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SPRING 2012 VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2

American

Journal of the American Museum of Fly Fishing

The

Fly Fisher

IFLY FISH. Of course I fly fish. I also do alittle yoga. I’m not very good at either, inpart because I don’t practice enough to

get good at them. In fact, in both cases, I’vebeen not-practicing-enough for many years.

When I do fish or take a yoga class, Iattempt to let go of how mediocre I am,enjoy the moment, and perhaps improve alittle. I try not to judge the quality of myexperience by comparing my performanceto those around me. I don’t want to com-pete with others or even with myself. Theseactivities are meant to be meditative, afterall. Aren’t they?

Still, while many of us might claim thatwe angle contemplatively, few could claimnever to have felt an inkling of competi-tiveness with our fishing buddies. Andwhen the sport becomes a game as well—as it does in formal fly-fishing competi-tions—the pitting of angler against anglerin pursuit of a prize changes the tenor ofthe day on the water. In “‘A Great Want ofTrue Angling Sentiment’: Is CompetitiveFly Fishing Fatal?” (page 13), Paul Schulleryattempts to address what history has to sayabout competitive fly fishing, then relayshis own experience as a participant in theJackson Hole One-Fly.

When one isn’t busy competing (or not)with one’s fly-fishing pals, one can contem-plate our sport through books such as NickLyons’s Spring Creek. This year marks thetwentieth anniversary of its release, ananniversary that has not gone unnoticed byDennis LaBare, whose life has been greatlyaffected by the book. In “Twenty Years ofSpring Creek” (page 21), LaBare shares hisexperience of reading Nick Lyons, thenmeeting Nick Lyons, and eventually find-ing his own way to this mythic place.

In the last issue (Winter 2012), we ranPart I of Jim Hardman’s “Synthetics inFishing Tackle: What’s in the Mix: NaturalRubber, Gutta-Percha, and ‘Modified Stuff,’”in which he introduced us to gutta-percha,mud, and hard rubber. Hardman—a retired

manufacturer of industrial adhesives andassociated dispensing machinery—getsmore into the “modified stuff” in Part II(page 2), which covers celluloid, Bakelite,phenolics, and modern-engineered plas-tics. Among the examples noted of cellu-loid reel seats is one found on a rod built byJohn Landman, a rod maker who hasrecently appeared in the pages of this jour-nal and can be found in this issue as well.

“The Invisible Man: John G. Landman,”by Clarence Anderson, appeared here inSpring 2009. That article addressed the rodmaker’s supposed obscurity until the pub-lication, in 1997, of A. J. Campbell’s ClassicAntique Fly-Fishing Tackle. Campbell’srecognition of Landman encouraged moreresearch, and much information unknownto Campbell was subsequently brought tolight, as discussed by Anderson in “TheInvisible Man.” Now, a “plethora of freshdata . . . have surfaced since the appearanceof my (premature!) examination of Land-man,” Anderson writes.“These more recentfindings quite overturn most of the previ-ous speculation about the nature ofLandman’s work and demonstrate conclu-sively that Landman’s modern obscurity ismerely the kind of historical accident prov-ing, yet again, that fame is fleeting.” ReadAnderson’s latest findings in “JohnLandman Revisited” (page 8).

In book news, Coch-y-Bonddu Booksrecently published Terry Griffiths’s TheEssential Kelson: A Fly-Tyer’s Compendium,featuring flies tied by Marvin Nolte. We arepleased to share a review by John Betts onpage 20.

And each year, we like to thank ourmembers for their support and recognizeour donors, sponsors, supporters, volun-teers, authors, lenders, and friends (page23). Thank you. We couldn’t do this with-out you.

KATHLEEN ACHOREDITOR

Contemplating Competition and Other Facets of Our Sport

Our Mission:

The American Museum of Fly Fishing pro-motes an understanding of and appreciation

for the history, traditions, and practitioners ofthe sport of fly fishing. It collects, preserves,

exhibits, studies, and interprets the artifacts,art, and literature of the sport and uses these

resources to engage and benefit everyone.

Peter BakwinThomas Belk Jr.Kelly Boatright

A. S. CargillTim Hixon

James HoughtonPeter Kellogg

Stephen MyersGrant E. NelsonJoseph R. Perella

F R I E N D S O F T H E M U S E U M

Catherine E. ComarExecutive Director

Yoshi AkiyamaDeputy Director

Sarah MooreDevelopment Assistant

Kim MurphyManager of Events and Events Promotion

Patricia RussellAccount Manager

Sara WilcoxDirector of Visual Communication

S T A F F

Kathleen AchorEditor

Sara WilcoxDesign & Production

Sarah May ClarksonCopy Editor

THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER

S P R I N G 2 0 1 2 V O L U M E 3 8 N U M B E R 2

the American Museum of Fly FishingJournal of

Synthetics in Fishing Tackle: What’s in the Mix:Natural Rubber, Gutta-Percha,and “Modified Stuff,” Part II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

James Hardman

John Landman Revisited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Clarence Anderson

“A Great Want of True Angling Sentiment”:Is Competitive Fly Fishing Fatal? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Paul Schullery

Book ReviewGriffiths’s The Essential Kelson:A Fly-Tyer’s Compendium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

John Betts

Twenty Years of Spring Creek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Dennis LaBare

Museum Donors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Museum News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

ON THE COVER: James Hardman uses this Landman rod’s reel seat as anexample of celluloid’s appealing resemblance to ivory in the second part ofhis article “Synthetics in Fishing Tackle: What’s in the Mix.” Meanwhile,Clarence Anderson takes a closer look at John’s Landman’s role in the devel-opment of modern rods in his article “John Landman Revisited.” Photo byJames Hardman.

The American Fly Fisher (ISSN 0884-3562) is published four times a year by the museum at P.O. Box 42, Manchester,Vermont 05254. Publication dates are winter, spring, summer, and fall. Membership dues include the cost of the journal($50) and are tax deductible as provided for by law. Membership rates are listed in the back of each issue. All letters, man-uscripts, photographs, and materials intended for publication in the journal should be sent to the museum. The muse-um and journal are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, drawings, photographic material, or memorabilia. Themuseum cannot accept responsibility for statements and interpretations that are wholly the author’s. Unsolicited manu-scripts cannot be returned unless postage is provided. Contributions to The American Fly Fisher are to be considered gra-tuitous and the property of the museum unless otherwise requested by the contributor. Copyright © 2012, the AmericanMuseum of Fly Fishing, Manchester, Vermont 05254. Original material appearing may not be reprinted without prior per-mission. Periodical postage paid at Manchester, Vermont 05254; Manchester, Vermont 05255; and additional offices (USPS057410). The American Fly Fisher (ISSN 0884-3562) EMAIL: [email protected] WEBSITE: www.amff.com

POSTMASTER: Send address changes toThe American Fly FisherP.O. Box 42Manchester, Vermont 05254

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

T R U S T E E S

Chairman of the BoardPresident

Vice PresidentVice President

SecretaryClerk

Treasurer

David H. WalshJames Heckman, MDGary J. Sherman, DPMRichard G. TischJames C. WoodsCharles R. EichelPhilip Sawyer

O F F I C E R S

Michael BakwinFoster Bam

Pamela BatesStephen W. Burke, MD

Jane CookePeter Corbin

Deborah Pratt DawsonE. Bruce DiDonato, MD

Patrick FordRonald Gard

George R. Gibson IIIJames Heckman, MDArthur Kaemmer, MD

Karen KaplanWoods King III

William P. Leary IIIChristopher P. Mahan

Walter T. MatiaJohn R. McMahon

William C. McMaster, MDPeter Millett, MD

Bradford MillsDavid Nichols

E. Wayne NordbergErik R. Oken

Stephen M. PeetLeigh H. Perkins

William PlattFrederick S. Polhemus

John RanoRoger RiccardiEric W. Roberts

Kristoph J. RollenhagenPhilip Sawyer

Franklin D. Schurz Jr.Robert G. Scott

Gary J. Sherman, DPMRonald B. StuckeyRichard G. TischDavid H. WalshAndrew Ward

James C. WoodsNancy W. Zakon

Charles R. EichelW. Michael Fitzgerald

Gardner L. GrantWilliam HerrickDavid B. Ledlie

Leon L. MartuchPaul Schullery

T R U S T E E S E M E R I T I

2 THE AMERICAN FLY FISHER

In this two-part article, James Hardmanoffers us a history of the stuff that reel sideplates and fly-rod grips are made of: man-made or -altered stuff. Part I introduced usto gutta-percha, mud, and hard rubber.Part II covers celluloid, Bakelite, phenolics,and modern-engineered plastics.

CELLULOID

Cellulose nitrate, or celluloid (origi-nally a trade name), was developed as asubstitute for ivory and found wide-spread acceptance as an early moldableplastic. John Hyatt, who pioneered theprocess of manufacture, also developedthe production equipment to make cellu-loid a commercial success. Hyatt, by theway, held 250 patents, including those forHyatt roller bearings. The man was a cre-ative genius.1

Celluloid was adopted for use in manymolded items, including cuffs and col-lars (Figure 1), dentures, and ivory-col-ored knife handles (Figure 2). It has beenextensively used in fishing tackle for reelseats on fine rods and in handle graspson reels.

The earliest commercial form of cel-luloid, based on cellulose nitrate, wasintroduced in about 1870. It was prone toshrinkage and easily burned. We have allheard warnings of the fire hazard whenstoring old nitrate film. Indeed, cellulosenitrate, in the more heavily nitratedstructure of gun cotton, was known forits flammability, and derivatives wereused in early smokeless powders. Flam-mability wasn’t really a problem withreel seats, but shrinkage that was due tothe evaporation of residual camphor orother diluents was definitely a problem.2

It should be noted that Celluloid wassold under other trade names, includingPyroxylin, Xylonite, Parkesine, Pasbosene,and Pyralin.

One of the great attractions for cellu-loid was its ability to imitate ivory. Ivorywas held in high esteem as a hallmark ofquality, and substituting celluloid gainedearly acceptance.

One of the hallmark indicators of gen-uine elephant ivory is the presence ofstratification or grain lines in a cross-hatch pattern. Indeed, unique to elephantivory are these lines of Retzius, which

Synthetics in Fishing TackleWhat’s in the Mix: Natural Rubber,

Gutta-Percha, and “Modified Stuff”

Part IIby James Hardman

Illustrations/figure credit goes to James Hardmanunless otherwise noted.

Figure 1. A trade card for early Celluloid, a trade name for cellulosenitrate. Celluloid was developed as a substitute for ivory and here

was advertised for waterproof shirt collars and cuffs.

