was only one wayto make the move.

One day in June, my father and I tooka bus to the far end ofHarrisburg. We took along apair of oars, a length ofchain, a lock, and some rope.From the end of the busline, we walked to Rockville,paid for the boat, andlaunched it. We then drifteddownstream to the southend of Harrisburg, where westopped a hundred yards orso upstream from the DockStreet Dam. The dam hasremained to this day a dan-gerous spot on the river,with a history full of acci-dents and drownings. Ouronly choice at the dam wasto pull the boat out of thewater and carry it aroundthe dam, which we were ableto do because the boat wasnot large and was made of

light wood. The portage was uneventful.From Harrisburg, we drifted down on

the polluted water past Steelton andHighspire to where a few other boatswere tied up along the shore at WhiteHouse Lane. There, we pulled the boat uponto the shore, chained it to a tree, car-ried the oars a quarter mile over WhiteHouse Lane to a house, where we leftthem with a relative. We then caught abus back to Steelton.

From that time on, all we needed to doto fish in the river was get from Steeltonto White House Lane in Highspire.

SUSQUEHANNA RIVERFISHING GUIDE

My opportunities to go fishing de -pended entirely on the availability ofsomeone who could take me. However,my father and grandfather both workedfor Bethlehem Steel and were, it seemed,always at work—especially my father,who worked a rotation of three differenteight-hour shifts. But there was someoneelse in my life who was a quietly fanatic

The Rockville Bridge spanning the Susquehanna River, north ofI-81. Historic American Engineering Record, Prints & Photo graphs

Division, Library of Congress, HAER PA, 22-ROCVI, 1.

SUMMER 2007 5

fisherman and who was not tied up by ademanding job. He was my other (mypaternal) grandfather, and he lived near-by, just two blocks up the hill from ourhouse.

My family was always very reluctant totalk about its members. In that way itwas more typical than different frommany families in those days. Whateversecrets were considered too dark to bringto light remained in darkness forever.The best I could ever find out about thisgrandfather was that he and my othergrandmother had separated for somereason and lived apart. Questions aboutthe separation were met with silence,then and always.

Parker was my grandfather’s firstname, but for some reason everyonecalled him Cy. In 1943 he worked as thecustodian at the church our familyattended. This was his only job, and it lefthim relatively poor financially butblessed richly with flexibility for pursu-ing his interests: mainly fishing andhunting. With virtually no limitations,he was able to find or create opportuni-ties to go fishing.

People tend to give children names tocall adults, especially relatives, and thename they gave me for Parker was PappyCy. I suppose this name worked for meback in my early years, but I just can’trefer to him that way now. I rememberhim better as just Cy, quiet, tall, gangly,someone who could have been themodel for old pen-and-ink drawings ofIchabod Crane.

Cy lived very conservatively in a smalltwo-room apartment. He cooked a lot ofmeals for himself in the basement of thechurch, but sometimes he ate with us. He

never had a driver’s license. He gotaround town and elsewhere very well bywalking, riding buses, or getting rideswith someone who had a car. I became abeneficiary of his skills, ex perience, andability to get around, especially when itcame to fishing in the Susquehanna.

Whenever Cy had plans to go fishing,he would stop by the house a couple ofdays ahead of time to see if anyone wasinterested. For the most part, that reallymeant me, because my father and othergrandfather were seldom available. I wasusually interested, and on the appointedday, I would be ready, waiting for him tocome down the hill to get me.

And, one day in July, we went fishing.

A SUMMER DAY ON THE

SUSQUEHANNA

I was waiting for him out on the frontporch.

About eight o’clock, Cy came downthe hill, carrying his rods and a tacklebox. Over his shoulder he had a creel. Hehad on his lucky felt fishing hat, wore ablue long-sleeved shirt, a pair of blackpants, and black sneakers. After stoppingfor me and getting all my things togeth-er, including a lunch my mother hadpacked and a can of worms, we walkedthe three blocks down the steep hill toFront Street where, after a short wait, wegot on a bus for the ride down to the endof Highspire, to White House Lanewhere we kept the boat. With all thestops through town, the ride took abouta half hour.

At the end of the main street inHighspire, at White House Lane, therewas a corner house in which Cy’s es -tranged wife—my plump, warm grand-mother Bess—lived. Bess was always gladto see us—mainly me, I believe. Whenshe came out to meet us, she engulfed meand smothered me with kisses and hugs.

We stayed there long enough for Cy tohave a cup of coffee and for both of us tohave a toasted piece of homemade bread.A lot of my curiosity about Bess and Cywas fueled by this kind of seeminglyamicable visit, but there was no point inbringing it up. Besides, the visits therewere more than social; there was a verypractical reason for stopping at Grand -mother Bess’s house.

It was at Grandmother Bess’s housethat my father and I had left the oars

The view from the author’s childhood home,looking down the hill toward the main street.

D. W. McGary

From Charles M. Mansfield, “Camping on the Susquehanna,”Field and Stream, June 1909, 140.


when we floated the boat downfrom Rockville. Since then, awooden pole and two bait netshad been added, along with a spe-cial bucket for live bait. The polewas about 12 feet long with a metalsleeve at one end and was used topush the boat through the waterwhen we did not row. The oars,pole, and nets were all vital to afishing trip; therefore, we had tomake a stop to get them. But Iremember the stops more becauseof Grandma Bess.

After picking up the pole, baitbucket, oars, and nets, and thethings we had brought from home,we walked across White HouseLane toward the river, a quartermile away. The road was paved partof the way, then gave way to gravel,and then turned into dirt and sandbefore passing under the railroadtracks close to the river. At the riverwe began the process of getting theboat ready for launching.

TRAVAILS OFLAUNCHING: GOOD

DAYS AND BAD DAYS

We kept our boat fastened to along chain locked to a ring stone, ablock of concrete with an eyeboltembedded in it. The chain waslong enough to cover the distancefrom the ring stone to the water.To keep floorboards from dryingout and opening up at seams,boats kept along the shorelinewere left floating, rather thanturned over, even though rain-storms sometimes half filled them. Adrop in the river level over a period oftime, however, could leave a boat sittingup dry, away from the water’s edge. Itwas everyone’s hope that their boatswould be floating or at least partially inwater when going fishing there. Themakeup of the shoreline was the reasonfor this hope.

The shore area, from inland at the rail-road tracks, consisted first of a low hillyarea overgrown with grasses and shrubs.Next there was a gentle slope of sand, coalsilt, and river gravel. The ideal situationwas for the water to be in on shore as faras the gravel so that the boat was mostlyin water and could be pulled up onto thesolid gravel, loaded, man ned, and pushedoff into the river. A launch from the grav-el usually took five minutes at the most.

But in midsummer, when the riverran low, boats left floating at the edge ofthe gravel after one fishing trip weresometimes found stranded on the last

outward section of the shore days orweeks later. And that was a problem.

Under very low water conditions, astranded boat would be sitting on a stripof something that resembled tar, butwhich was a lot more than tar. It had theconsistency of tar, but if disturbed bystepping into it or throwing a rock intoit, noxious-looking bubbles and odorsburst out of it, and the nearby waterbecome iridescent. It was generallyassumed that much of this material wasa by-product of manufacturing, espe-cially from the upriver steel plant.Regard less of its source, the tar layer wasunpleasant and difficult to deal withwhen launching a boat. Launching fromthe tar took much more than five min-utes and required ingenuity and even adegree of bravery.

We found our boat sitting up on the tar.After unlocking the boat and two

homemade an chors from the ring stone,we found a plank and two large flat

stones to serve as a walkway overthe tar to the boat. After puttingthese in place, we made two verycareful trips out to the boat withour equip ment, the anchors, andeverything else. Then we got intothe boat, distributed everything,and prepared to get the boat offthe tar.

Cy had me sit on the backseat inorder to put weight on the end ofthe boat closer to the water in thehope that doing so would takeweight off the tar. He stood up onthe middle seat and started to pushwith the pole, causing bubbles andodors to rise from the tar. The boatdid not move an inch. Then hewent to the front seat and pushedfrom there. Again there was nomovement. He turned and mo -tioned to me to do what was theab solute last resort un der theseconditions, something I had donebefore and dreaded.

Cy got up on the backseat. Itook off my shoes and socks androlled up my pants above my knees,eased off the front of the boat, andgot into the warm tar. Bubbles andodors rose to the surface. I sankdown a foot or so until I was onsomething solid—probably grav-el—and then started to push onthe boat while Cy used the pole.The boat began to slide off the tar,and I reached out to grab hold sothat I could pull myself on board,an action I had perfected fromother launch ings of this kind. Butmy grip failed this time, and theboat, with Cy in the back, slid outinto the water leaving me stranded

in the goo. Cy, laughing, motioned forme to walk through the tar toward thewater. He got the boat pointed at me andbrought it up to the edge of the tar.Fighting the suction the tar exerted onme as I struggled through it, I got to theboat, leaned over the front end, andpulled myself partly on board.

There was an understanding on fish-ing trips that tar was to be kept off theinside of the boat, so after getting half ofmyself on board, I sat facing front withmy feet and lower legs hanging over theedge in the water. I stayed in this positionuntil Cy got us almost halfway across theriver and pushed the boat up onto agrass patch. At the grass patch, the two ofus used sand, coal silt, and gravel toscrub off the tar.

Riding like that out to the grass patchmeant that I was letting my feet and lowerlegs trail through the polluted east half ofthe river. Over the years I have achieved acertain peace of mind by be lieving it is

Parker “Cy” McGary, circa 1943.From the collection of D. W. McGary.

SUMMER 2007 7

true, as I have heard it said, that over timethe human body constantly grows newskin and re places the old. I continue tocling to this belief and assume that aftermore than sixty years I am fully rid ofwhatever I may have picked up in the LaBrea Tar Pit at Highspire and in the east-ern wasteland of the Susquehanna onthose days when we had really badlaunches.

SUSQUEHANNA GONDOLIER

Although we had oars, we seldomused them. In stead, to get around on theriver, Cy or my father (when he was withus) stood on the backseat and used thelong pole to push the boat through thewater. Few peo ple who fished from boatswhen the water was at its normal sum-mertime levels used anything other thana pole to get around. The method waspreferred over rowing, especially becauseit let the poler see ahead, unlike rowing“backward” from the middle seat. But itwas also more effective than rowing interms of making quick changes in direc-tion and in avoiding rocks and otherobstructions. Someone skilled in the pol-ing art could quickly change directions,bring the boat to a stop, or keep it goingin a straight line upstream, downstream,or at any angle to the current. Cy and myfather tried to teach me how to pole onceI got older, but I never really learned it. Icould only get the boat to move a fewyards ahead before it would start turningirreversibly, and someone would have totake over. Even in later years, when I hada boat of my own, I could never makepoling work.