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intersect. Figure 3 is a picture of a billiardball, an old ivory cue ball, alive with agecracks and the lines of Retzius.3

To provide these lines in celluloid,manufacturers soon learned to laminatethin sheets of celluloid with coatings ofsilver nitrate between the layers. Afterheating and forming under pressure, thisform of celluloid starts to imitate ivorypretty well. The knife handle in Figure 4,labeled FRENCH IVORY, is an example ofthis product.

Celluloid reel seats are one of the hall-marks of Kosmic rods (Figures 5 and 6).The public reception had to be positive.Landman manufactured large numbersof rods, sold through various retailers,with celluloid reel seats spiral groovedfor the 1890 patent rotary-locking bands.Celluloid was easy to machine, had ac-ceptable weight, and was attractive inappearance. The reel seat on the Land-man rod in Figures 7 and 8 has remark-able grain with strong contrasting bound-ary lines. Von Lengerke & Detmold([VL&D], New York), Von Lengerke &Antoine (Chicago), and Abbey & Imbriesurely understood buyer perception, andall routinely offered quality rods withcelluloid reel seats. Celluloid looked likegenuine ivory, and it helped sell rods.The magnificent reel seat and handle onthe Shipley boat rod in Figure 9 attests tothe beauty of these rods.

Imitation became so effective that it issometimes difficult to distinguish gen-uine ivory from celluloid. Early foldingCivil War–era notepads were genuineivory, and in later years (after 1870), theywere manufactured from celluloid. Dis-criminating between them can be diffi-cult (Figure 10).

Molded celluloid found application inbait-casting lures during World War I.The May 1917 issue of National Sportsmancarried an advertisement for an Al FossOriental Wiggler made from Pyralin, amodified cellulose nitrate. Heddon intro-duced their Luny Frog lures in about1927 and their Spook translucent castinglures (Figure 11) in the early 1930s, alsomolded from Pyralin. The Luny Frogswere handsome lures, but they could, anddid, shatter when cast onto rocks. Thetranslucent Super Dowagiacs were lessprone to breakage; diluents were appar-ently added to improve impact resistance.

In spite of high hopes and good inten-tions, Pyralin did have its drawbacks. Inwarm, high-humidity storage, it could

shrink and even crumble apart. Col-lectors of early Heddon Spook lures andearly Pflueger reels with Pyralin graspsunderstand these dangers all too welland recommend storage in a cool, dryplace.

Cellulose acetate started supplantingthe use of cellulose nitrate in some appli-cations before World War I and provedvery practical to mold with the advent ofinjection molding machines. TennesseeEastman introduced a line of moldingcompounds based on cellulose acetate in1929 under the trade name Tenite.4

Known for innovation, Heddon startedusing Pyralin threads in their screw-locking reel seats in about 1932 but by1939 had switched over to Tenite.

Figure 2. Celluloid (cellulose nitrate)—and later, celluloseacetate—found widespread acceptance for use in knife handles.

Figure 3. An old ivory cue ball with lines of Retzius; the cross-hatching pattern is indicative of elephant ivory.

Figure 4. A celluloid knife handle with laminations togive the look of genuine ivory, here marked FRENCH IVORY.


Celluloid and its derivatives, includ-ing cellulose acetate, gained wide accep-tance in reel grasps starting in the lateteens. Meek reels had long been fittedwith bone grasps (primarily from cattleshin bones), which polished well andyellowed in time akin to aging ivory. Thebone was often stained with a yellowishdye to create the image of quality ivory,much the way the W. W. Case Co. didwith their bone-sided pocket knives.Bone made beautiful grasps, but likehorn had a tendency to crack and splitover time. Celluloid and cellulose acetategrasps, either molded or machined fromrod stock, promised better dimensionalstability and, when turned from striatedround stock, gave every appearance ofivory (Figure 12).

Both celluloid (cellulose nitrate) andcellulose acetate were easily colored inmanufacture. The triple grasps on theTalbot tournament reel in Figure 13 are anexample of the tasteful use of color in reels.

Tenite (cellulose acetate) has beenwidely used in lures and plastic rod com-ponents for many years. Along with itsderivatives, including cellulose butyrateand cellulose propionate, these polymersare still being used today.

In spite of accurate historical re-sources and the vast information high-way that is the Internet, some inaccura-cies persist. Regarding celluloid, the fol-lowing quotation appears on the Internetpage of polymer history offered by theUniversity of Southern Mississippi:

The very first derivative of cellulosecame about when a scientist reacted cel-lulose, in the form of cotton, with nitricacid. The result was cellulose nitrate.

Often times, as soon as something isinvented, the first thing we do is figureout a way to use it to kill people. Such isthe case with cellulose nitrate. Cellulosenitrate, also called gun cotton, turnedout to be a powerful explosive. It soonreplaced common gunpowder as theexplosive charge in the ammunition forrifles and artillery. It worked so wellthat in the First World War, we werecapable of killing ten million people inonly four short years.

In all fairness to cellulose nitrate, it wasalso used for peaceful purposes. You see,even back then, there was concern thatAfrica’s elephant herds were disappearing

Figure 5. Kosmic (U.S. Net & Twine)fly rod with a celluloid reel seat.

Figure 6. Note the striations in thecelluloid. These laminations were addedto give the appearance of genuine ivory.

Figure 7. Early Landman (VL&D)fly rod, snakewood and lancewood,celluloid reel seat.

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far too quickly, and a replacement neededto be found for ivory in billiard balls. . . .(It) was quickly used to make the balls forthe world’s pool halls. The only problemwas every once in awhile one of thesewould explode during the break.5

There is usually a seed of truth in mostexaggerations, and this instance is noexception. Pioneer John Hyatt humor-ously told of a letter from a billiard saloonproprietor in Colorado who reported thata billiard ball, upon violent contact, hadproduced a report similar to that of a per-cussion cap, causing patrons to pull theirguns. Hyatt explained that this was a mat-ter of chemical purity and that it was nota recurring problem.6

Celluloid cue balls don’t detonate. Nordo celluloid reel grasps or fly-rod reel

seats and spacers. But celluloid will easilyburn; if removing a butt cap from a rodwith a celluloid reel seat, apply heat to thehot-melt adhesive with great caution.

BAKELITE, PHENOLICS, AND

MODERN-ENGINEERED

PLASTICS

The turn of the twentieth century alsosaw the development of phenolic resins,introduced as Bakelite, a molded prod-uct based on the condensation reactionof phenol and formaldehyde.

These remarkable materials are reallythe first true synthetics, created strictlyfrom man-made chemicals. Althoughcommonly called Bakelite after Leo

Baekeland, the originator, there have beencountless modifications to the originalphenol-formaldehyde and resorcinol-formaldehyde blends. Incorporation offillers and reinforcing fibers have mini-mized the tendency to chip, and over theyears phenolics have been used in radiocases, electrical switches and insulatingboards, automotive and electronic gauges,radio tubes, television sets, kitchen uten-sils, and certainly fishing tackle.

The Lenz reel in Figure 14 has pheno-lic side plates and gearbox covers.Complex shapes, especially those withoffset raised bosses, make molding morecost-effective than machining from thesolid. With suitable reinforcing agents,these materials have proven durableindeed; many Julius Vom Hofe B Ocean

Figure 8. Landman (VL&D) reel seat. Note the widevariations in thickness of celluloid laminations;

genuine ivory would have had more uniform striations.

Figure 9. Superb Shipley, Philadelphia, rod withcelluloid handle and seat. From the collection of

William Holbein, with permission.

Figure 10. Civil war notepads were initiallymade of ivory; in later years, they were made

of celluloid. They look much alike, andidentification is often difficult.


reels and the Intrinsic in Figure 15 haveblack phenolic side plates. When rein-forced with layered linen cloth, the pat-tern of the linen weave is distinctly visi-ble. Modern reels manufactured by com-panies like Ocean City or Penn (Figure16) typically have gearbox covers moldedfrom modified phenolics.

Phenolic (resorcinol) adhesives areused to glue up bamboo strips in themanufacture of cane rods; naturally darkin color, they typically show as dark gluelines in the bamboo. Some rod makersadd coloring agents to better blend withthe color of the cane.

Molded phenolics have been used in amultitude of tackle accessories, from theHardy Neroda fly boxes and gut leaderstorage canisters to bait-casting lures andreel-seat spacers in rods. These polymersare highly resistant to water and are sim-ply not affected by salt exposure.

What is a test for early Bakelite?Moisten a Q-Tip with Scrubbing Bubblesor Formula 409 bathroom cleaner andtouch it to the sample. If the area of con-tact shows yellow, it’s Bakelite. I am toldthat this test will not harm surface finish,but it would be prudent to test in a con-cealed area.

MODERN CONSTRUCTION

The world of modern-engineeredplastics has expanded greatly since WorldWar II, and new materials have certainlyfound their way into fishing tackle.Molded nylon is a material of choice forgears, screws, rim switches, drag-adjust-ment knobs, handle grasps, internalmolded parts, and even click springs inreels. Molded nylon grip caps on rods arewear and abrasion resistant; they absorbshock, and they are inexpensive.

Delrin, the “poor man’s nylon,” is anexceptional modern material of construc-tion; it machines well and is highly waterand wear resistant. Bogdan reels are fittedwith Delrin brake shoes and grasps.

Rulon, a filled PTFE (Teflon), is used inOrvis disk drags. These remarkable poly-

Figure 11. Heddon Super Dowagiac, oneof the early Spook lures. First molded of

Pyralin (a modified cellulose nitrate),they were subject to breakage. Later

Spooks had greater impact resistance.

Figure 12. Meek (Horton Mfg. Co.) bait-casting reel with celluloid or cellulose

acetate grasps. Cellulose acetate started todisplace celluloid in the early 1900s but

didn’t hit full stride until the late 1920s.

Figure 13. Talbot tournamentcasting reel with colorful celluloid

or cellulose acetate grasps.

SPRING 2012 7

Figure 15. Julius Vom Hofe Intrinsic with phenolic side plates.From the collection of the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

Figure 14. Lenz fly reel: a unique design with a drag controlbuilt into the crank; the side plates, including the integral gear-box cover, are molded from a phenolic resin. From the collection

of the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

mers continue to evolve and find newapplications. Some Loop reels are seem-ingly molded entirely of plastic; fromframes and spools to support rollers,there are few metal parts to be found.

Fiberglass and graphite compositesdominate modern rod construc-tion. The development of thesematerials and their application isa story in itself. This article em-phasizes the earlier composi-tions, but the trend should beapparent: the future belongs tosynthetics. Just thumb through amail-order catalog or walk thesporting goods aisle in a K-Martor Wal-Mart: you will marvel atthe current use of plastics in fish-ing tackle. From rods with mold-ed foam grips to tackle storageboxes, synthetics have arrived.How many wooden lures aremanufactured today? Apart fromRapalas and a few balsa bassbugs, wooden lures are a rarity.

Even the classic synthetics aredisappearing. Everything “tradi-tional” is being reevaluated.Metals such as aluminum arebeing alloyed to resist corrosion,and some reels are beingmachined from titanium. Webelong to a new world—a worldof cost reduction, a world ofchange—and, like it or not,change will continue.

!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Special thanks to my goodfriend Hoagy Carmichael, who

asked me why I was rubbing his reel onmy pant leg and then smelling it. Iexplained that I was checking to see if itwas hard rubber. That meeting started anenduring friendship and, in truth, mylearning to fly fish.

My thanks also to Jim Brown, SteveVernon, Dean Smith, Fred Grafeld, RoyJinks, Dick Littlefield, Jim Shaffer, PerBrandin, Yoshi Akiyama, Walt Carpenter,the late Stan Bogdan, Steve Bogdan, BobSelb, Fred Kretchman, Jim Schottenham,

John Gland, Bruce Craddock,Clarence Anderson, my sons Jimand Tom, and so many others whohave helped dig out information.

And warmest appreciation tomy father and grandfather, whoseconversations at the dinner tableprovided insight into both themen and the practices of therubber-molding industry.

ENDNOTES

1. John H. DuBois, Plastics His-tory, USA (Boston: Cahners Books),1972 (chapter on celluloid, cellulosenitrate, and cellulose acetate).

2. M. Kauffman, The First Cen-tury of Plastics (London: ThePlastics Institute, 1963).

3. M. Springate, “Identifying Dif-ferent Types of Ivory,” www.uniclectica.com/conserva/ivory1.html.AccessedJuly 2007.

4. Plastribution Ltd., www.plastr ibut ion.host inguk.com/history.htm. Accessed July 2007.

5. “Early Synthetic Polymers,”Polymer Science Learning Center,Department of Polymer Science,The University of Southern Missis-sippi, 2005, www.pslc.ws/mactest/early.htm. Accessed August 2007.

6. Kauffman, The First Centuryof Plastics, 35.

Figure 16. Phenolic construction dominates moderntrade reels, such as this Penn light multiplier. This

molded polymer offers superior strength and sunlightand saltwater resistance. From the collection of the

American Museum of Fly Fishing.


TWENTY YEARS OF regarding MartinKeane’s Classic Rods and Rodmakers(Winchester Press, 1976) as the last

word on the subject (rather than the sem-inal first word) led me in 1997 to viewwith skeptical surprise A. J. Campbell’scharacterization of John Landman as “agifted rod-designer whose legacy was arod so striking in appearance that itslikes have not been seen before or since.”1

That Landman was also “the single mostobscure” rod maker provoked no surpriseat all, as not only was his name unknownto me, the neophyte, but far more signifi-cantly, it was not even mentioned byKeane!2 (Nor, for that matter, was it men-tioned in Ernest Schwiebert’s equallyauthoritative Trout of 1978 [E. P. Dutton].)

Campbell’s rediscovery of Landman’ssignificance in the evolution of modernrod design stimulated others to beginsearching for references to him in thesporting literature of the period with thepredictable result, a dozen years later, thatmuch information unknown to Camp-bell in 1997 has been brought to light. Butthat development is actually less remark-able than the plethora of fresh data thathave surfaced since the appearance of my(premature!) examination of Landman,“The Invisible Man: John G. Landman,”in the Spring 2009 issue of this journal.3

These more recent findings quite over-turn most of the previous speculationabout the nature of Landman’s work anddemonstrate conclusively that Landman’smodern obscurity is merely the kind ofhistorical accident proving, yet again,that fame is fleeting.

“Obscure” would have been the lastepithet applied to Landman by the Outingmagazine reviewer who, describing in theSeptember 1918 issue his recent experiencewith two surf rods, one a Landman,expressed confidence that “every fisher-man knows what a John Landman rod is,so this particular one needs no commentof mine”4 [emphasis mine]. And whenprolific sporting author and cofounder ofthe Anglers’ Club of New York, PerryFrazier, in a 1911 Forest and Stream exami-nation of the virtues of pinned ferrules,wished to name examples of “famous rod-makers” using them, the four he selectedwere Hiram Hawes, Ed Paine, ReubenLeonard, and—no surprise to his contem-poraries, however much it may surprisetoday’s readers—John Landman!5

Driving a stake through the heart ofCampbell’s Thomas & Edwards (T&E)

hypothesis—the ingenious and superfi-cially convincing theory that Landman,who supposedly “had no facilities” forrod-shaft construction,6 traded his“sweatshop” metalwork for T&E blanks—is the following blandishment publishedin the May 1913 Sporting Goods Dealer:

John G. Landman—Veteran Rod Maker

John G. Landman is probably the mostpicturesque figure in the world of fish-ing rod manufacture today. He hasenjoyed 40 years of well-earned successand has built up a reputation that todaygives an accent of finality to any opin-ion that he may express relative to themodern scientific building of fishingrods. The plant operated by John G.Landman and his energetic son is locat-ed at 59 Cedar Street, Brooklyn, N.Y.Any day a visitor will find Messrs. Land-man, senior and junior, both there hardat work with their assistants. This inti-mate supervision of the “masters” givestheir products that personal touch andfinish which is nowadays sought for bythe more critical anglers. A dealer han-dling John G. Landman’s fishing rods isnever questioned by his customers.When he is asked what high-grade linehe carries and mentions the name JohnLandman, a sale usually follows, if qual-ity alone is sought by the sportsman.7

Sporting Goods Dealer was a limited-circulation trade periodical, and surviv-ing issues of it are now extremely rare,but indefatigable researcher Mary Kellysomehow found and copied, but did not

publish, this brief encomium on the lifeof Landman; what purpose or circum-stance inspired the Dealer’s editor tocompose it is unknown. The reference inSporting Goods Dealer to “40 years ofwell-earned success” possibly representsa rounding off of Landman’s time in therod business, but even if thirty-seven orthirty-eight were assumed to be theactual number, taking the beginning ofhis career back to the mid-1870s, therecan be no doubt now that Landmanindisputably was, as described, a “veter-an rod maker” who did not need theassistance of latecomers such as FredThomas and Eustis Edwards. Talented asthe latter indisputably were, they are notknown to have constructed eight-striprods, which was one of Landman’s spe-cialities.

The Dealer’s description of Landman’s“plant” demolishes all doubt as to exact-ly who was building John G. Landmanrods, but to drive the last nail in the cof-fin of the hypothetical T&E connection(which continues to enjoy wide currencythanks to huge sales of Campbell’s 1997tour de force), there is also this myth-busting advertisement in the January1921 issue of Forest and Stream:

FOR SALE: Complete contents of myfishing rod factory, with tools andmachinery for making split bamboorods. Large amount of raw material andhundreds of glued stock ready formounting. John G. Landman, 59 CedarStreet, Brooklyn, N.Y.8

John Landman Revisitedby Clarence Anderson

Forest and Stream, January 1921, vol. 91, number 1, page 45.

SPRING 2012 9

Appearing in the magazine’s classifiedsection on page 45, this notice was ofcourse placed by Landman’s son andpartner, John Jr., and ran only once, sug-gesting a prompt sale or a change ofheart—very possibly the latter, becauseJohn Jr. survived another fourteen years.A researcher fortunate enough to haveaccess to a complete run of Forest andStream and searching diligently for anymention of Landman could easily over-look so inconspicuous a notice as this, soit would be unreasonable to fault previ-ous investigators for failing to discover it.(A rumor of this advertisement reachedmy ears while gathering data for “TheInvisible Man,” but searches of scores ofissues failed to find it; only when theJanuary 1921 issue was digitized by Googleabout a year ago did it finally reveal itself!)

ACKNOWLEDGMENT AT LAST!To the list of tackle retailers marketing

Landman rods that was enumerated in“The Invisible Man” may now be addedtwo major outlets—FAO Schwarz (sur-prisingly) and the Thomas E. WilsonSporting Goods Co.—and a minor one,Golcher & Company of San Francisco,about which little more can be added,except that the firm was principally afirearms distributor and importer in the1890s and early 1900s. Schwarz andWilson are critically important because,for the first time in his career (so far as ispresently known), Landman was identi-fied by name as the maker of rods offeredby these dealers—a marketing maneuverthat would be pointless unless customerscould be expected to recognize the nameand associate it with a quality product.

In 1913, probably to the surprise ofmany customers, the venerable FAOSchwarz toy company of New York

began to offer a complete line of tackle,including Landman rods, at its famousFifth Avenue storefront.9 There is someevidence that the Schwarz tackle depart-ment—managed by W. M. Finch, a well-known tournament caster—emphasizedsales of Landman’s surf-casting rods, oneof which was used to establish a world-record cast by a Schwarz customer, Dr.Carleton Simon.10

Given the fabulous descriptions byFred Mather and Genio Scott, amongmany others, of offshore fishing in NewYork Bay and along the coast of LongIsland before the Jersey shore was colo-nized by the petrochemical industry, it ishardly surprising that Landman catered tothe saltwater trade. The disappearance of

tackle advertising by the mid-1920s sug-gests that Schwarz’s foray into the tacklemarket had run its course by that time.

Another important new retail outletfor Landman rods was established eithershortly before or shortly after the elderLandman’s death in 1917: the Thomas E.Wilson Sporting Goods Co. of Chicago.This bold newcomer with the temerity tochallenge long-established Von Lengerke& Antoine (VL&A), one of Landman’sprincipal wholesale customers since the1890s, burst hell-for-leather into thecrowded tackle market in 1914 withgrand ambitions backed by the capital of“a titan of American business in the 20thcentury.”11 Wilson’s management exhib-ited a refreshing new attitude toward therod makers whom old-line tackle retail-ers had usually subjected to anonymity,and unlike VL&A—which relied heavilyon John Landman but never (so far as isknown) breathed his name—the Wilsoncompany was obviously proud to offer“Landman Finest Quality Hand-MadeFly Rods” in its impressive catalog for1917.

For more than a dozen years, Wilson’sprominent advertising in the leadingsporting periodicals made it seem astrong contender against the older tackleretailers, but by the late 1920s, manage-ment had evidently decided more moneywas to be made in athletic goods andwithdrew from the tackle market alto-gether. Because of the rarity of relevantcatalogs, the impact of Landman’s market-ing arrangement with Wilson on his oldrelationship with VL&A is unknown, butit would be rather surprising if the Windy

Outing magazine, October 1916.