PRELIMINARIES: CATCHING BAIT

Cy was a live bait fisherman in 1943.Years later he became converted to some

extent to using lures, and even later hetook up fly fishing, but he always pre-ferred live bait: anything from worms tocrayfish to minnows to hellgrammites,things that lived in or around theSusquehanna.

Except for worms, which we dug up ata dump outside of town, other live baithad to be caught on the river. Even if wecould have gotten live bait in Steelton,transporting it on a hot bus without air-conditioning in midsummer and thencarrying it across White House Lane inthe sun to the river was out of the ques-tion if live bait were to remain live. Eachtrip out on the river, then, meant spend-ing close to an hour getting live bait.

Cy’s favorite live bait were shiners, 3-inch minnows that flashed reflected sun-light when they darted around in thewater. They tended to concentrate in thewater close to grass patches, somethingwell known to fishermen and bass.

Once we had cleared the miasma ofthe shoreline and east half of the riverand scoured the tar off me, we got onwith the serious business of netting somebait. Cy unwound thedip net we had with usand attached the fourcorners to the ends ofthe metal frame, whichhad a rope attached to itin the center. Wadingalong the grass growingin about 2 feet of water,he gradually loweredthe net by its rope to thebottom, and then weboth took up positions10 feet or so upstreamfrom the net.

He had made a ballof dough the day before,adding a little vanilla forflavor. We pulled offpieces from the dough

ball and tossed them into the waterupstream from the net so that the littleballs drifted down over the net as theysank. Almost instantly shiners began toattack the dough balls, and when Cy feltenough shiners were above the net, hepulled it up quickly, trapping most ofthem. Then we picked off the largest ofthe catch and put them into the baitbucket, which was kept hanging from theside of the boat in water deep enough toallow fresh water to enter it all the timethrough screened openings. Once Cy feltwe had enough shiners, he disassembledthe net and wound it up, and we got backinto the boat for the next bait stop.

From the grass patch, Cy poled usacross to the west shore, where webeached the boat and got out into theshallow water. Our prey at this stop werecrayfish, or as everyone in those dayscalled them, “crabs.” We had a special netfor catching the crabs. It was stretchedover a D-shaped frame with a handleabout 4 feet long. The net looked a lotlike a butterfly net, except that the meshwas about half inch, which allowed waterto flow freely through it but still trappedthe crabs and other creatures.

Cy put the net into the water so thatthe flat part of the D rested on the bot-tom. Then he waded upstream, pushingthe net ahead of him through the mudand gravel on the bottom and throughthe thick growth of plants growing upfrom the bottom. This was not subtlydone. The objective was to disrupt thepeace and quiet of the river and panic allcreatures living there to try to escapeahead of the oncoming net. After scoop-ing ahead this way for about 10 feet, helifted the net up out of the water andtook it to the shore, where he laid it outso that we could examine its contents.

I loved this part of bait catchingbecause there were so many differentkinds of larvae, salamanders, frogs,

A 1943 wooden fishing boat of the type often seen moored along theSusquehanna. From the collection of D. W. McGary.

A dip net. From the Edward vom Hofe andCompany Incorporated catalog, 1940.


shelled creatures, leeches, and small fishthat got trapped and lay there flapping,crawling, or wriggling on the wet net. Tome, each new netting was like opening apresent. There was always the possibilitythat something totally new and exoticwould be there to discover wrigglingaround among the usual critters. Cy’sperspective on each catch was different.He was only interested in crabs, especial-ly the “soft shells” that had recently molt-ed and were deadly bass bait.

From each netting he selected what hewanted, added it to the baitbucket, then emptied everythingelse back in the water. As soon ashe felt that we had enough crabs,he put the net in the boat, we gotin, and he pushed us off to gofishing—finally.

To give a sense of time aboutone of these fishing trips, oncewe had finished with the baitgathering, it would be long pastthe middle of the morning,heading into the steaming hothours of a midsummer day. Andby this time we would not havetried to catch anything largerthan a minnow or a crayfish.

LINING UP

FOR THE KILL

Cy knew every rock, sub-merged log, ledge, and fishinghole for more than a mile alongthe west half of the river acrossfrom White House Lane. Wenever fished very far down-stream, especially late in theday, be cause it would meanhaving to pole up against thecurrent, using time and energywe couldn’t spare for our tripback across the river in theevening. Usu ally Cy would poleus up stream about a quartermile or so, and then we woulddrift downstream in intervals,stopping at different specialplaces to fish. For the most part, wefished offshore several hundred yards,out in the current away from the shallow,quiet pockets of water that lay betweenthe many ledges extending out from theshoreline.

From the crabbing spot, Cy poled usupstream through the current until hereached a point he recognized fromlandmarks only he seemed to know.There, he began the coordinated maneu-vers that put us into position to fish.

First, he turned the boat so that it wasperpendicular to the current and wasdrifting downstream. At another land-mark, he told me to get ready. I knew

what was coming, having done all thismany times before.

We each had an anchor beside us andnow put them up on the upstream edgeof our seats. At the right moment, Cysaid “Now!,” and we lowered the anchorsinto the water and let the anchor ropesplay out until we heard and felt theanchors hit bottom, usually 4 or 5 feetdown. Then we tightened the ropes andtied them fast. The result was a boat heldin place across the current by the twoanchors on the upstream side.

Most of the time when we tried toanchor this way, it worked fine.Sometimes, though, one anchor wouldnot grab hold, and the boat would startturning. But usually by letting the otheranchor rope out a little more, the boatwould come horizontal again, and even-tually both anchors would be fast on thebottom. Seldom would one anchor nothold at all, and in those cases we had togive up and start again farther down-stream. It would have been easy toanchor just one end of the boat and haveit oriented with the current. The reasonwe did not do it that way had a lot to dowith how we fished.

LAWS OF PHYSICS ANDLIMITED TECHNOLOGY

In 1943, our fishing rods were made ofmetal, hardwood, or bamboo. No fiber-glass, no graphite. One rod I used for awhile was made from a pool cue, but onmy trips with Cy, the rods were steel.Mine was one piece, about 5 feet long; Cyhad two, one telescoping from 4 to 8 feet,the other about 8 feet long, in three sec-tions. Our reels were freewheeling, with-out any level winding mechanism or

brakes, and the lines wereCuttyhunk, strong and thick.Casting from the reel was notsomething any sane personwould consider trying. Ourmethod of getting a live-baitedhook to the bottom down-stream was a combination ofapplied mathematics, laws ofphysics, and a high level of natur-al or acquired eye-hand-muscle-nerve coordination.

After we got anchored se -curely, we rigged the rods foraction, tying on catgut-snelledhooks and adding a length ofline with a lead sinker. Oncerigged, the hooks were baitedwith a shiner or crab. Cy usuallyput a shiner on one of his hooksand a crab on the other. Healmost always had me put on acrab to start. He usually put histwo lines out before mine.

Standing in his end of theboat, Cy laid one of his rodsacross the boat near the middleseat, the tip pointing down-stream. He laid the baited hookand sinker on the seat and thenstarted pulling line out throughthe end of the rod and coiling itloosely next to him on the bot-tom of the boat. Although I hadno idea how far downstreamthe fish were supposed to be, Cyseemed to know, and he pulledenough line out to reach that

distance. Then, standing facing the shoreand away from the coil of line on thebottom, he took hold of the line about afoot up from the baited hook and sinker,spit on the bait for luck, and started toswing it in a circle parallel to the current.When his instincts told him the forcehad built up sufficiently, he let go of theline, and the baited, sinkered hook sailedup and out in a graceful arc that landedthe bait in the water with a loud splash.

After putting his other line in thewater the same way, he put mine in at myend of the boat. We then had three rodspointed downstream, propped on thedownstream edge of the boat, one at

From Louis Rhead, Bait Angling for Common Fishes(New York: The Outing Publishing

Company, 1907), facing page 76.

SUMMER 2007 9

each end and one about the middle, withthe lines downstream in the water andseparated far enough from each other toavoid getting crossed if something washooked. Then we sat and waited.

This was a common technique thatmany people used to get weighted baitdownstream from a boat or out into astream from the shoreline. I was given alot of instruction on this centrifugalinsertion technique, but I never reallymastered it. Occasionally things workedout, but more often the bait and sinkerwould ricochet downstream like a pebbleskipped over the surface, or it wouldrocket in with a great splash a yard ortwo downstream, or my release wouldsend things into a near vertical flight thatended with the bait and sinker plummet-ing back down into the water only a footdownstream (or even worse, upstream),or if I happened to be standing on part ofthe coil of line on the bottom of the boat,the hook and sinker would snap backafter flying a yard or so and hit the sideof the boat or me. Cy often simply did itfor me, as he did this time, probably feel-ing safer that way. And I did not mind.

Besides being awful at it, I didn’t likecentrifugal insertion fishing because itusually resulted in long, long periods ofwaiting for something to happen down-stream out of sight. My preference was tobait my line with a worm, without asinker, put a cork on the line a couple offeet higher up on the line, and let the lineout slowly 10 or 15 feet from the boat. Theriver was full of fish that liked worms, andI enjoyed a lot of action while Cy sat andsat and sat and waited for something tohappen. Mostly I caught sunfish androck bass, but occasionally I would get asmall bass that had to be tossed back inor even a turtle. Cy was not interested inlittle things. He was after legal-size bassor a walleye, a catfish, an eel, anything.He fished for food, the way most peopledid then. Sport was all right, the overallaesthetic experience was fine, but takingsomething home was what counted. If itwas legally big enough to keep, it waskept and eventually eaten, and I con-tributed almost every thing legal I caught,no matter its size, to the fish bag that wehung over the side.

THE BUT TERFLY SPRING

Usually, after two or three down-stream floats, it would be time to eat thelunch that my mother had packed for us:sandwiches, pieces of fruit, sometimes apiece of candy. For something to drink,we always had a canteen of water with us,but it was not insulated, and the water init became heated in the sun so that itserved only to prevent us from drying

up, but left much to be desired in the wayof taste. Warm as the water was, though,we had usually drunk it all by the timewe were ready to eat.

After three drifts, anchorings, cen-trifugal insertions, and no catches, wepulled up the an chors, and Cy guided usdownstream, where we parked the boatat a small opening among the big rockson the shoreline. Real water awaited us.

The spring was in small dense woodson the slope of a hill 50 or so yards upfrom the edge of the river at the end of apath. Crude steps that cut into the bankbeyond the spring led to the top of thehill, where a dilapidated cottage stood.We never saw people there. Someone,though, kept a metal cup at the spring,and we used it to drink and drink anddrink. There is no taste in the world likecold springwater drunk from a metal cupin the middle of the day in summer aftersitting for hours in a boat.