Thomas E. Wilson & Co., Catalog #3, 1917, page 5.


City was large enough for two Landmanretailers. However, a Landman-madeVL&A rod dated 1914 suggests that theirpartnership survived until that time.

Referenced in “The Invisible Man”was Landman’s longtime connection tothe famous New York sporting goodsfirm Von Lengerke & Detmold (VL&D),rival of Abercrombie & Fitch, but noVL&D catalog was then available (de-spite Herculean efforts to find one!) toassess what varieties of rods Landmanwas providing. But thanks once again to

the efforts of Mary Kelly, a rare 1916VL&D tackle catalog has become avail-able that abounds with Landman prod-ucts, from AA-quality eight-strip fly andsurf rods, to A-quality six-strip bait andfly rods, to more mundane models forthe hoi polloi.12 A and AA models werefitted with Landman’s 1890-patent reelseat. As was the practice in other tacklecatalogs, rods were graded in qualityfrom AA ($35) to D ($10), and below thegraded categories were listed even lower-priced rods. Photographic illustrations

leave no doubt that Landman was alsosupplying the C-quality models, butillustrations of lesser-priced rods appearto represent Montague products. It mayseem counterintuitive to modern anglersthat VL&D continued to conceal theidentity of its primary rod maker, butdoing so was the rule and not the excep-tion among major tackle retailers wellinto the twentieth century. AmongVL&D’s metropolitan customers, itseems fair to assume that the maker’sidentity was never much of a secret.

Von Lengerke & Detmold fishingtackle catalog, Spring 1916.

Imitation is the sincerest form offlattery. Copies of Landman 1890reel seats on rods by Jim Payne(left) and Fred Divine (below).

SPRING 2012 1 1

LANDING-NET MANIA

Landman’s locking reel seat proved tobe remarkably successful, and after theexpiration of his patent in 1914, it wascopied by Fred Divine and Ed Paine, asnoted in “The Invisible Man.” Not notedin the article (because I did not know itat the time) was that the 1890 patent wasnot his first: on 21 May 1889, Landmanhad been awarded no. 403680 for a“Hinge-Screw Coupling for Fishing-NetFrame,” a device for joining a collapsibleframe to its removable handle. Set theworld on fire this invention did not, but it

did ignite, a few years later, a legal andbureaucratic controversy that resulted inthe publication of an important ruling,referenced later in many similar disputes,by the highest authority in the PatentOffice, the patent commissioner.

The fracas began when a patent appli-cation submitted 24 September 1889 byJames Reed (a Boston tackle dealer not tobe confused with William Reed of Chi-cago, whose patented serrated ferruleappears to have been “borrowed” byLandman, as hypothesized in “The Invis-ible Man”) was rejected because to theexaminers it appeared, initially, to in-

fringe Landman’s three-month-older pat-ent. Reed appealed that rejection on thegrounds that he had been manufacturinghis similar device before Landman’s patenthad been granted and could prove it.

Following an exhaustive review ofjudicial and administrative precedent, asreported in Decisions of the Commissionerof Patents (1891), the commissionerruled—to simplify a dauntingly complexexercise in applied logic—that no conflict,or “interference,” existed because the twomechanisms were not “substantially thesame invention.” Although Reed’s designdiffered sufficiently from Landman’s to

Landman’s earliest patent.


qualify, in patent terminology, as “novel,”he had described it in language so broadand inclusive as to embrace not only hisown but Landman’s idea as well, andtherein lay the legal conundrum that pre-cipitated this imbroglio. Reed eventuallysecured his patent and added his brain-storm to the multitude of collapsible netsthen crowding the market. Landman mayhave sold rights to his coupling device toanother net maker (as yet undiscovered),but if so, it would be amazing if his royal-ties recouped legal expenses incurred inthis feud. What he did not do, it wouldappear, was undertake manufacture of thenet himself.

This legal and, no doubt, personal set-back did not discourage Landman fromdevising yet another variation on thesame theme (“Landing Net Frame”) with-in a few years, for which he was awardedPatent no. 649581 on 15 May 1900. Despitethe superficial resemblance of his reengi-neered mechanism to that of Meissel-bach’s hugely popular “Harrimac” net,which dominated the collapsible marketfor decades, no infringement issuesarose, and so far as is known, Landman’s1900 patent sunk into the same obscuri-ty that had engulfed his prior effort. Thedecade between 1889 and the turn of thecentury was the period in which Land-man’s rod business most flourished, andone must marvel that he invested suchtime and energy in perfecting an ideathat, even if successful, probably wouldhave netted him minimal profit.

FIVE DECADES IN THE TRADE

Unlike many grimly realistic moviesof the early 1930s, the sporting periodi-cals, and especially the advertisementstherein, betray scant evidence of hardtimes: the Great Depression. Never-theless, it would be hard to believe these

years were good ones for theLandman rod business. Cata-logs, advertisements, or otherevidence confirming the contin-ued production of Landmanrods into the era of bread linesand soup kitchens have not, sofar, been reported. Nevertheless,the Brooklyn Eagle’s 1935 obitu-ary for son John identified him,as it had his father in 1917, as a“manufacturer of fishing rods,”so perhaps he persevered in thefamily business, on some re-duced scale, until near the end.13

If so, and giving credence to thetimeline presented by theSporting Goods Dealer, the mathis unequivocal: for half a centu-ry, Landmans, father and son,remained active in Americanrod making, and if not celebri-ties of the stature of Leonard,Thomas, and Paine, were veryfar from obscure among reason-ably well-informed anglers.14

!

1. A. J. Campbell, Classic & Antique FlyFishing Tackle (New York: Lyons Press, 1997),112.

2. Ibid.3. Clarence Anderson, “The Invisible

Man: John G. Landman,” The American FlyFisher (Spring 2009, vol. 35, no. 2), 2–9.

4. “Surf Tackle,” Outing (September1918, vol. 72), 399.

5. Perry Frazier, “Pinned Ferrules,”Forest and Stream (23 December 1911, vol. 76,no. 24), 905.

6. Campbell, 112.7. Quoted in Campbell, 112.

8. Forest and Stream (January 1921, vol.91, no. 1), 45.

9. Tod E. A. Larson, “Toy Reels? TheFishing Tackle of F. A. O. Schwarz,” The ReelNews (July 2009), 4.

10. R. H. Corson, “Surf-Casting RecordComes to America,” Sporting Goods Dealer,January 1922.

11. Tod E. A. Larson, “The Reels ofThomas E. Wilson & Co.,” The Reel News(July 2006), 4.

12. Thanks to Kelly’s acquisition of thecatalog, but more importantly, thanks to thevery great generosity of Dr. John Elder (who

acquired most of Kelly’s huge collection afterher death) in sharing it with me and provid-ing photocopies from it.

13. The Brooklyn Eagle (3 November 1935).14. Throwing light, indirectly, on the

commercial viability of the family business isthe value of the elder Landman’s estate:$76,000—a respectable sum in 1917. This fig-ure excluded the value of the rod shop andcontents (attached to the home at 59 Cedar),previously transferred to Junior. (For thisinformation, I am indebted to Ed Johnson, aLandman descendant, who discoveredSenior’s will.)

John G. Landman was, likehis father before him, a “man-

ufacturer of fishing rods,” asnoted in this notice of his

funeral services that ran inthe Brooklyn Eagle in 1935.

ENDNOTES

SPRING 2012 13

COMPETITION AND ITS ever-impliedcompanion aggression have beenthe subject of countless scientific

and popular commentaries, in which wehumans are likened to, distinguishedfrom, or merely informed about thecompetitive urges of many other speciesof animal. Like love, competition hasmany admirers and more than a fewdetractors. Competition, we are told, isthe creator of fitness—as individuals, asmates, as communities, as markets, ascorporations, as teams, as schools, asnations. Competition is the driver ofprogress, the breaker of hearts, the makerof champions, the meaning of life. Nowonder we talk, write, and think about itso much. It is an inordinately complexmatter. Whether or not each of us de-cides to believe that it is an inherent oressential part of human nature, it is anundeniably important part of modernhuman life.

Competition in sport has likewisebeen through the critical and popularopinion mills. For some social commen-tators, competitive sports have been seenas society’s safety valve, giving us a way tolet off aggressive steam that would other-wise increase the murder rate and over-populate the jails. For others, those samecompetitive sports are the traininggrounds of citizenship, teaching us tohonor a hundred locker-room bannersabout teamwork, being tough and get-ting going, and getting along. Then thereare those for whom competitive sportsare spectacles and pageantry, with all thecomplicated social functions such thingsentail. For others, competitive sports area way to make a living. Finally, competi-tive sports are the new opiate of themasses, functioning primarily to keep usfrom thinking about anything that mat-ters. Take your pick; they all sound rela-tively true to me.

SPORT OR GAME OR BOTH?Attempts are regularly made to distin-

guish between sports and games. Half a

century ago, Roderick Haig-Brown, cer-tainly one of the wisest and far-seeing ofwriters on outdoor sport, emphasizedthe importance of the distinction. Hismini-essay on the subject has an integri-ty, breadth, and skepticism that deservequoting at length:

All boys want to compete, and it is wellthat they should, but if they are to enjoysport, as opposed to athletic contests,they must learn early to distinguishbetween the two. Sport is somethingenjoyed purely for its own sake, relax-ing, healing and increasing; it is infi-nitely complex, limited in its scope onlyby the individual limitations of the manwho pursues it; competition betweenmen has no place in it and can onlydebase it. Athletic games and contestsare competition between men; easygo-ing sportsmanship once had a part insuch affairs, sometimes still has; but forthe most part it is lost in ruthless effi-ciency and something called the will towin. Sport is carried on generouslywithin the limits of simple and largelyunwritten rules developed to make itmore interesting; the hunter or fisher-man who does not stay within these

“A Great Want of True Angling Sentiment”:Is Competitive Fly Fishing Fatal?

by Paul Schullery

This article appeared in slightly different form asa chapter in Paul Schullery’s If Fish Could Scream:An Angler’s Search for the Future of Fly Fishing(Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 2008).

Anglers making their way toward the boats docked on Grafham Pier inGrafham, England, ready to begin the 1986 B and H National Fly Fishing

Championships. Image copyright Des Colhoun. This work is licensed under theCreative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic Licence, http://www

.geograph.org.uk/reuse.php?id=734471, accessed 18 August 2011.


rules kills his sport. Athletic contests arecarried to the extreme limits of rulesrigidly designed to prevent manslaugh-ter and reduce cheating; the modernathlete who does not take every possibleadvantage of the rules is considered adeficient performer. There is room forboth diversions in a boy’s life or a man’slife or a nation’s life, but there should beno confusion between them.1

I’ve pointed out before that we tend touse the term sport quite casually, andvery few of us adhere to any distinguish-ing language for making it clear whetherwe are talking about organized games oroutdoor sports.2 The lines are hardlyclear, anyway. Sports Afield is almost allabout hunting and fishing. Sports Illus-trated is almost all about games.