The spring in the woods was a magi-cal place. The rocks around it were heavywith dark green moss, no matter howhot and dry things were elsewhere. Therewas a special odor of cool wetness thatfilled the air around it. Everything wassoft to walk on. There were always spot-ted salamanders in the spring, and some-times frogs among the grasses, and wild-flowers close to the water. And there werealways butterflies fluttering around or

sipping from the moist stones and moss.Black-and-yellow-striped swallowtails,others dark blue with yellow and orangespots, orange checkered ones, pale yellowones, bright whites. I liked to get downon my knees close to them and watchthem uncoil their tongues to sip, andsometimes one would land on the backof my hand or arm and rest there prob-ing, searching so lightly I couldn’t feel it.Birds chattered in the bushes and treesnearby; otherwise, it was as quiet as out-doors ever gets. I always loved to stop atthe spring, and I always hated to leave it.

But Cy was ready to leave, and cen-trifugal insertion and more fishingremained. We filled the canteen after onemore drink and got back into the boat.

MOVING ON TO

QUIETER WATERS

Although Cy had lots of patience, hisneed to catch fish to take home drovehim from place to place on the river,especially as late afternoon approached.Sometime about the middle of the after-noon, he would announce that we weregoing to head upstream farther to someother fishing holes he had in his reperto-ry. This was always good news to me.

Sometimes when we reeled in ourlines before moving on, I noticed that the

A swallowtail butterfly.

Jim Ferguson


hooks were bare, even though there hadbeen no bites. Cy’s explanation was thatdragging the bait up through the currenthad probably dislodged the crabs orminnows. But I wondered whether cen-trifugal insertion had loosened things uptoo much and that we might have beensitting for a half hour or more waitingfor fish to bite on empty hooks.

For the trip upstream, I sat facingahead to watch for obstructions, a task Cygave me, I believe, to make me feel useful.From his vantage point (standing up onthe backseat) and with his knowledge ofthe river, I doubt that there was muchchance of hitting anything unexpectedly.

The upstream fishing spots Cy went towere not out in a channel far off theshoreline. Instead, they were in fairlydeep pockets of quiet water among theledges. Other than maneuvering throughoccasional breaks in the ledges, polingwas easy, as though moving along thesurface of a pond. From the vantagepoint of the years since those trips, I esti-mate that we traveled upstream as muchas a half mile, to about where theTurnpike Bridge is today.

Cy took us out from shore upstreamabove one of the ledges, turned the boatbroadside to the current, and let it driftdown against an exposed section of theledge, where we then put out an anchoron the ledge and snugged up the rope.The combination of the slight currentand the anchor held the boat securelyagainst the ledge, allowing us to step outonto the rock and fish from it.

When we fished off a ledge, Cy wouldlet me go off on my own to do what Iwanted. That meant I could fish with myworms on a corked line or I couldexplore the ledge. I usually did some ofeach while he tried spot after spot alongthe length of the ledge.

The quiet water between ledges, espe-cially upstream close to the rocks, was ahaven for sunfish and rock bass, and Icould usually catch one after another aslong as I wanted to, even in the middle ofthe afternoon. But I probably spent asmuch time walking along the exposedledges just investigating things.

Bird life was plentiful among theledges. Herons and egrets hunted in theshallow water and stained the ledgeswhite with their droppings. Ducks pad-dled around in flotillas made up of fuzzyyoung and protective adults. Sandpipersdipped and flitted. An occasional gullfloated by. And there were all kinds ofother things to find and wonder about:crayfish shells left from a bird’s meal,bones and pieces of fur from somethingeaten, ribs and pieces of skin from a fish,huge black horseflies buzzing in the air,dragonflies and damselflies flitting fromplace to place, whirligig beetles in thewater, water striders walking on the sur-face, minnows and other small fishswimming among the crevices, a turtlehead sticking up in the water, a piece ofsnakeskin hanging from a tree branchstuck on the ledge, a dead catfish floatingbelly up, plants with pink blossoms wav-ing in the slight current. In its own sun-

lit way, a ledge was as magical as the but-terfly spring. On the ledges, I fished little,wandered more, wondered most.

We moved frequently from one ledge toanother as the afternoon wore on, proba-bly because Cy was feeling pressure tocatch something to take home. Up to thispoint, our fish bag had only a couple ofsunfish in it. Cy’s sense of desperation dur-ing these moves was missing in me. I sim-ply loved making the moves from ledge toledge—because of how we made them.

To move to a different ledge, Cy wouldpole us along the ledge we were on untilhe came to a break in it. There he wouldturn the boat into the current floatingthrough the break and let us drift down-stream to reach another ledge.

As we drifted quietly, I would lie onmy stomach across the front seat withmy head over the edge of the boat, some-times with my hands in the water, feelingthe coolness and just sensing the pull ofthe water against my fingers. While Cywas intent on locating the next stoppingpoint, I was watching the passing sceneryin the water: the long waving strands ofAnacharis, the tiny bass fingerlings withblack lines on their tails, bright little sun-fish, shiners, mussel shells on the bot-tom, a sudden violent sweep of a bigcarp, insect larvae, crabs, a small watersnake—all against a changing coloredbackground of rocks, all slowly silentlypassing away from me upstream. Withevery move we made among the ledges, Iwatched a whole vibrant world of lifeglide by below me.

STARTING FOR HOME

The short drifts among the ledgesmeant that the end of the fishing trip wasat hand. By the time we had reached thepoint from which we had poled up -stream after the break at the spring, itwas probably six o’clock or later, and westill had to cross the river, beach the boat,walk back across White House Lane,leave the oars, pole, and other things atGrandma Bess’s house, and then catchthe bus to get back to Steelton.

I had no regrets about starting forhome. We had been out on the riverunder the summer sun for as long aseight or more hours, with only one stopat the spring and the short periods onthe ledges as breaks from sitting on thewooden boat seats. Besides, by that timeI was getting hungry. So, when Cy pulledin lines for the last time, took off thehooks and sinkers and reeled in, I fol-lowed suit and perched on the front seatready for the crossing.

Looking back on the trips I made withCy, I remember them as generally unpro-ductive in terms of catches. I don’t re -

Wondering on a ledge.

D. W. McGary

SUMMER 2007 1 1

member taking home anything muchlonger than a foot. Other than an occa-sional eel or yellow catfish, the catchesconsisted of smallmouth bass, rock bass,and sunfish. But anything that fit thelegal limit was kept, and that included alot of small sunfish and rock bass, whichmy mother and grandmother ended uphaving to clean when we got back home.

Our overall way of fishing probablyhad a lot to do with our low productivi-ty. We always visited thesame fishing spots, whichmeant that the fish wetook out on one trip, fewas they were, were notthere the next time. Thentoo, al though live baitremains even today therecognized best bass baitfor the river, how wefished it may have been afactor—but the time ofday we fished probablymattered the most. Wewere on the water duringthe hottest, brightest timeof day, conditions thatdrive fish into hiding andmake them lethargic. Butwe had little choice be -cause of our dependenceon buses for trans por -tation and the time it tookjust to get to the water andthen back home.

On some days, aboutmidafternoon, I regret-ted having agreed to goalong with Cy, especiallyon those days when theboat was sitting up onthe tar bed, or when wegot caught out on thewater before we could getashore to escape a sudden storm, orwhen even the sunfish and rock basswould not take worms. But things nevergot so bad that I wasn’t ready to go alongthe next time he came calling at ourhouse looking for someone interested ingoing fishing.

LANDING ANDDISEMBARKATION

Cy poled us at a slight upstream angleacross the river, through the easternwasteland toward the shoreline some dis-tance above White House Lane. At thatpoint he had me sit in the middle seat tokeep the bow up out of the water as muchas possible. Then he let the current takeus downstream toward our ring stone.

If the water was not too low when wecame in from fishing, Cy would give onefinal strong push at just the right time,

and the bow would wind up sitting ongravel, and I would get out and secure itthere. Then it was just a matter of gettingall the stuff out of the boat, chaining theboat and anchors to the ring stone, andpushing the boat off the shore so that itwas floating. If the water was low, therewas a different procedure. And on thistrip, the water was low.

As we drifted toward our ring stone,we found that the plank and rocks we

had used in the morning to launch weregone, no doubt used by someone elseduring the day.

Cy let the boat drift farther down-stream, below our ring stone, until hespotted two large rocks and a section ofplank near the tar, where he then maneu-vered the boat toward the rocks and gaveenough of a push to put the bow againstthem. With the bow line in hand, I got outonto the rocks, stepped onto the plank,and got to the gravel on shore. I kept ten-sion on the bow line to keep the boatagainst the rocks and enable Cy to get outwith the pole. Once he was on shore, hepushed the boat away from the rocks intothe current, then walked up the shore onthe gravel, holding the boat by the bowline. By carefully pulling at just the righttimes, he gradually moved the boat alongthe shore to where the ring stone was.There he pulled hard enough to bring the

light empty boat far enough over the tarto get the front end to the gravel.

Once we had everything out of theboat, Cy fastened the long chain to it,moved the ring stone several feet fartherout toward the water, locked the chainand anchors to the ring stone, and gavethe boat a shove hard enough to dislodgeit from the tar and get it into the water.Difficult as this procedure was, it was theonly way to avoid one or both of us hav-

ing to walk across WhiteHouse Lane for a quartermile with feet and legscoated with tar.

Once the boat hadbeen chained, we gatheredup all of our things—thepole, oars, rods, tacklebox, creel, nets, live-baitbucket, fish bag, and can-teen—and trekked acrossWhite House Lane toGrandma Bess’s house tocatch the bus back up toSteelton.

ORANGE DRINKAND THE BUS

HOME

At Grandma Bess’shouse, we deposited thethings that were kept thereand then looked for a buscoming up from Middle -town. Bess was seldomhome when we finishedour fishing trips; sheworked a night shift at adefense plant somewherein Harris burg. She wasnot at home this time.

It was fine if a bus wasin sight, because a half hour would haveus home. But if a bus was not in sight orexpected soon, it was not a disaster—because of what was next door to Grand -ma Bess’s house.

On the property next to the house,one of Bess’s sisters and her family livedand operated what today is called a con-venience store. By today’s standards, the1943 store was minimal, providing somedrinks, a few fishing supplies, a smallselection of foods, and miscellaneoushouse hold supplies. But nothing theyhad there mattered to me except theirdrink cooler, and nothing in the coolermattered except the bottles of orangedrink sitting in the ice water.

Not much in life has come close to theexperience I had of uncapping one of thosebottles of orange drink and chugging itdown after dehydrating on the Sus -quehanna for a day. It was why I really

The author with an above-average catch.From the collection of D. W. McGary.


didn’t care all that much if we had towait for a bus. I often thought about itwhile we were out on the river and espe-cially when we were on the way homeacross the river. I could have cleaned outall the orange drink they had, but thelimit was two.

Someone would keep a lookout forthe bus while we were in the store.Schedules were available, but busesseemed more to follow their own incli-nations than to bend to what was onpaper. A difference of a half hour ormore between scheduled arrivals andactual arrivals was common.

When the bus came into sight a quar-ter mile down the road, we gathered upeverything and walked to the corner tobe picked up. A half hour later we werecarrying rods, creel, the tackle box, and amodestly filled fish bag up Walnut Streetthe three blocks to home.

PERSPECTIVE

Compared with the boy and the manI had watched launch their boat and roaroff down the Susquehanna toward wherewe had fished in 1943, Cy and I weredeprived in a lot of ways. We couldn’t getout on the river and fish during theevening hours when it was cooler andthe fish were more active. We had to ride

buses and carry our equipment a quartermile or more just to get to our boat. Wehad to use centrifugal insertion most ofthe time, just to get bait to the fish.Sometimes we had to launch or land ona layer of noxious tar. And we had to usea lot of time just to pole the boat acrossthe river to get from place to place tofish. But we were no different from othersin 1943. Only in terms of the boy and manof today were we deprived in 1943. In 1943we were not deprived: opportunities andtechnologies in boats, motors, and fish-ing equipment were not there for anyone,not just us. Deprivation is relative.

What people today view as benefits oftechnology and opportunity can be, atthe same time, impediments to specialexperiences that have capacity to enrichlife far into the future. Skimming alongthe Susquehanna from place to placeduring the best time of the day to fish,sitting up high on padded pedestal seats,casting lures unknown in 1943 from rods,reels, and lines unknown in 1943, thengetting back to shore and home in a peri-od of a few hours all stand in the way ofsubtle, sublimely enriching experienceswith a river and the creatures that live inand around it. Such experiences may beclose to impossible today. They dependtoo much on opportunities that today’sman and boy can’t have because of how

they live and because of what they have.The experiences that count most out ona river may very well depend on being ina flat-bottomed wooden boat poledaround by someone like Cy in the middleof a summer day.

I don’t regret at all having grown upwithout the conveniences and opportu-nities that today’s man and boy have. Iam sure that they find pleasures on theriver and will have memories to lookback on over the years, as I have. But Iquestion whether their pleasures andmemories will fill up their senses overthe years in as lasting a way as my mem-ories of Cy and the Susquehanna do forme. For them, what will be equal to themagic of the butterfly spring, or the crea-tures wriggling in a crab net, or all thatlay along a rock ledge, or the gentle quietpassing of life between ledges?

Rather than feel deprived or regretful,I feel that I was blessed to have beentwelve years old in 1943 with a grandfa-ther named Cy who could pole a wood-en boat and who knew where the fishwere and where the butterfly spring wasand who probably understood what washappening to me out walking along aledge or lying across the front seat of aboat watching a whole world of life glideby a foot away.

!

Later generations on the ledges.

D. W. McGary

SUMMER 2007 13

IDATE MY PERCEPTION of myself as aserious fisherman to a little more thanforty years ago when I acquired a

Garcia Mitchell 300 spinning reel, whichI saw (and still see) as fishing tackle’s entryinto that small group of classic “types”—the 1957 Chevy, the Smith & WessonModel 19 revolver, the Martin D-28 gui-tar, and the IBM Correcting Selec trictypewriter all come to mind—that serveas gold standards in their respective fields.

One thing I didn’t understand, how-ever, is what “spinning” meant. I as -sumed it had something to do with thereel, probably with the perfect smooth-ness with which the monofilament lineflowed off and on the spool, or with thespinning-wheel precision of the mecha-nism itself. The Mitchell was, after all, agreat mechanical idea at the height of itspowers, and there was a spider-fiber sortof magic to its operation.

That I could own and “spin-fish” withsuch a reel for years, and now and thengo out and buy myself a few Mepps spin-ners without noticing their name orthinking what it might mean indicates acertain dull blitheness, I know, but it alsosuggests that I was, like a lot of fishermen,preoccupied with results rather than no -men clature. Besides, I was so charmed bythe spinning reel itself that there seemedno need to look beyond its smooth, beau-tiful engineering to justify its name.Though I have examined some of thefinest, most universally adored fly reels inhistory (you haven’t lived until you’ve seenthe rare gold-plated model of the Orvis1874 reel), I have yet to see any fly reel thatapproaches the Garcia Mitchell 300 forpure mechanical satisfaction.

FLIGHTS ANDWITCHES

But of course in the sport of“spin” fishing, it is the lure thatis meant. For centuries, anglershave been making lures spin,turn, and flash in the water. Inthe 1600s, Walton him self gaveus an extended discussion ofhow to mount a dead minnowon a big hook with its tail bent“a little to the right or lefthand” so that it will “turnquick in the water . . . it isimpossible that it should turntoo quick.”1

For centuries, “spinning”had nothing to do with thereel. One could and did fish a“spinner” with whatever tack-le was at hand, from the mostsophisticated to the crudest. Itwas all about getting the min-now (real or artificial—bothwere in common use by 1800)out into the current and forc-ing it against that current fastenough so that it would workits magic (it was long thoughtimpossible to spin a lure bycasting upstream).

Fly-pattern innovators havehad no thing on the spinningcrowd. Nineteenth-century an -glers developed a hardwarestore full of patent-office can-didates in their efforts to per-fect spinning. Book after bookand catalog after catalog por-trayed an endless variety ofvaguely medieval-looking wire-and-hook contrivances (vari-ously known as flights, sets,

Spinners and Sinners:Crossing the Divide between

Angling Subculturesby Paul Schullery

This article appeared in much shorter form inAmer ican Angler (January/February 2006, vol. 29,no. 1).

From the 1961 Garcia Fishing Annual.


and rigs) that consisted mainly of a cen-tral metal shaft (often of shaped lead)from which hung a fearsome array ofsingle, double, or treble hooks. By any ofa variety of means, a dead minnow wasattached to the shaft, and the thing wasready to use. Hewitt Wheatley’s “WaterWitches,” artificial minnows illustratedin The Rod and Line: Or, Practical Hintsand Dainty Devices for theSure Taking of Trout, Gray -ling, Etc. (1849), featured asmany as fifteen hooks. Dain -ty devices in deed. Wheat ley,after an nounc ing that hislures were far superior to anyothers, added as a sort ofmoral bonus that usingsuch lures allowed him to“avoid the cruelty of eitherthreading a fine, livelyworm on a hook, or evenof killing fish, merely asbaits for other fish.”2

One intriguing differ-ence between many of theseVic torian-era spinners andlater lures was that in manycases the hooks were notdirectly attached to thelure itself. In stead, externallines ex tended down alongthe flanks of the real orfake fish, and treble hookswere strung in series alongthese lines. Some calledthese hooked lines “drags.”The idea was that a fishthat grabbed the lure butfailed to inhale the wholepackage would very likelybe snagged around themouth, eyes, or head bythese free-swinging gangsof hooks. This style of spin-ner probably faded fromfashion partly because itmust have been a mess tohandle, especially whentry ing to land a franticallystruggling fish, and partlybe cause the sporting defin-ition of a fair-caught fishhas evolved to entirelyexclude hooking the fish anywhere out-side of its mouth.

Another difference between these ear-lier spinners and today’s models is thatthe swivel—the little free-spinning metalconnection that allowed the lure to turnwithout the line getting all twisted up onitself—was usually placed not at the headof the lure but some distance up the line.William Stewart, in his strongly opin-ioned The Practical Angler (I quote fromthe 1857 edition), recommended that oneswivel “should be placed about two feet

above the hook, and a second about ayard farther up.”3 This separation of swiv -el and spinner is intriguing and prob ablyworked just fine, but I suppose it fadedfrom use because anglers preferred thesimpler arrangement of the lure and swiv-el as part of the same dainty device.

Through the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries, both British and

American tackle manufacturers expand-ed the number of spinnable lures beyondall hope of counting. With the Americandevelopment of excellent casting reelsbefore the Civil War, it became possibleto pitch hefty lures great distances withextraordinary accuracy. Many of thoselures featured propellers, angled fins, andother clever attachments designed toheighten their rotation and attraction.Lighter, miniaturized versions of manyof these same designs were marketed foruse with fly rods, and they remained

popular for much of the twentieth cen-tury. One of the most famous browntrout in more than two centuries ofPennsylvania fishing lore—and for manyyears the state record—was a 151⁄2-poundfish taken in 1945 by Don Martin of FortHunter, outside of Harris burg. Hecaught the fish from Big Spring, nearCarlisle, using a bamboo fly rod to cast a

Strawman Nymph with a4 /0 Col orado Spinner at itshead.

REAL SPINNINGREELS

Though various com-mentators have pointedout that the principles ofthe modern spinning reelwere worked out by a vari-ety of people in England,Scotland, Switzerland, andprob ably other places, Brit -ish inventor Alfred HoldenIllingworth developed andpopularized the first oneswe’d recognize, shortly af -ter World War I. Iron ically,unlike fly reels and castingreels, whose spools actuallydo spin, the spinning reelrelies on a fixed spool,aimed axis forward, so thatthe line practically meltsoff it when the lure is cast.This frictionless dispensingof the line was a hugeadvantage over traditionalcasting reels, whose linehad to be dragged from therapidly turning spool bythe cast lure, with the con-stant threat of backlash.Com bined with progres-sively better nylon lines,spinning reels enabled gen-erations of post–World WarII anglers to make long,accurate casts after only alittle prac tice. It was a revo-lution, and not a quiet one.

Though Bache-BrownLuxor spinning reels were

first im ported to the United States fromEngland in about 1935, it wasn’t untilafter World War II that a variety of reelscame in such numbers as to change theway Americans fished. The good reelswere still comparatively cheap, they wereamazingly easy to learn to use, and theylanded in the New World right in themiddle of the greatest recreation boomin American history, as millions of peo-ple—many of whom were new to fishingof any kind—hit the streams with moreleisure time than ever.

From Hewitt Wheatley, The Rod and Line: Or, Practical Hints andDainty Devices for the Sure Taking of Trout, Grayling, Etc. (London:

Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1849), facing page 26.

SUMMER 2007 15

This was a far more widespreadchange in fishing than the dramatic in -crease in fly fishing in the 1970s. This wasa whole country hooked on a new sport.Some of the nation’s leading outdoorwriters, including such rising householdfly-fishing names as Joe Bates and A. J.McClane, jumped on the popularizationbandwagon and wrote books extollingand explaining the new gear.