I’m sure that some people would saythat this loss of clarity ofdefinition is part of themodern problem; that it’s ingood part because modernrecreationists, like some ofHaig-Brown’s “boys,” werenever taught the difference,so they now see no mean-ingful distinction betweenNASCAR and fly fishing.Merely that Haig-Brownthought all this involvedonly men suggests howrapidly the social view ofsport and games haschanged since his time. ButI hope that the people whoworry about that loss ofclarity keep worrying aboutit and keep speaking out.The stakes are high here,and there is an importantconversation to be had onhow we wish to define flyfishing (if not NASCAR) inthe future.

Though I will admit thatI, too, am alternately ap-palled and saddened bysome of what I see in mod-ern fly fishing’s drift intoever-flashier competitiveevents, that’s not quite whatthis essay is about. I amconcerned here because intoday’s debates over com-petitive fly fishing, historyis being invoked carelesslyto “prove” some viewpointor other about the rightnessof competition. Historygets abused that way all thetime, of course, in argu-ments over every imagin-able subject. Most of uswouldn’t know good histor-ical research if it came up

and bit us on our breathables, but welove to think it’s on our side.

So we might as well check and seewhat history has to say on the subject.Maybe it actually is on someone’s side.

FLY FISHING AS A

COMPETITIVE SPORT:WHEN AND HOW?

My long-standing interest in compet-itiveness among fly fishers was renewedby reading a defense of fly-fishing com-petitions in Fly Fisherman, in which theauthor said that “Europeans haveenjoyed fly-fishing competitions for cen-turies.”3 My attempt to communicatewith the author and learn more aboutthis genuinely fascinating statement was

unsuccessful, so I can’t be certain of hisintentions, but I gather from the contextof the remark that this long history of fly-fishing competition was seen as proof thatfly-fishing competitions are okay today.After all, if our forefathers have beenholding such competitions for centuries,surely today’s competitions are nothingbut an honorable part of a long tradition.

The critical reader may have alreadynoticed a flaw in this attempt to invokehistory to defend competitive fly-fishingevents. Just because we’ve done some-thing for hundreds of years doesn’t neces-sarily mean it was okay then, much lessnow (think witch burning or slavery). Butwe can overlook that flaw for now andconsider fly-fishing history specifically.

First, let’s each recall our own experi-ences fishing with friends. Few of us could

claim that we have never felta competitive moment whenfishing with our pals. Com-petition plays a role incountless fishing tales in ourliterature, and though someof them are a bit unseemly,most fall within the realm ofwhat we would still considergood sportsmanship. Wehad better start by admittingthat we like to catch the mostfish, and that often meansoutfishing someone else, andthat it feels good to do that.

Three and a half centuriesago, no less ardent a gentle-fisher than Izaak Waltonhimself endorsed this mildand very localized form ofcompetition. While describ-ing what made a goodangler, he said, “ . . . it is dili-gence, and observation, andpractice, and an ambition tobe the best in the art, thatmust do it. I will tell you,scholar, I once heard one[such angler] say, ‘I envy nothim that eats better meatthan I do, nor him that isricher, or that wears betterclothes than I do; I envynobody but him, and himonly, that catches more fishthan I do.’ And such a manis like to prove an angler;and this noble emulation Iwish to you and all younganglers.”4

What makes this com-ment by Walton especiallyinteresting is that he is theauthority that today’s anti-competition commentatorsmost often invoke to dem-onstrate that fly fishing’s

From Isaak Walton, The Compleat Angler(London: Henry Kent, 1759), facing page 215.

SPRING 2012 15

tradition has no room for such things asfly-fishing tournaments or one-fly con-tests, much less a fly-fishing worldchampionship. That sort of thing, theysay, is not in the “Waltonian” tradition.

And, although they may have missedthis one finer point of Walton’s view,they are still correct to invoke him thatway. Even admitting that Walton was notmuch of a fly fisher, in his beautiful bookhe forever expressed much of the still-prevailing sentiment of angling as a gen-tle and nonbelligerent enterprise. As hedid so, he wisely acknowledged thatanglers do like to outfish each other.

We don’t dare lean too hard on the350-year-old pronouncements of a manwho died long before the appearance ofa society that could create and then sup-port professional athletics on a multibil-lion dollar scale. He was certainly speak-ing to us in his book, but let’s be carefulto read him within his own context.Whether Walton’s mild advocacy of somegood-natured rivalry among anglers jus-tifies NASCAR-on-the-South-Platte isanother matter, and no doubt each of uswill draw his or her own conclusions.

But if you are among those seekingWaltonian support for professional com-petitive fly fishing, you may read all therest of Walton’s writings without findinganything else to help you, and you willfind much to suggest that you are offtrack. For Walton, angling was aboutquiet, and solitude, and gentleness, andbeauty. If you can make that combina-tion work with a little competitive edgeadded, more power to you. But it strainsthe historical record to get more thanthat from him, just as it strains the his-torical record to say with absolute cer-tainty that Walton wouldn’t love a dayzooming around in a good bass boat. Wejust don’t know.

This is not to suggest that competi-tion, or competitiveness, seemed to bemuch on the minds of Walton’s contem-poraries, or on the minds of most of theangling writers between his time and theearly 1800s. Despite the earnest assertionby the fellow in Fly Fisherman, I havefound no historical evidence of formalangling competitions—that is, organizedcompetitions as opposed to a coupleguys making a casual streamside wagerbetween themselves—until the 1800s.And even then, it looks like fly fishingwas about the last type of sport fishing tojoin the contest.

Nineteenth-century anglers were atleast as diverse in their personalities andpassions as we are today. The most hard-core overachievers—William Stewartand David Webster come to mind rightoff—were not only driven to outfish therest of the world, they were just as driven

to outcompete their fellow fishing theo-rists (Stewart: “If the sport of angling liesin the capture of fish, it seems evidentthat the more fish the better sport”5).

There was not only competition incatching fish; there was competition be-tween experts over whose special tacticswere the best at catching fish—whichwas to say, whose book, flies, or otherproprietary tackle were most worth buy-ing; commerce was just another kind ofcompetition.

Whether or not they engaged in for-mal fishing competitions, these Stewart-type anglers were by nature and person-ality ferociously intense about it all. Thegreat increase in fishing-book produc-tion in the nineteenth century exposesmore of the quirks and styles of that cen-tury’s anglers, but I imagine that similar-ly disparate types fished the rivers ofEngland in every previous century aslong as fish hooks were known.

This reality—that there have alwaysbeen personality types inclined to aggres-sive interaction with other fishermen—may be a sort of left-handed concessionto those who want to believe that modernfly-fishing competitions are a naturaloutgrowth of the sport’s traditions. Butit’s a fairly feeble concession. Just becausehuman nature includes certain traitsdoesn’t prove those traits must necessari-ly be accommodated or celebrated in agiven activity. If even Father Izaakendorsed a little friendly rivalry, whocould doubt it? Among the many person-ality types on the stream on any givenday—out there with the overachievers,the underachievers, the hustlers, thejocks, the fashion-plates, the navel-gaz-ers, the club-joiners, and all the rest of uswho are usually several of these things atonce—will surely be some WilliamStewarts, out to destroy the competition.

Today’s professional fly-fishing com-petitions are a lot more flashy and com-merce driven than were Walton and hisbuddies, vying to catch the most dace—and maybe making the loser buy the firstround of ale that evening. But the differ-ence between then and now is relativerather than absolute. The size of the audi-ence, the formality of the rules, and theworth of winning are much greater now,but the procompetition crowd might wellask, “So what? If all we’re doing is hag-gling over price here, why bother? What’sthe difference?” Interesting question.

IT ALL STARTED

So we’re a diverse crowd, and some ofus are by nature competitive. No ques-tioning those things. The historical exis-tence of formal competitions among flyfishers is a different question entirely.

The British sporting historian CharlesChenevix Trench has described the riseof match fishing in the U.K. this way:

It all started during the nineteenth cen-tury in the English industrial north andmidlands, where there were thousandsof keen working-class anglers to whomtrout-fishing was inaccessible owing tocost and distance. (In contrast, Scottish,Welsh, and Irish artisans had trout-fish-ing almost on the doorstep, so match-fishing has never been popular in theCeltic fringe.) Most of the rivers andcanals they fished were polluted by theirfactories, so the fishing was not verygood. Competition gave it just thatexcitement which can hardly be foundsolely in angling for small roach. At firstcompetitions were local, on a pub orsmall club basis, enlivened by sweep-stakes, winner take all. Inevitably, aNational Federation of Anglers wasformed in 1903; and in 1906 the firstN.F.A. Annual Championship was held.6

None of this was about fly fishing,though we ought to recognize that flyfishing has inspired its own kind of com-petition. Casting competitions were heldin the U.S. as early as 1860.7 In fact,because of the evolving tackle availableat the time, this is when competitionswould first have become meaningful,which further suggests that even fly fish-ers needed only the right tackle andopportunities to very quickly find waysto formalize at least some aspects of thesport into competitive events.

The right tackle appeared by the mid-1800s or so. With the popularization ofreels, silk lines, and modern metal guideson rods, fly casters were no longerrestricted to the length of line that couldbe attached to the end of the rod. JohnBetts’s researches have traced the devel-opment of false casting and line shootingas nineteenth-century anglers availedthemselves of the new and much moreversatile equipment.8 This equipmentwas essential to competition. Until a reelheld abundant extra line for shooting,until a line could be shot (which is to say,until silk lines replaced knotted horse-hair lines), and until a rod could allowthe line to pass smoothly through itsguides while being shot, distance castingas we know it today was not possible.Distance casting was an essential ingre-dient in the mix needed to generate aninterest in competitive casting, whichhas flourished ever since. Distance cast-ing—and accuracy casting at distancesbeyond a couple rod lengths—constitut-ed virtually all of the important compo-nents of competitive fly casting as itarose in the later 1800s.

But keep in mind that competitive flycasting wasn’t a fishing contest. Casting


contests were independent of thestreams and lakes where fishing tookplace. The contestants, some of whomwere among the best-known fly fishers ofthe late 1800s in both England andAmerica, were exercising a specific set ofskills with, to use Haig-Brown’s words,“extreme limits of rules” that controlledthe entire process. Casting contests, tofurther follow Haig-Brown’s terminolo-gy, took an element of the sport of flyfishing and turned it into a game.