Spinning was often billed as finallybridging an imagined gap between thelightest flies and lures that could be castwith fly rods and the heavy lures thatcould be cast with traditional castingrods and reels, but it wasn’t that simple.It certainly was true that spinning gearcould cast lures lighter than most castingrigs could handle, but there were plentyof fly rods sturdy enough to cast smalllures, too. As well, spinning outfits weresoon available that could cast very heavylures. Savvy American tackle dealers real-ized this; Orvis adopted the Pelican spin-ning reel, made in Italy, renamed it theOrvis 100, and marketed it into the firstwidely used saltwater spinning reel.

Spinning’s real advantages were itsease and cheapness. Charley Waterman,in his wonderfully down-to-earth AHistory of Angling (1981), emphasized thecheapness:

When spinning really got going in thelate 40s, it came with a few high-gradereels and some appalling junk.

The junk came because builders andimporters saw that a great many newfishermen were going to get spinninggear and that the market was going todepend on price. Many were what tack-le dealers called “throw away” outfits,

intended to last for one fishing trip, andsometimes they didn’t even do that.One importer exhibited a boxful ofJapanese imports, all different. He saidthey cost him roughly a dollar apiece inthis country and he wondered whichwould be the best one for his line.4

THE OPPOSITION

It was also Waterman who bestsummed up the antispinning reactionamong traditionalists: “The spinningthing got silly in the early 50s when someof its opponents an nounced that itmeant the death of all other forms ofcasting and that it might be ne cessary topass new laws to keep it from completelywiping out fish populations.”5

Spinning’s “opponents” weren’t light-weights. They included Edward Ring -wood Hewitt, now a venerated grand oldman of fly fishing, whose long life in thesport yielded so many influential booksand ideas. Interviewed in 1957, justbefore his death, Hewitt ranted againstthe deadly efficiency of “this whole spin-ning business” and insisted that all statefish and game agencies should see that itwas outlawed.6 There was an almostmoral in dignation here, as if spin fishersweren’t really fishermen at all, but somevile new kind of social scum.

Of course, spinning didn’t lead toTrout Armageddon, though there is noquestion that the great increase in thenumber of fishermen, their choice oftackle aside, was hard on the availablefisheries. On the other hand, by allaccounts, one serious effect of spinning’spopularity was a corresponding eclipse infly fishing. Never all that large a portion of

the fishing population, fly fishers foundthemselves dwindling and left behind.

An interesting measure of this declinein fly fishing may be seen in the appear-ance of several excellent, even path-break-ing fly-fishing books, including Art Flick’sStreamside Guide to Naturals and TheirImitations (1947), Vincent Marinaro’s AModern Dry-Fly Code (1950), JohnAtherton’s The Fly and the Fish (1951),and several others. A few of these (suchas Ernest Schwiebert’s extraordinarilybroad Matching the Hatch, first pub-lished in 1955) seem to have flourished,but most sold poorly and didn’t becomeprominent and influential “classics”until the 1970s, when they were resur-rected by Nick Lyons and introduced tonew generations of anglers. Flick,Marinaro, and the others had labored ontheir information and theories for manyyears before spinning arrived and justhappened to release their studies inbook form at the wrong time, whenthere was the least interest in new fly-fishing thinking. Who needed to knowabout bugs and new fly patterns whenthere were all these shiny little metaldoodads that the trout just couldn’t resist?

Eventually fly fishing climbed out ofits market pit and re-established itsprominence among the different kindsof angling. In a thoughtful essay,“Sinning Against Spinning,” published inTrout Madness (1960), Robert Traverchronicled his own conversion from flyfishing to spinning and his eventualreversion to the fly rod. Charmed like somany others by the amazing efficiency ofgood spinning tackle, Traver announcedit “the new love of my life,”7 but got overit very quickly.

With my customary childish curiosityand helpless compulsion to possessevery new fishing gadget that comesalong, I too fell for spinning—hook,line, and sinker. Some two-hundred-dollars-worth-of-equipment later Iwoke up, rubbed my eyes, and decidedthat I did not give a tinker’s damn forthis new method of taking trout. In factI gave up spinning before many fisher-men in these parts had even heard of it,and instead returned to my fly fishingwith, if possible, an even greater sensejoy and dedication. . . . It is not so muchthat I hate spinning, but rather that Ilove fly fishing so much better.8

The irresistibly quotable Traver gaveus a reasonable list of the reasons why somany converts to spinning eventuallydrifted back to flies. Some reasons werequite practical, such as his dislike of tak-ing so much time to retrieve the line forthe next cast; he could lift his fished-outfly line from the water and recast it at anytime, all at once. Other reasons were

Longtime Orvis President Dudley C. “Duckie” Corkran (left)poses with a tarpon brought in on a spinning outfit.

From the collection of the American Museum of Fly Fishing


more subjective and, ultimately, moreimportant.

But none of these objections goes to theheart of the matter and I suspect that Iwould still prefer to fly fish for troutwith the conventional split bamboo flyrod and regular tapered silk or nylonline even if all the technical objectionsto spinning were solved. I rather thinkthat the simplest statement is that I findthe art and ritual of fly casting a joyousand poetic experience in itself, fish orno fish. Perhaps it is sheer sentimental-ity or conservatism on my part; perhapsit is a stubborn desire to do things thehard way; but somehow or other I likeand prefer the sense of personal involve-ment and immediacy and control that I,at least, feel only when I am delicatelycasting my fly over likely trout waters.9

The purism of fly fishing is usually por-trayed as a kind of snobbery, and often itis. But in this one paragraph Traver cap-tured the finer essence of the purist’sheart.

GET TING ALONG FOR

GREATER GOOD

Spinning came along as Americanangling entered its most dynamic andrestless decades. More was going on thana flood of new tackle. Anglers were join-ing the real world, becoming conserva-tion activists in unprecedented numbers.Trout fishermen particularly were find-ing a voice and flexing political muscles,most often through the offices of TroutUnlimited, founded in 1959, and theFederation of the Fly Fish ermen (laterthe Feder ation of Fly Fishers), foundedin 1965. Because many of the founders

and early members of both organiza-tions were primarily interested in flyfishing for trout, there was a period inthe late 1960s and early 1970s when seri-ous conversations took place about sim-ply combining these two into one morepowerful group.

The merge never happened, and it’seasy enough to argue that there weregood reasons. Starting in the 1950s, atremendous broadening of interestamong fly fishers led them to a greatvariety of fresh- and saltwater fish that,though many had been caught on flieslong before, had never been of wideinterest. FFF was, by its own definition,not just about trout, and it was expand-ing its horizons from the day of its cre-ation.

TU, on the other hand, prided itself ona different kind of breadth, across thespec trum of trout-fishing methods frombait to spinning lures to flies. The all-encom passing democ-racy of TU’s ap proach,based on a desire toattract the largest possi-ble con stituency to thecause of trout conserva-tion, was not some thingto be cast aside lightly.

There were also anumber of philosophi-cal differences betweenthe groups, includingthe centralized authori-ty of TU and the grass -roots approach of FFF.But for the mo mentlet’s consider not thepolitical person at oneend of the fishing line,

but the hook at the other. The fish-hook-ing dilemma for TU, as was often point-ed out to them, was how hopelessly anti-conservation some trout-fishing meth - ods were. Both TU and FFF promotedlimiting your kill and some forms ofcatch-and-release, but even in the 1960s,most people knew that bait-caught fishsuffered a far higher release mortalitythan did fly- or lure-caught fish.Releasing them dead seemed to miss thepoint. FFF lead ers saw no reason todilute the effectiveness of fly fishing as acatch-and-release tool by inviting baitfishers into the fold.

Neither TU nor FFF was willing to giveon this matter. Fly-fishing commentatorArnold Gingrich, ruminating some whatgrumpily over this problem in The Joys ofTrout (1973), said, “But while TU refusesto abandon bait, just as stubbornly as thefly fishermen refuse to compromise theiridentity, which they equate with theirintegrity, the situation shows all the ear-marks of an impasse—which is some-thing that goes forward steadily back-ward.”10

Over the succeeding years, TU maynever have abandoned their hopes ofattracting even more bait fishers intotheir ranks (not that they give them anyroom in their splendid magazine any-more). The two organizations have gonetheir separate but overlapping ways.

Meanwhile, out on the streams, manyof both organizations’ clubs and chapterseither acquired joint affiliations or oth-erwise cooperated in the good work. The

Robert Traver.


The logos of TroutUnlimited and theFedera tion of FlyFishermen as theyappeared in the late1960s.

SUMMER 2007 17

barriers between FFF and TU may havebeen organizationally insurmountablebut were otherwise full of holes. Twicenow, one individual has held a keyadministrative position first with TUand later with FFF. Esther Simon was thefirst to accomplish this, in the 1980s, andPete Van Gytenbeek, an early TU execu-tive director, became FFF’s president in2004.

Crossing the boundary seemed theonly way to do both jobs. As Gingrichput it with an almost audible shrug ofresignation, “Well, since they’re both onthe side of the angels, there’s obviouslyonly one thing to do. You’ve got to jointhem both, and keep your fingerscrossed.”11 Which is justwhat many of us havedone, for a couple gener-ations now.

If the TU-FFF storyseems like a tangentialaside, consider this. Be -hind all this political his-tory is one consistent ifoften unspoken elementin the story of these twoessential organizations’inability to work togeth-er even more closely.Most of the time, theissues that kept themapart lined up peoplewith fly rods on one sideand people with spin-ning rods on the other.

THE SOCIAL GAPS

When I became in -volved in fly fishing inthe 1970s, there was aformidable body of opinion among flyfishers that their method was superior,not merely in Traver’s sense of providinga finer personal experience, but as ameans of conserving hard-used fish pop-ulations. I re member point ing out topeople with this view that science sug-gested otherwise—that fly fishing was noless harmful in catch-and-release fish-eries than certain types of spin fishing.Some of those people didn’t want to hearit. They believed in scientific manage-ment only until science ran up againsttheir prejudices.

The statistics have accumulated over-whelmingly since then. We fly fishers maypride ourselves on occupying some aes-thetic or even spiritual high groundamong anglers if we want to, but that’sabout all we can pretend to have goingfor us anymore. Spin fishers can releasejust as many fish alive as we can, if theywish to. Ed Hewitt would hate to hearthat, and would probably burst out with,

“But they don’t wish to! They’ll kill themall!” And I do know spin fishers who arejust like that. But if we don’t like them aspeople, or if we disapprove of their atti-tudes and values, let’s not waste time tak-ing it out on their tackle.

If I were an active spin fisher thesedays, I’d cast a jaundiced and jealous eyeon fly-fishing-only waters around thecountry and wonder loudly how comethose guys are getting these private littlefishing preserves of their own, on publicstreams that are managed solely by taxdollars. But I also hope that I would lis-ten with some sympathy to the less sci-entific justifications for such fly-fishing-only waters.

For one thing, there is something tothe argument that some types of fishingsimply require a little water of their own.The total fly-fishing-only stream mileageis trivial nationally; surely we are richenough in aquatic resources that wedon’t have to subject all waters to thetragedy of the commons.

Also, there are a great many more“special-regulations” waters (almostalways catch-and-release, or at least arestrictive slot limit) that do allow bothfly and spin fishing but exclude bait fish-ing because of its high release mortality.Fly fishers and spin fishers seem to getalong okay there, though in the places Iknow that have such regulations, the flyfishers tend to dominate the local fishingpopulation, just because so many moreof them have no interest in taking fishhome anyway.

Last, there is the imponderable matterof tradition. Fly fishers perceive some oftheir most historic waters almost as

shrines. For generations, sometimes formore than a century, fly fishers havedevoted enormous amounts of energyand money to protect and nurture thoseparticular waters. Eloquent books havebrought literary immortality to a num-ber of these places. Most of the culturalaura of such places—everything fromthe local place names to the quirky localservice businesses—is a product of itslong-present society of fly fishers. Surely,that should earn them a little preferencehere and there.

SEPARATE BUT EQUAL . . . ISH

There are chicken-or-egg questionshere. Do fly reels andspinning reels attract dif-ferent classes of people onsome level of intellect ortemperament, or are dif-ferent kinds of people justusing fly fishing and spinfishing as social badgesto distinguish them selvesfrom each other? Do wefly fish because we don’tlike to spin fish, or viceversa? My own best an -swer to these questions is,“Maybe not, but some-times it looks like it.”

There are many spin-ning lures that I couldcomfortably cast with myfly rods (I know this fromearly experience, when Iwas still switching over).There are quite a fewWoolly Buggers, MontanaNymphs, and other large-caliber flies in my vest

that I could comfortably cast with a lightspinning outfit. With a small plastic bub-ble a couple feet up the line, the lightestsmall flies can be cast, somewhat impre-cisely, with a spinning rod. The linesbetween the hook-delivery capacity ofthe two methods are so blurred that anuninformed but perceptive observermight wonder what the fuss is about.

I have wondered myself. At my mostjudgmental, driving along some favoriteriver, I see the passing ranks of cookie-cutter fly fishers decked out in our gener-ously flapped/pocketed/Velcroed layersof fashionable pastels, and I wonder ifeven the most outlandishly dressedgolfer could look any foppishly sillier tothe uninitiated.

Then I see a spin fisher in faded jeans(the People’s pastel) and flannel shirtstanding (they never crouch like we do)with his toes right up to the edge of somebeautiful trout stream, and I am remind-ed of Russ Chatham’s description of such

Arnold Gingrich and his wife Jane.



a man, “flipping a spoon carelessly intothe water the way another might discarda candy wrapper.”12 Then I wonder if it ispossible to look any more emotionallyremote from what one is doing than whilespin fishing.

Though I have many recollections ofmyself and others in extraordinarilyembar rassing and foolish situationswhile fly fishing, my strongest memory ofany fisherman achieving the very finestlevel of absurdity did involve a spin fish-erman. It was more than twenty yearsago, in Vermont. I had stopped at theUnion Street bridge over theBattenkill, not far down-stream from Manchester, justto take a look at the water,which was low and clear. Itwas also very pretty, so Istood for a little while in themiddle of the bridge, lookingup stream. Unlike so many“bridge pools,” this was un -promising water, just a cou-ple inches deep over a brightbed of sand and gravel.

But on the west bank justupstream from the bridgethere was some bare dirtright down to the water, anda local young man had parkedhis big pickup truck so he andhis girlfriend could walkdown and sit close together bythe water while he fished. Hehad a nice spinning outfit andhad cast out into the middleof the river. I looked downand watched his shiny littlespinner as the clear currentslowly rolled it along over thegravel in the ankle-deep water.

It was a telling moment.He knew essentially nothingabout what a spinner wassupposed to do or where todo it, and yet he was pic-turesquely honoring all theforms of “going fishing,”including some I’m sure he’dnever heard of. It was atableau vivant of the Young Angler’s Idyl.The disconnect between really fishingand what this young man was doing wasstupendous, but I recognized immedi-ately that this, too, was a kind of fishing,though it wouldn’t produce an actualfish if he did it for a thousand years.

I sensed a rare achievement in thisman’s approach. For all the quixotic castsI’ve seen fly fishers make—including allthe absurd long shots I’ve sent underlogs, over weed beds, between branches,and into other sure tippet-clippers—I’venever seen anyone approach this happyyoung man for sheer purity of hopeless-

ness. It makes me think better of spinfishers generally to know that they, too,can get lost in the fog of symbolism andimagery that surrounds fishing at itsleast practical.

GET TING ALONG AFTER ALL

Fishermen have always enjoyed pok-ing fun at one another and probablyalways will; it’s just human nature, andit’s often done in a friendly enough spir-it. It would take a herd of sociologists—and maybe even a few psychologists—to

unravel the relationship between mod-ern spin fishers and fly fishers. Spin fish-ers who blather about how they can out-fish fly fishers ought to just get on over tothe fish market and stop taking up valu-able river space. And anyone who hastaken up fly fishing for the sense of artis-tic or moral superiority it gives them hasbigger problems than fishing can solve.

I find it reassuring that many of theauthorities who fished spinners a centu-ry or more ago were also leading fly-fish-ing authorities. Anglers like Wheatley,mentioned earlier, and such great andbeloved generalists as the American

Thaddeus Norris and the Briton FrancisFrancis, did it all. In the twentieth centu-ry, some of our most beloved fly-fishingwriters, including Ray Bergman and JoeBrooks, were also avid generalists. That’sgood enough company for most of us, Ithink.

Today, I suspect that many of us whostarted with a spinning outfit have neverentirely escaped its charms. Like RobertTraver, I may fly fish because I like it bet-ter, but I still take that old Mitchell outnow and then, give the crank a few wist-ful turns, and consider my options.

!

ENDNOTES

1. Izaak Walton, TheCompleat Angler (London: JohnLane, 1897; reprint London:Senate, 1994), 106–07.

2. Hewett Wheatley, The Rodand Line (London: Longman,Brown, Green & Longmans,1849; reprint Mortonehamp -stead, Devon: The Flyfisher’sClassic Library, 2002), 21.

3. William Stewart, The Prac -tical Angler (Edinburgh: Adamand Charles Black, 1857), 159.

4. Charles Waterman, A His -tory of Angling (Tulsa, Okla.:Winchester Press, 1981), 224.

5. Waterman, A History, 224.6. I discuss Hewitt’s views

on spinning and quote him atgreater length in American FlyFishing: A History (New York:Nick Lyons Press, 1987), 190.

7. Robert Traver, TroutMadness (New York: St. Martin’sPress, 1960), 39.

8. Ibid.9. Ibid., 141.10. Gingrich, The Joys of

Trout (New York: Crown Pub -lishers, 1973), 119. My commentson the early political relation-ship between the Federation ofFly Fishers and Trout Unlimitedin this discussion are based ingood part on Gingrich, The Joysof Trout, 115–20, 212–16; my own

experiences as a member, senior advisor, andvice president for communications of theFederation of Fly Fishers in the late 1970s and1980s; my longtime membership in TroutUnlimited; and many conversations with BudLilly, founding president of Montana TroutUnlimited and longtime activist with bothorganizations.

11. Gingrich, The Joys of Trout, 120.12. Russell Chatham, The Angler’s Coast

(New York: Doubleday, 1976), 67.

From Ed Zern, To Hell with Fishing(New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1945), 35.

SUMMER 2007 19

Homage to Patagonia:Schwiebert’s Friends Deliver His Ashes

A group of sportsmen gathered on January 18 on the Caleufu River on Douglas Reid’sestancia to honor the memory of the world-renowned fisherman-author Ernest

Schwiebert, who died on 10 December 2005, in Princeton, New Jersey. Jim Rikhoff,Ernie’s lifelong friend since their days as undergraduates at Ohio State University in

the 1950s, holds the ashes. He observed the burial of the remains with (from left)Douglas Reid; Will Paine, another friend of Ernie’s; Inez Jorgenson; and Xavier

Rivera, one of Schwiebert’s longtime guides in Argentina.

Above: The interment.

Right: Ernie’s view, overlooking the Caleufu River,one of his favorite streams.

Photos by Tom Brennan


The American Museum of Fly Fishing is proud to announceits collaboration with the Yale Peabody Museum of NaturalHistory (New Haven, Connecticut) on an exciting exhibitionthat features collections of both museums. Seeing Wonders: TheNature of Fly Fishing opens on 29 September 2007 and runsthrough February 2008. It includes highlights from the Amer -ican Museum of Fly Fishing’s permanent collection, which willbe greatly augmented by the Yale Peabody Museum’s extensiveichthyology and entomology collections.

The American Museum of Fly Fishing has enjoyed an excel-lent relationship with the Yale Peabody Museum since the early1990s, when our traveling exhibit, Anglers All, showed there togreat success. Working together to create this new exhibition,both institutions look to reach out to the next generation ofanglers and naturalists, and to inspire their participation in thenatural world through the wonderful sport of fly fishing.

The exhibition will open with a short film produced by theAmerican Museum of Fly Fishing. This high-definition videowill introduce the visitor to the sport, noting the differencesbetween fly fishing and conventional fishing. Filmed in fantas-tic settings throughout North America, it will feature legendaryfly-fishing practitioners—including Gardner Grant, JoanWulff, James Prosek, John Gierach, and many others—as theycommunicate the beauty and diversity of the sport.

Drawing from core collections of the American Museum ofFly Fishing—the largest public collection of angling artifacts inthe world—Seeing Wonders: The Nature of Fly Fishing willchronicle the sport’s history, paying particular attention tonineteenth-century European influence and the evolution ofmod ern fly fishing as evidenced by tactics, equipment, art, andliterature.

It will also delve into the fascinating world of fly tying.Featuring the Yale Peabody’s extensive entomology collections,the exhibit will explain methods used by fly tiers to match thehatch—that is, create flies that mimic specific insects, fish,mammals, and algae—to hook species from all over the world.

The Yale Peabody’s extensive ichthyology collection willoffer a glimpse into the myriad fish species targeted worldwideby fly fishers. The visitor will be introduced to the many fish-eries frequented by anglers, get a better understanding of thesefisheries, and learn about the history of conservation in flyfishing as it relates to these fisheries.

There will also be a chance to view the celebrated collection offly-fishing reels and rods from the American Museum of FlyFishing, which detail the evolution of designing and man u -facturing techniques from the nineteenth century to modern day.