Meanwhile, it was back on the realstreams and lakes where competition,even in the nineteenth century, came upagainst the resistance and disapproval ofpeople who saw fishing as something lessadversarial. I have the impression that inthe matter of competitiveness amonganglers, nineteenth-century fishing writ-ers tended to divide themselves into thetwo general categories that we still assignto them today. The instructional (“prac-tical,” to use Stewart’s term) writers weremore likely to be all for the rapid harvestof fish and outfishing the other guy. Theexperiential (the storytellers) tended totake a less aggressive and demandingstance toward the fish, the river, their fel-low anglers, and themselves.9

Stewart will serve as the type specimenof the former group. He was thought ofas fanatical. One angler who knew him“remarked that a day out with Stewartwas 24 hours of creeping and crawling.”10

No one exemplified the second groupbetter than Stewart’s fellow Scot, thepoet-scholar-angler Andrew Lang, whose1891 book, Angling Sketches, remains oneof the most charming of the era’s fishingmemoirs. Lang was a proto–Nick Lyons,self-deprecating, humorous, and wise.

His protestations of his own unworthi-ness as an angler, whether real or just apleasant literary stance, placed him firmlyin the camp of those of us who aresimultaneously suspicious and perhaps alittle jealous of the masterful fish catch-ers of our generation.

Lang did not feel a need to be expert atcatching fish to perceive problems withcompetitive fishing. As a firsthand wit-ness, he lamented the rise of late-nine-teenth-century match fishing chronicledby Trench:

That men should competitively angleshows, indeed, a great want of trueangling sentiment. To fish in a crowd isodious, to work hard for prizes of flasksand creels and fly-books is to mistakethe true meaning of the pastime.However, in this crowded age men areso constituted that they like to turn acontemplative exercise into a kind ofBank Holiday. There is no use in argu-ing with such persons . . .11

Notice that there is more than one com-plaint here. The match fisher lacked “trueangling sentiment.” Fishing lost much ofits Waltonian charm (Lang would havebeen intimately familiar with Walton’sbook) when practiced in big crowds.Competition was no substitute for con-templation. The competitive anglers,crowding this or that water, ruined thefishing for the more contemplative typesas well as for themselves.

There are also whiffs of class distinc-tion here. The anglers, including presum-ably Lang, who could afford some priva-cy were better able to enjoy the luxuriesof contemplative angling, whereas theworking-class crowd had to take what

they could get, which usually meant verysmall fish in the least desirable waters.Anglers who had enjoyed fishing rela-tively quiet public waters for many yearswere no doubt horrified by the abruptappearance of the great heaving masses,turned out of a Sunday for a good fishingmatch. BASS and NASCAR couldn’t befar behind.

THE VARIETIES OF THE

COMPETITIVE IMPULSE

There is another intriguing byway inour consideration of the competitive, orat least scorekeeping, aspects of sportfishing. As Tony Hayter’s fascinatingbiography of Frederic Halford reveals, bythe late 1800s and the rise of what wemight still call the “scientific” school ofanglers (they certainly saw themselves assuch) symbolized by Halford and his dry-fly associates, a documentary rigor wasan integral part of the sport. Halford’scrowd often kept precise journals thatremind me of Arnold Gingrich, who,sixty years later, would include an essay,“Trout by the Score,” in his book, TheWell-Tempered Angler. Scorekeeping hasrarely been more subtly competitive thanin these notes, in which the anglers werehappily keeping track of their quest forsuccess; the competition was, of course,still against one another, but it was justas much against the trout, the stream,and their previous catches. They werecompeting not only among themselves,but each with himself. Leave it to fly fish-ing’s greatest quantifiers to find so manyways to refine and enjoy their inherentcompetitive spirit.

But for the most part, the complaintsthat have been expressed about competi-tion in sport fall into two main cate-gories. There are the objections to theformalizing of competition—the mak-ing of the sport into a game. And thereare the objections to unbridled competi-tive urges among anglers who are notformally competing.

Lang’s criticism of the former groupwill serve as an example of the type. Thegreat American fly-fishing writer Theo-dore Gordon provided us with an equallyheartfelt criticism of the latter group in anarticle about Catskill fishing published inForest and Stream, June 1908:

There were many fishermen this year.Some men sit in a barroom all day, afterengaging a couple of local anglers to fishfor them. Their ideas of what constitutessport are peculiar, but they usuallyreturn with a large number of trout.Doubtless they enjoy a fine reputation athome. Greed and the spirit of competi-tion should have no place on the trout

From Andrew Lang, Angling Sketches(London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1891), frontispiece.

SPRING 2012 17

stream. It is amusing, however, to see anumber of men trying to get ahead ofeach other and to fish all the best waterfirst. We are not here to run foot races orto get the best of the other fellow. Take iteasy, fish slowly and very probably youwill have as much success as anyone.12

Here Gordon falls well within the Wal-tonian camp. The pressure to catch fish,and to demonstrate one’s prowess as afisherman, leads to deception. The com-petitive urge not only takes the fun out ofsport and causes general anxiety and anadversarial atmosphere on the stream,but probably adds nothing to your suc-cess. Might as well take it easy. AsWalton’s Ecclesiastical quote so famouslyput it, study to be quiet.

SO MUCH FOR HISTORY

I doubt that anyone who has invokedfly fishing’s long literary and ethical tra-dition in support of today’s high-visibil-ity commercial fly-fishing competitionsknows much about that tradition. In thefirst four hundred or so years of the writ-ten record, up until the middle of thetwentieth century, the sport’s mostrevered philosopher-thinkers—as distin-guished from the sport’s most admiredtechnicians—without exception coun-seled a low-key approach to competi-tion, if they approved of it at all. Amongthese folks, from Walton to Haig-Brown,

the ideal angler was the one who did allhe could to ensure that others had achance at the best spot and in other wayssacrificed personal opportunities to givethe advantage to fellow anglers.

Are these long-dead graybeards thepeople we should listen to today? Theyweren’t lawmakers, you know; they werejust advisors. Every generation of anglersbefore us had its share of people whopretty much ignored the day’s philoso-phers and went for the competitiveapproach. Who is to say that the philoso-phers were right anyway?

We each get to make that judgmentcall. But whatever we decide, let’s not foolourselves into thinking we have somesimple, monolithic History on our side.And let’s remember that the people whohave most favored competitiveness in flyfishing tended to be the guys who wonmost of the competitions, rather than theguys who took a larger, longer view ofwhat fly fishing might mean in our lives.

For many years now, I’ve fished withBud Lilly. Fishing with Bud is specialbecause, thanks to his quiet generosity,you often get home from a day of “fish-ing with Bud Lilly” before you realizethat you were the only one who fishedmuch. Bud hardly made a cast. The castshe made may have been memorable andsurely were more effective than yours,but at the time you probably didn’t evennotice how few of them there were.

Bud epitomizes that Waltonian tradi-tion—and the once-a-guide-always-a-guide ideal—by enjoying a day’s fishingin good part through the shared rewardsof his fellow anglers’ successes. And whilefew of us would argue that this is, indeed,a high and rarified form of fly fishing,just as few of us would be able to pull itoff. We might rationalize our failure bysaying, “Well, sure, if I spent as muchtime on the river as Bud Lilly, I couldafford to be that generous too.” But in ourhearts we know that if we can’t “afford” it,we’re choosing to live a smaller life andparticipate in a smaller sport, and thateverybody should be that generous.

The Waltons, Haig-Browns, and Lillysmay have raised the bar impossibly highfor most of us, but we can at least appre-ciate the ideal that they’ve established. Ifwe’re going to compete at something,maybe we should compete at beinguncompetitive.

TAKING IT PERSONALLY

History can only carry us so far in thiskind of rumination. There are too manylocalized and highly specific little twistsand turns in the inquiry. So I must takeyou out on the river now, and work myway through one of my own experienceswith competitive fly fishing.

I’m going to do this by quoting to youfrom a letter I wrote to a fishing friend,

Above: An artist’s rendering of the Anglers’ Club of New York’s annual StreamChampionship Contest and Outing in 1931. Points were calculated by multiply-ing the length in inches and the weight in ounces of each fish caught, and thewinner’s name, along with the year of his victory, was engraved on the Outing

Championship Cup, seen at the right. The contest, which first took place in 1921,was held that year at Edward Hewitt’s camp on the Neversink River in New

York. Images from the Anglers’ Club Bulletin, vol. X, no. 2, June 1931.


Bob DeMott, based on my notes afterparticipating in the Jackson Hole One-Fly. I use the device of a letter because ofits informality and because of its imme-diate specificity to the unique events thatoccur on any day astream.

I can tell you right off that I’m notgoing to try to trash this competition.The One-Fly is a justifiably honored andrespected competition whose leadershave done a lot of soul searching aboutwhat they’re up to. The event has raiseda great deal of money to support goodconservation causes in the Jackson Holearea at the same time that it has allowedmany, many fly fishers to have a greattime fishing a lot of beautiful water for alot of beautiful fish. I won’t even engagethe skeptical argument that they couldraise more money if all the participantswere to stay home and just mail in theequivalent of their air fare and lodgingexpenses. I was pleased, even delighted,to participate, and I was excited to watchsome terrifically skilled fishermen inaction. The underlying commitment tofairness exhibited by the organizersimpressed me, and I was grateful for theopportunity to exercise my own person-al biases and skepticisms on a thought-fully run competition. I doubt that Icould have found one that would chal-lenge my thinking more or better clarifythe ambivalence many of us feel aboutcompetitions.

I was invited to participate in theOne-Fly as a member of the Grand TetonNational Park Foundation team. Thefoundation is a nonprofit organizationthat raises money for the care of GrandTeton National Park, a cause dear to myheart. My friends in that park knew Iloved to fish; they probably thought Iwas better at it than I am, but it was verynice of them to involve me.

Knowing I was going to participate,Bob DeMott asked me to let him knowwhat I thought of the whole experience.My letter was as much an attempt toexplain it to myself as to him.

Dear Bob:I see that lately Fly Fisherman has

been running a dialogue in its opinionand letters departments among peoplewho feel one way or the other aboutthese competitive events, and judgingfrom the growth in the events, I guessthey’re going to be with us at least for awhile, so I don’t think there’s any hopeof making them go away even if wedecided that they are definitely all bad.So far I haven’t felt any strong urge toenter that debate, though I do see somepretty feeble thinking on the part of thepro-event types, who are very full ofself-justification and (surprisinglyenough) even try to invoke history toback them up.