Both institutions are organizing demonstrations and semi-nars to further highlight the sport. There will be fly-tying andcasting demonstrations every weekend during the exhibit, aswell as various lectures from docents.

A major one-day fly-fishing event, planned by both institu-tions, is in the works for early December 2007. The event willfeature guided tours of the exhibit, along with guided access tothe magnificent collection of angling books housed at Yale Uni -versity’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. It willend with a wonderful dinner in the gallery of the Yale PeabodyMuseum, featuring a sporting dinner and auction to raise fundsfor both institutions.

Stay tuned to our website (www.amff.com) and journal formore news on this exciting exhibition.

Seeing Wonders: The Nature of Fly FishingAn Exhibition

The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History file photo

SUMMER 2007 21

AMFF file photo

AMFF file photo

Above: A sampling of the American Museumof Fly Fishing’s permanent collection.

Right: The magnificent Great Hall of the YalePeabody Museum of Natural History.

Below: A portion of the Anglers All timelinechronicling the development of the sport in

the late 19th century.

Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History file photo


Gerald A. Hayes Jr., age sixty-two, of Philadelphia, a recently retired businessman, died after a bravefight with cancer at Pennsylvania Hospital on 13 February 2007.

Mr. Hayes graduated from Villanova University in 1966. After graduation, he served as an officer inthe United States Air Force until 1971. Immediately following his service, he began his banking careerwith First Pennsylvania Bank and continued with Corestates Bank until 1996. Since 1996, he workedas a consultant, most recently with Allegiance Bank and Paramount Mortgage.

An avid fly fisherman, Jerry found peace and relaxation while casting, being with nature, and enjoy-ing the perfect cigar. He was a member and president of the Brodhead Hunting and FishingAssociation in Canadensis, Pennsylvania. His passion for the sport led him to other destinations,including South America, the Florida Keys, Idaho, and Canada. In addition to his angling adventures,he enjoyed collecting antique fly rods and tackle.

Jerry loved traveling with his family and dear friends. Many fond memories were created onMonhegan Island, St. Barths, and the Chesapeake Bay. Inspired by his travels, Jerry built a cherishedcollection of art work—most noteworthy from the artist colony on Monhegan Island, Maine. Inspiredby fellow artists, he dabbled in watercolor painting.

In addition to his loving wife, Beverly, he is survived by his daughter, Kimberley Hayes Cooper; abrother; a sister; and many loving nieces and nephews.

Donations in Jerry’s memory can be made to the Joan Karnell Cancer Center in Philadelphia or theAmerican Museum of Fly Fishing.

I N M E M O R I A M

Gerald A. Hayes Jr.

Jerry Hayes on a fishing trip in Tierra del Fuego, January 2002.

SUMMER 2007 23

I became a member a year ago andlook forward to each issue of the journal.So, when I eagerly opened this one to seewhat fascinating articles awaited me, Ifound myself confronted with: The Index(Winter 2007, vol. 33, no. 1). A quick scandetermined that was essentially it for thisissue, and I quickly joined the groanersand gnashers club.

But then I started to look through itand got thoroughly hooked. What anabsolute treasure! It’s like stepping into aprivate fly-fishing library and gainingaccess to a wealth of knowledge all for $4an issue, assuming it’s in stock.

My congratulations for putting it out.I can appreciate it’s a huge effort to pullall this together. But, it’s extremely valu-able. Thanks for making it available.

Alan AmendtFarmington Hills, Michigan

I almost wish my stuff had not ap -peared in the journal because then myremark here might seem to carry less bias.

The fact that the journal publishes anindex (Winter 2007, vol. 33, no. 1) raises itso far above all the other sporting maga-zines as to be in another universe of themind. Pub lish an article in other maga-zines, and it lives a couple months andthen is as good as lost forever. Pub lish inthe Amer ican Fly Fisher, and your workcan live and be found by the genera-tions. It makes the museum a seriouscultural, historical, scholarly institution.

What a wonderful thing!

Gordon WickstromBoulder, Colorado

Joseph W. Cooper Jr. regrets that hewill be unable to attend the AMFFAnnual Evening in Napa on 2 June 2007.At ninety-one years of age, that is a longway from Callahan.

Shed not too many tears of sympathyfor this old man, however, as Callahan iswithin a mile or so of some very nicefish, and I continue to pursue them en -thusiastically, currently with a score of14,502 for a lifetime (all on my ownflies), striving for 15,000.

Would that anyone is interested insuch matters, I enclose a picture of a 16-pound rainbow (not the largest fish Ihave taken here) taken on 6x tippet anda dry #22 Trico. As far as I know, he is stillthere (not a planted fish).

Tight lines,

Joe Cooper Jr.Callahan, California

There is a mystery concerning thephoto on page 3 of the Spring issue (vol.33, no. 2) accompanying Ken Owens’sfine article on tailwater fisheries, whichshows a proud angler holding a “trophysteelhead.” The head of this fish lookssalmonid enough, but it appears to havea forked tail exactly like that of a rockymountain whitefish (Core gonus william -soni). The tail of a steelhead, while per-haps not quite square, is never forked—or is it?

Roland GinzelLenox, Massachusetts

Ken Owens responds:

Mr. Ginzel is absolutely right. Nowthat I look at it carefully, there is noquestion that the creature in question isdefinitely a whitefish. Still more shatter-ing to my reputation as a caption writeris this late-arriving information: BritStorey, chief historian for the Bureau ofReclamation, now identifies the photo asdating from 1918 (not the 1960s) andstates that it was taken below JacksonLake Dam on the Snake River (not PriestRapids on the Columbia). Thus, despitethe charm of the illustration, it has infact no direct relevance whatsoever tothe topic of my article.

Usually I’m so focused on the fish, mywife ob serves, that I don’t notice cos-tume; but in this case I looked right pastthe obvious concerning both the fish andthe lady’s fishing apparel. Only the flyrod had my attention. “A different angle,”says my wife, not meaning any pun.Please thank Mr. Ginzel for me andextend my apologies to all other readers.

Ken OwensSacramento, California

L E T T E R S

Joe Cooper and his 16-pound rainbow trout.


Anglers’ Club DinnerThe museum held its annual Anglers’ Club of New York

Dinner and Sporting Auction on March 15. The evening was agreat success, raising significant dollars for our archival andcollections work. With the city bracing for a large winter stormlate that evening, our audience enjoyed a lively social hour andauction preview. The attendees enjoyed a wonderful culinaryexperience thanks to Mary O’Malley and her professional staff.

Lyman Foss returned to serve as the evening’s auctioneer.His entertaining auction style, combined with several ques-tionable anecdotes, produced some great bidding and severalheated battles.

The museum would like to thank the Anglers’ Club of NewYork for once again hosting this important event. We offer ahuge round of applause to dinner chair John Mundt and hiscommittee—James Baker, Jim and Judith Bowman, BobJohnson, John Larkin, Carmine Lisella, Pamela Murray,Stephen Peet, David Sgorbati, and Richard Tisch—for theirtireless efforts to make this event a success.

Thank also to our event sponsors: the Conservancy &Sporting Society, Peter Corbin, Barbi and Thomas E. Don -nelley II, Mac Francis, George and Beth Gibson, Jon and MonaGibson, Dr. Edmund Hecklau, Doug MacKenzie, Erik Oken,Stephen Peet, Kris Rollenhagen, and Jeffrey Williams.

Finally, we would like to thank our auction donors, whosewonderful gifts generated tremendous support for the museum:Rick Bannerot, Francisco Ruiz and the Nomads of the Seas, AldroFrench and the Rapid River Fly Fishing Company, the OrvisCompany and Orvis Sandanona, the Tamarack Pre serve, the Inn

at Bullis Hall, the Conservancy & Sporting Society, theYellowstone Valley Ranch, Steve Horowitz and Kestrel Outfitters,L. L. Bean, Robert Cochrane, Jim Collins, Kris Rollenhagen, PeterCorbin, Adriano Manocchia, Carmine Lisella and the JordanMills Rod Co., John Mundt Jr., Roger Riccardi and Gallo Wines,Dr. Gary Sherman, Dr. Mark Sherman, Dr. Steve Sherman,Richard Tisch and the Potatuck Club, Leslie Clark and theWinston Rod Company, Captain Joe Mustari, and Ted Sypher.

Upcoming EventsOctober 2–3(tentative)Cast and Hack TournamentShelter Harbor Golf Club and South County Rhode Island

Saltwater FisheryWesterly and Charlestown, Rhode Island

October 11–12Friends of Museum Corbin ShootHudson FarmAndover, New Jersey

October 26–27Annual Membership Meeting and Trustees WeekendManchester, Vermont

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

Photos by Yoshi Akiyama

Above: Aldro French, owner of the historic Forest Lodge on theRapid River, is flanked by Museum Trustee Richard Tisch

(right) and Charles Wallshein, a longtime Rapid River angler.

Right: Bill Pierce (right), PR representative for the Maine De -partment of Inland Fisheries, presents a conservation award toExecutive Director Bill Bullock for his efforts on the Rapid RiverBrook Trout Project during the museum’s Anglers’ Club dinner.

SUMMER 2007 25

Museum Receives Memorial ContributionsThe museum received word in late February that a friend of

ours had passed away. Gerald Hayes died on February 13 at theage of sixty-two (see “In Memoriam: Gerald A. Hayes Jr.” onpage 22). His obituary suggested that friends send memorialcontributions to the American Museum of Fly Fishing. Wereceived many donations with kind remarks. Among themwere: “Jerry was an avid fly fisherman who spent many happytimes with a fishing rod in hand wading a trout stream”;“Please use this donation to continue your important missionof preserving our rich fly-fishing heritage for future genera-tions”; “An avid fisherman, he will be missed by his manyfriends and family”; “In memory of Gerald Hayes, a true andlongtime friend and a fly-fishing buddy for years”; and “Inmemory of our beloved president.”

Other contributions came in with similar sentiments. It wasnice to see the museum listed as something so dear to someonewhose life reflected the mission of the American Museum ofFly Fishing.

Behnke Papers Donated to the MontanaState University Libraries

In September 2006, the Montana State University Librarieswere pleased to acquire the papers/archive of Robert J. Behnke.

Dr. Behnke is professor emeritus at Colorado State Uni ver -sity. He is both renowned and respected as one of the preemi-nent researchers focusing on trout. His work includes the mag-nificent and comprehensive Trout and Salmon of North America(2002) and Native Trout of Western North America (1992).

The Behnke collection will be processed in 2007, after whichit will become accessible to the public. It will become part of agrowing trout and salmonid collection that presently exceeds7,200 titles and also includes the Nick Lyons Ephemera Col -lection (composed of corporate records and personal papers,1932–2005). Inquiries about MSU’s Trout and Salmonid Col -lection may be directed to Kim Allen Scott, Special CollectionsLibrarian, at (406) 994-5297 or [email protected].