Though there was a lot of cheerfulprotestation among the people I talkedto, who all maintained that this reallywas just for fun, it was pretty obviousthat even those who said that mostloudly had a competitive streak anddidn’t want to lose. It’s very hard not tocare about how you do, and the compe-titions, whatever else they may or maynot do, can’t help setting you up torespond competitively when you’re putin that position. So that was there, andit was really plain.

This is very largely a crowd of com-fortably well-off guys (and a number ofwomen) who are accustomed to com-petition in their work lives, and who areprobably also in most cases big fans ofprofessional sports. If you take fly fish-ing and attach to it a modestly scaled-down version of the spectacle-enhanc-ing attributes of NASCAR or the NFL(we were all issued matching shirts withlogos and stuff, really high-grade stuff),you’re going to set up the same specta-cle-oriented mood. If you keep score,you’re going to trigger some of thosesame conditioned responses in us that atight NFL game does. So sure, you canstand back from all this staging andposturing and say, “Well, it’s all in goodfun,” and that’s going to be more or lesstrue, but you’ve generated somethingoutside the traditional approach that afew dozen generations of anglers had tofly fishing, and that’s where people willdisagree over what’s “good.”

At the end of the day, we would all bedelivered back to the motel that washeadquarters for the whole event. [Mywife] Marsha, who spent both daysdoing her own fun things, would cometo pick me up, and she said it was hilar-

ious watching all these guys unload andimmediately get out their cell phonesright there in the parking lot to call upsomeone and tell them how they didand how many points they got.

Perhaps the biggest surprise, as far asthings to think about, had only indi-rectly to do with the competitiveness. Ithad to do with how the competitivenessplays out in a catch-and-release fishery.Of course, like most of these events,catch-and-release may greatly mitigatethe potential for resource harm, thoughthe people with a moral objection tocatch-and-release would just see com-petition as yet another layer of outrageadded to our cruel treatment of the fish(“You keep score of your torturingrate?!”). But what I saw on the secondday of fishing, though it wasn’t all thatdifferent from what I would see on anyguided trip, really struck me as indica-tive of something troubling.

I have to explain the situation first.All the fishing was float fishing. Eachboat had two anglers, each from a dif-ferent team, and one guide. We tradedoff the front and back of the boat, andthe guide divided his time between uswhen we stopped to wade. The guideswere really great, as practically everyguide I’ve ever had has been. They werehaving fun, though I am sure they werefeeling the competition too.

Anyway, as soon as we stopped towade fish, I noticed how thoroughly ourguide had been scouting the river theprevious days. He would march one orthe other of us to a spot, not a stretch ofwater but a spot. He would say, “Standthere, cast right up past that snag, about6 inches out. There’s a 171⁄2-half-incherthere.” We wouldn’t always catch the

A cartoon commemorating the 2007 World Fly Fishing Championshipsin Finland. ©Seppo Leinonen, www.seppo.net. Used with permission.

SPRING 2012 19

fish, usually didn’t, but when catch-and-release produces this level of famil-iarity with a stream, something ringshollow in the term “wild trout.” Thetrout aren’t domesticated or tame, butthey’re getting a little too familiar forme to want to be fishing for them.

This is just a reality of catch-and-release fishing anyway. If you fish astream very often, you can actually get toknow the fish as individuals. You’re nolonger fishing to see what the water has,you’re fishing to take a fish, a certain fish,you know is there. I know that in manywaters I fish, I’m fishing for fish that werecaught the day before. But they’restrangers to me, and I can, so far, live withthat familiarity. It’s the modern world,and I do have places I can escape it andhave a chance of catching a fish that hasnever been caught before. So it doesn’tseem out of control most of the time.

In the little freestone streams where Ido most of my fishing, this hasn’t hap-pened to me. I haven’t made that kindof effort to census the local fish, and Istill am fishing spots that I know aregenerally likely to hold fish. I’m not sureI’m interested in fishing for a fish Iknow I’ve caught three times before,named Orville, who resides under justthat bush, and who demands a 5X tip-pet. That’s too tame a situation, whetherthe trout is wild or not.

So. Add that revelation to the uneasi-ness of knowing that the guide and I arethere to produce inches of fish, andwe’re essentially trying to high-gradethe fishable population for those fishthat will serve us best in the contest. Itmade for an intellectual restlessnessabout the whole enterprise that I didn’tenjoy feeling.13

When a sport is changing, or evenwhen a sport appears to be changing andits practitioners disagree over the real-ness and magnitude of the change, rest-lessness is vitally important. It keeps usthinking and watching, keeps us ques-tioning ourselves.

We can and will each convince our-selves that our own approach to this rest-lessness is the best one. If we are open-minded enough, we will convince our-selves that it is the best one for us. TedLeeson summed this up beautifully inThe Habit of Rivers (1994):

It is curious to see how each fishermanwill fix the limits of his own sport. Someuse only the dry fly; others fish only tothe rise, still others cast only feather-light rods or tiny patterns. No twoanglers I’ve ever fished with definedtheir boundaries in quite the same wayor devised quite the same rationale forwhat they did. We each map the bordersof a world and fish in an envelope of ourown making that is both intensely per-sonal and flagrantly arbitrary. If pressed,we can give “reasons” for where we drew

the lines, though often enough these areequally capricious and persuasive onlyto the like-minded.14

We do this all the time. We like or dis-like strike indicators, weighted flies,weighted lines, bamboo rods, and count-less other elements of theory, tactic, andethic, and we construct personally con-vincing narratives of how we want to gofishing. Too much of the time the narra-tives attempt not only to be “reasons,”but also to be proof of the superiority ofour specific take on the whole sport.

If nothing else convinces us that weare deeply competitive, our need to justi-fy ourselves this way should. If we be-come Waltonian anglers only to provethat we’re above the fray and somehowsuperior to our fellow anglers—to feelgood about ourselves rather than to dogood because it’s the right thing—thenwe’re betraying the sport as surely as wecould in any other way.

WHAT I CAN’T KNOW, AND

WHAT I HAVE TO DO WITH IT

I can’t know what Walton, Gordon, orHaig-Brown would make of the very con-cept of a “world champion” of fly fishing,but I suspect they’d find it a little silly. Onthe other hand, lots of people apparentlyjust love the whole competitive scene, andas long as they stay out of my way, I’m notsure how much right I have to object.After all, maybe I’m missing something inthe competitions—something besides thepretty shirts and gravy train of cool tack-le—that makes those people all seem sohappy in the pictures. I need to rememberthat great question that one of Sterne’scharacters asked in Tristram Shandy: “Andso long as a man rides his hobby-horsepeaceably and quietly along the King’shighway, and neither compels you or meto get up behind him,—pray, Sir, whathave either you or I to do with it?”15

That admitted, it isn’t the preening,self-congratulatory rat-race image of thecompetitions that interests me most any-way. What I’m curious about is what theGordons and Haig-Browns seem to beexpecting of me instead.

Here’s the question. Is the traditionalzero tolerance for competition just anoth-er one of fly fishing’s unattainable ideals?Most of us know we’ll never cast like theRajeffs, or tie flies like the Harrops, or domuch of anything else like the realexperts. Is it the same with questions ofsportsmanship? Assuming the Waltonsand Haig-Browns were right, how seri-ously should we expect to live up to theirhigh standards? How often did they liveup to them?

While admitting that it wouldn’t hurtany of us to be a little nicer on thestream, I’m also prepared to admit thatI’m probably not ready for the leap tofull noncompetitive saintliness. I reallylike it when I outfish my big brother; hehas a gift for original excuses that Iwould miss if we abandoned our mildand entirely jovial competition. Besides,as an almost-altruistic angler, I have thewritten permission of fly fishing’s histor-ical heavyweights not to care too muchwhen my brother happens to outfish me.Unlike the world championship, altru-ism pays both ways, whether you’re thewinner or the loser.

And that, I would insist, sounds like apretty good code to live by.

!

ENDNOTES

1. Roderick Haig-Brown, Fisherman’sSpring (New York: Morrow, 1951), 118–19.

2. See also my discussion of the distinc-tion between sport and game in CowboyTrout (Helena, Mont.: Montana HistoricalSociety, 2006), 51–55.

3. John Wilson, “A Case for Compe-titions,” Fly Fisherman (February 2004, vol. 35,no. 2), 22.

4. Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler(London: John Lane, 1897), 223.

5. William Stewart, The Practical Angler(Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1857),7–8.

6. Charles Chenevix Trench, A History ofAngling (Chicago: Follett Publishing Company,1974), 227–28.

7. Cliff Netherton, History of the Sport ofCasting, People, Events, Records, Tackle andLiterature, Early Times (Lakeland, Fla.: Amer-ican Casting Educational Association, 1981), 7.

8. John Betts, “Fly Lines and Lineage,”The American Fly Fisher (Fall 2000, vol. 26,no. 4), 18. See also Paul Schullery, “DistanceMatters,” American Angler (April 2007, vol.30, no. 3), 24–25, for more on the develop-ment of fly-fishing distance-casting methods.

9. I discussed the distinction betweenthese two kinds of writing in “Occasions forHope in the Hook and Bullet Press,” in RoyalCoachman (New York: Simon & Schuster,1999), 172–85.

10. N. W. Simmonds, Early Scottish AnglingLiterature (Shrewsbury, England: Swan HillPress, 1997), 33.

11. Andrew Lang, Angling Sketches (Lon-don: Longmans, Green, and Company, 1891),81–82.

12. Theodore Gordon, The Complete FlyFisherman, ed. John McDonald (New York:Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947), 229–30.

13. Letter from the author to RobertDeMott, 4 January 2004.

14. Ted Leeson, The Habit of Rivers (NewYork: The Lyons Press, 1994), 34.

15. Lawrence Sterne, The Life and Opin-ions of Tristram Shandy (London: Ingram,Cooke, and Company, 1853), 43.


MODERN BOOKS ON salmon flies are usually spectacularcoffee-table productions and, unless they are careful-ly constructed, the images can overwhelm the text.

Creating a balance in which the pictures and text support eachother is hard to achieve. The task is made simpler if the peopleinvolved are accomplished, reflective, and well grounded intheir subject. The Essential Kelson—compiled and edited byTerry Griffiths with flies tied by Marvin Nolte and published byPaul Morgan at Coch-y-Bonddu Books—is just such a work,the excellence of which is possible because the people who pro-duced it were on the same page at the same time. If these indi-viduals had not been as generous, open, and persistent, an“essential” Kelson might have been brought into being some-where by someone, but would not have been the book before us.

George Kelson (1835–1920) was a well-known sportsman andathlete who performed at the top of his game at every oppor-tunity. Griffiths, Nolte, and Morgan have done him justice byperforming at the top of theirs.