Recent Donations Sylvia Bashline of State College, Pennsylvania, donated a

311⁄2-inch wood-carved Atlantic salmon hen by Jim Bashline,based on one he caught from the Strelna River, Russia, June1992. She also sent a framed limited-edition print (111/750),Salmo Salar by John Atherton.

Jennine Dickey of Rangeley, Maine, donated the photo jour-nal of Gertrude Jungmann’s fishing trip to Labrador in 1953,along with Gert’s letter opener and a photocopy of her trip diary.

In the LibraryThanks to the following publishers for their donations of

recent titles that have become part of our collection (all titleswere published in 2006, unless otherwise noted):

Frank Amato Publications, Inc., sent us Northern CaliforniaRiver Maps & Fishing Guide and John Shewey’s Steelhead Flies.The Lyons Press sent us Darrel Martin’s The Fly-Fisher’s Craft:The Art and History. And Randy Kadish sent us a copy of hisnovel, The Fly Caster Who Tried to Make Peace with the World(Saw Mill River Press, 2007).

D. W. McGary spent more than forty-three years in public educationin Lancaster, Pennsylvania, teaching chemistry and later serving as thedistrict’s K–12 coordinator of science. After retiring in 1997, Dan and hiswife Thelma moved to New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, where they live3 miles from the Susquehanna River and 5 miles from the neareststretch of the Yellow Breeches Creek. The combination of leisure timeand close proximity to varied waters allows Dan to pursue not only fishbut his fishing heritage in the area where he grew up during the GreatDepression and the years of World War II. Sharing this heritage is themotivation behind his contribution to this issue.

Thelma McGary

Paul Schullery was executive director of the American Museum ofFly Fishing from 1977 to 1982. He is the author, coauthor, or editor ofabout thirty-five books, including several relating to fly fishing and fly-fishing history. His most recent books include Cowboy Trout: WesternFly Fishing as If It Matters; The Rise: Streamside Observations on Trout,Flies, and Fly Fishing; and The Orvis Story: 150 Years of an AmericanSporting Tradition. He was the 2006 winner of the Roderick Haig-Brown Award from the Federation of Fly Fishers.

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


Our sincere thanks to those who contributed tofund the museum’s important work in 2006.

Museum Donors

PLATINUM

GOLD

SILVER

John Bell Jr.Yvon Chouinard

Amelia C. FawcettDana Mead

Thomas Rice, MDMatthew Scott

Charles TreadwayDickson Whitney

Christopher BarrowTim Bontecou

Robert A. Clough, MDFitz Coker

Patrick DurkinGeoffrey Gold

Paul C. JenningsLester Morse Foundation

Duff MeyercordDavid Pennock

Sandra ReadJames Specter, DDS

Edwin StrohJerry Tone

Vermont Magazine

James AbrahamRonald BeanEd BeddowJoel Berman

Alexander Bing IIIJeffrey Blum

Jim and Judith BowmanMark Brefka

Robert BruckerDonald Buckley

Bill and Becky BurkeGeorge Butts

William CasazzaDonald Clough, MD

Michael CoeGary CorcoranDeb Donnelley

Tom and Barbi DonnelleyJon R. Eggleston

Robert Evans

Scott FarfoneG. Dick Finlay

Matthew ForelliAustin FrancisKeith Fulsher

Peter GambitskyDonald Grosset

Thomas HartmanDavid A. HasheyCoburn Haskell

David A. JohnsonJohn Kelleher

Thomas KnightPeter Kuriloff

Thomas LaskowJames Lee

Samuel LibmanWilliam LordNick Lyons

William Maggi

John MaharGeorge McCabe

Charles McCaughtryR. M. McCulloch

Charles McGowanHugo MelvoinGregg MesselEd MigdalskiWarren MillerPaula Morgan

George MumfordFrank Murray Jr.Charles Newmyer

Erik OkenLars Olsson

Richard O’NeillRobert OrthFrank Paul

James PollackNicholas Posak

Michael ReagorKeith Reedr.k. Miles

William RossEdward Ruestow

Raymond SalminenPeter Saulnier

John ScullyMcKelden Smith

Carl Soderland, MDRonald Swanson

William TroyWilliam Webster

Heather and MitchWhiteford

Delozier WigtonHarold WilliamsCharles Wood III

James F. WoodGerald Zebrowski

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E. M. BakwinMichael Bakwin

Foster BamPam Bates

Stephen BenardetePaul Bofinger

R. Duke Buchan IIIWilliam C. Bullock Jr.

Mickey CallanenPeter Corbin

H. Corbin DayJerome “Jace” Day

Blake DrexlerChristopher Garcia

Ronald GardGeorge Gibson III

Gardner GrantChristopher Gruseke

James HardmanJames Heckman, MDArthur Kaemmer, MD

Peter KelloggWoods King IIICarl Kuehner III

Nancy MackinnonWalter Matia

William McMaster, MDJohn Mundt Jr.David Nichols

E. Wayne NordbergRaymond Pecor

Stephen PeetPerkins Charitable

FoundationLeigh Perkins Sr.

Allan Poole

John RanoJohn Regan

James Reid Jr.Roger Riccardi

Kristoph RollenhagenWilliam Salladin

Robert ScottJared Tausig

Richard TischDavid Walsh

Frank “Chip” WeinburgJames Woods

SUMMER 2007 27

Announcement ofAnnual Meeting

The annual meeting of the members of the AmericanMuseum of Fly Fishing will take place in Manchester,Vermont, at Hildene on Saturday, October 28, 2007, at9:00 A.M.

Members will vote on the election of new trustees,officers and any other matters that may be presented.Members should contact the American Museum of FlyFishing for a copy of the agenda any time after October15, 2007, at (802) 362-3300.

The annual trustees’ meeting will follow the mem-bership meeting at the same location.

Waterlog, since its launch in December 1996 has proved itselfone of the finest angling magazines of all time. Published bythe Medlar Press, and edited by Jon Ward-Allen, the magazinefeatures some of the best descriptive, humorous and incisive writing on angling. Beautifully produced, with superbphotography and illustrations, the magazine is a joy to readand a real collector’s item. Waterlog has contributions from the best angling writers, including Chris Yates, Ken Cameron,Dexter Petley, John Bailey, Andrew Herd and Clive Gammon.Waterlog has real international appeal, with contributions fromaround the world, including regular features from America.Waterlog is published quarterly and is available on subscription.

WATERLOG IN THE USA & CANADA

To receive your copies of Waterlog simply phone orwrite to us at the address below.

Waterlog

Callahan and Company, PO Box 505,Peterborough, New Hampshire 03458, USAE-mail: [email protected]: 603 924 3726

www.waterlogmagazine.com

Waterlog is published by the Medlar Press, Britain’s finest angling book publisher.www.medlarpress.com

Subscribe before the 31st of July and getfive issues for the price of four.

A

B AC K I S S U 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:Volume 33:

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

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

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


nomads of the seas ad

Exhibits: Both Traveling and at Home

AS I GAZE OUT THE window at a brilliant May morning insouthwestern Vermont, my mind wanders to the manydistractions facing a sportsman this month: Are the

Hendrickson duns on the water at my favorite riffle below LyeBrook Pool? Do I have the time to sneak out turkey hunting to -morrow? Are the morel mushrooms popping yet? Althoughthese activities are tempting, I must buckle down, get to work,and bring our membership up to speed on our activities.

These are exciting times for the American Museum of FlyFishing. As we approach our fortieth anniversary in 2008, I amproud to share news of several exciting projects.

In September 2007, we will be opening a joint exhibit at thePeabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University. SeeingWonders: The Nature of Fly Fishing will feature our museum’srich collection of fly-angling artifacts, which will be greatlyaugmented by the Peabody’s extensive ichthyology and ento-mology collections. This show is scheduled to run throughFebruary 2008. It will be an excellent opportunity for bothinstitutions to inspire the participation of the next generationof anglers and naturalists in the natural world of our sport.The Peabody Museum of Natural History and the AmericanMuseum of Fly Fishing collaborated on a smaller fly-fishingexhibit fifteen years ago, and we are happy to be workingtogether again. Our museum’s collection has grown consider-ably during the intervening years, and we are looking forwardto this creation of a must-see exhibit for fly anglers young andold. For more on Seeing Wonders: The Nature of Fly Fishing, seepage 20.

Our Ogden M. Pleissner exhibit, The Sporting Grand Tour,will open in our Manchester galleries in May 2008. This exhib-it will include paintings and sketches from the AmericanMuseum of Fly Fishing, private collectors, and the Ogden M.Pleissner estate housed at Vermont’s Shelburne Museum.

Pleissner’s paintings will be part of a larger exhibit that joinshis finished works with photographs, journal entries, sketches,artifacts, and personal remembrances of the people and placeshe painted.

We recently hired Bob Shaw to be our curator for thisexhibit. Bob brings extensive exhibits experience to the muse-um, and we are thrilled to have him on board for this show. Hewill be working closely with Collections Manager and ExhibitDesigner Yoshi Akiyama to put this show together.

Ogden M. Pleissner spent a great deal of his life between hisstudios in New York City and southwestern Vermont. Twenty-three years after his death, his spirit still pervades throughoutthis community. Mention his name, and people will recall hispaintings, his humor, and his passion for angling and birdhunting. Our museum is fortunate to have a broad selection ofhis artifacts in our collection. We are also blessed with a widenetwork of supporters who know where Pleissner’s best sport-ing works are hanging. A fantastic collection of Pleissner’spaintings will be featured in this show. Don’t miss this chanceto view the works of one of America’s greatest twentieth-cen-tury painters through the lens of fly fishing.

Finally, I hope you can visit the museum this summer.Earlier this year, Yoshi put together a wonderful travelingexhibit commemorating the work of reelmaker Stanley E.Bogdan, our 2007 Heritage Award winner. We intend to broad-en this exhibit with loaned reels, artifacts, and other memora-bilia to celebrate Stan’s career. I urge you all to make the jour-ney to see our spectacular museum and enjoy the world’slargest public collection of angling artifacts.

Tight lines!

BILL BULLOCKEXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

A panel from the museum’s traveling exhibit Anglers All:Humanity in Midstream depicting the various birds whose

feathers go into the creation of the Jock Scott salmon fly.

AMFF file photo

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 I N !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 Asso ciation of Museums,the American Association of State andLocal History, the New England Asso ciationof Museums, the Vermont Museum andGallery Alliance, and the InternationalAssociation of Sports Museums and Hallsof Fame.

S U P P O R T !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.

the american fly fisher - american museum of fly fishing · arthur kaemmer, md woods king iii carl...

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