Kelson was not the first to describe and illustrate salmonflies. The patterns he dealt with were reaching maturity whenhe produced his book, The Salmon Fly, in 1895, upon which hisreputation in the field of dressing Atlantic salmon flies is based.

As a fly-dressing book, The Salmon Fly is probably the mostthorough and thoughtful volume that has ever been written ontying flies. To date it has no equal, nor do I suspect it ever will,that age having long since passed. The entire book, which cov-ers much more than dressing flies, is a reflection of the societyin which it was produced.

If one were a contemporary of Kelson’s, the light of hisinstructions would be perfectly clear. Sadly, time and evolvingpractices have dimmed that beacon of guidance, risking itsloss. While it makes little difference to the dedicated tier, it willmake more of one to the beginner and those of a more maturebut relaxed attitude.

Often overlooked, but pointed out in the text, is the fact thatKelson’s instructions are for tying in one’s fingers without avise—or bobbin, for that matter. A bobbin is awkward in handtying, and not using one is easier and more efficient than onemight think. With practice, this technique can produce themost elegant of all flies in any style. It’s worth mentioning thatKelson also tied by candle, spirit and oil lamps, and sunlight.Though available to and used by him, electric light was notreadily available until late in his life.

Tying in one’s fingers turns the fly every which way, illumi-nating parts that are never seen when a vise is used. Combiningthis with the older forms of lighting, it would have been easyto see which materials and arrangements had “life” and whichdidn’t. The superb color photographs that go with the detailedinstructions and notes in The Essential Kelson give us a goodidea of what was and can be realized again.

Kelson’s text is written in the style of the late 1800s and bytoday’s standards may seem to be made up of ornate curlicueclauses. In fact, if one is patient for just a little bit, all is revealed.

The Essential Kelson is a marriage of many skills that aremore than a century old and the modern technologies thatnow make them accessible. I have no doubt that Kelsonenjoyed producing The Salmon Fly, and I’m equally sure he’dbe delighted to see what it has led to. He was always one whocame to play and wanted others to join him.

Credit is due to the compilers and producers of TheEssential Kelson for the care they have taken. The tender shootsof precise instruction can easily be damaged when teasingthem apart if full focus on the task at hand is diverted else-where. All of the people who were and are involved in thisbook never lost sight of their specific objective: the selection ofthe most important part of an immense range of subjects. Thetemptation to overreach in a full-color book on salmon fliesand tackle by trying to include every beautiful possibility ishard to resist. Fortunately, Griffiths, Nolte, and Morganremained levelheaded, and by doing so, were able to create awork that is the essence of George Kelson.

!

The Essential Kelson: A Fly-Tyer’s CompendiumCompiled and edited by Terry GriffithsIncluding seventy-eight Kelson flies tied by Marvin NolteCoch-y-Bonddu Books (Machynlleth, Powys, U.K.), 2011Available in the United States from fishing tackle shops and booksellers$85.00

B O O K R E V I E W

Griffiths’s The Essential Kelson:A Fly-Tyer’s Compendium

by John Betts

SPRING 2012 21

FLY FISHERMAN MAGAZINE beganpublishing in 1969, but it was sevenmore years before soon-to-be New

York fly-fishing publisher Nick Lyonsassumed the helm of a column found atthe end of each issue. For twenty-threeyears, Nick offered his experiences, bothpiscatorial and philosophical, to anglerswho read to the very end of each issue orto nuts like me who started at the back.“The Seasonable Angler” drew on thethoughtful side of the quiet sport. Nickremained faithful to this regular assign-ment from the 1976 Spring Special issuethrough the December 1998 issue. Ifyou’re a Fly Fisherman reader, you’llnotice that the column title stuck, evenafter he’d moved on.

Nick also began a solid book-writing,editing, and publishing career. With adoctorate in English from the Universityof Michigan, he taught at both Michiganand Hunter College and maintained afaculty position at Hunter through 1988.But the publishing bug had bitten, and in1977, leveraging his executive editorshipat Crown Publishers, he created NickLyons Books. The thoughtful, introspec-tive side of Nick didn’t let his executiveobligations keep him from his own writ-ing, and he continued to produce exquis-ite prose.

Which brings us to 1992 and the pub-lication of his wonderful book, SpringCreek, beautifully illustrated by his artistwife, Mari. This year marks the twentiethanniversary of its release.

A small, artful work, it caught theattention of this angler more than any-thing else Nick had written. Spring Creekis about spending more than a month ona large spring creek, fishing every day—no crowds or other distractions—withits owner, who knew it intimately. Wasthis perfection or what?

When I first ventured to Letort SpringRun in August 1969, not far from mythen-suburban Baltimore home—evenmeeting Vince Marinaro on his propertythat day—I was embarking on a fly-fish-ing journey of my own. The next year,my lifelong angling friend BruceCraddock took me to the famed FallingSpring Branch. It was Bruce who loanedme Spring Creek, soon after its publica-tion, and after a quick read, the jewel wasfiled in my mind permanently.

For years, we wondered about thename and location of “Spring Creek,” itsidentity hidden within Nick’s enchantingprose. We were both born-and-raisedspring-creek fishermen—how could wefind and fish this place? As the busy yearspassed, Bruce and I would ruminateagain and again on the idea of findingand fishing Spring Creek. As our matu-ration in the community of fly fishinggrew, we felt we might somehow be get-ting closer—maybe we’d meet that keyperson, perhaps get a lucky break. Theyears continued to slip by.

At Bruce’s continual urging, I beganan initiative for the conservation of ourbeloved Falling Spring Branch twenty-some years after he introduced me to it.The project and I (as its point man)became nationally known for our accom-plishments on this famous spring creek. Idreamed that this might result in aninsider calling me one day and invitingme to fish Spring Creek. I envisionedBruce and myself heading out together,triumphantly, to fish this seeminglymythical place. No such luck. SpringCreek, as we would eventually learn,

Twenty Years of Spring Creekby Dennis LaBare


flowed within the confines of two enor-mous western ranches—very privateranches—owned by substantial, discreetpeople who, you could say, weren’t look-ing for any uninvited company. “Closelyheld” might describe it best.

During the development of FallingSpring Greenway, I had asked certain offly angling’s biggest personalities to lendtheir names to an honorary/advisoryboard to help build our credibility andfund-raising ability—you know, theprominent, accomplished folks listed inthe left margin of the letterhead thatwe’d send out begging for money.Conversations with some of them aboutSpring Creek produced only vague refer-ences; some expressed the wistful desireto go there themselves. The mysterydeepened. Busy with life, Spring Creekslipped further back on the clipboardbut never went away.

As we read Spring Creek back then, wecould readily identify with the environ-ment and with the challenges of fishingsuch water. In fact, it was completelyfamiliar to us, though it was obviouslynew and challenging to Nick: ultraclearwater; long, delicate leaders; impossiblyspooky and selective trout; and, ofcourse, laser-accurate casting. Nick, whilenot a novice fly angler by any stretch, hadto adapt to these demands, and adapt hedid. Spring Creek was that kind of place,basically: adapt or go home.

But besides this adaptation, Nick gotsomething else, something we missed. Hegot to consciously observe himself, andhe conveyed to us in fine style his evolu-tion as a fly angler. For just as had hap-pened unconsciously to both Bruce andme when we were teenagers, there was aforce working upon Nick on SpringCreek. It is a force that slows you, direct-ing you to a more deliberative, observa-tionally intense way of angling. As kids,we didn’t realize this was happening tous. In retrospect, we might have appreci-ated noticing. Nick, as a perceptive adult,recognized what was happening to him,slowly but surely, as he fished. Hethought about and absorbed the lessonsof Spring Creek and its wild trout, as wellas those of his friend Herb, SpringCreek’s owner. Bruce and I never enjoyedthis satisfaction. Our skills were devel-oped in the crucible of command perfor-mance, something youth and blissfulignorance could not resist.

Even in the selection of his tackle,Nick was evolving. The lovely, easy actionof his favored cane rod, at Herb’s urging,gave way to graphite with substantialbackbone. The winds he described onthat open landscape were a challenge forhim; for Bruce and me, narrow corridorsof overhanging vegetation, floating weed

beds, and complex crosscurrents invitingdrag were our curses. Line control andaccuracy were king, and so the tools hadto change.

When Bruce and I finally had ourchance to fish Spring Creek, it did notcome by way of the romantic notionswith which we’d amused ourselves; per-haps that was the fairness of reality. Itcame through the ordinary avenue of awestern fly shop that, amazingly, offeredvery limited days on Spring Creek. It didnot matter. The owners, for their ownreasons, and as it should be, openedSpring Creek to the public, if ever sobriefly, and we as the public, for a price,could sample its delights. We jumped atthe chance. Finally, a dream come true.

Because Nick was graciously one ofthe willing who served on our FallingSpring Greenway Honorary/AdvisoryBoard, I called him to exalt in our goodfortune. He shared our enthusiasm, send-ing some of his flies and even a small,hand-sketched map on his personal sta-tionery. We returned the flies; we keptthe map as a treasure. Even the contentsof Nick’s fly box told of his evolution andimmersion into the realm of highly selec-tive trout. No more Parachute Adams orHumpys, as he described in his early ex-periences. What he sent were flies intend-ed to directly imitate naturals hatchingon Spring Creek or, in the case of terres-trials, falling into it. We caught fish onhis flies. It sweetened the moment, and itfelt like Nick was with us in spirit.

I vividly recall bumping along theranch road just as Nick did with hisfriend Herb in the tan Suburban. WhenBruce and I arrived at the “bluff thatended the last bench” (page 4), we gotout of the truck and were nothing shortof awestruck as we gazed south over thegloriously vast, open valley and SpringCreek. Stretched out enticingly before usin all its sinuous, weedy, silken-currentsplendor to the virtual horizon, SpringCreek was finally ours—for two days. Itwas an epiphany for Bruce and me: walk-ing in Nick’s footsteps; being in a placeFly Fisherman editor John Randolph hadtold me was “the best spring creek onearth”; catching large, handsome, per-fectly formed brown trout in the samepools about which Nick wrote, with notanother soul in sight and the beauty ofthe western Rockies all around us. It wasall there, just as Nick told us, lo, thosemany years ago.

But Spring Creek, fortunately, was notours or anyone else’s for those two days,or for any amount of time we might havebeen so lucky to have spent there. Itbelongs, in a larger sense, and because ofNick, to all of us for the ages, for theromance and reality of Spring Creek canbe experienced by everyone in those love-ly 169 pages. I’ve dubbed Nick the HighPriest of the Spring Creek Culture; Bruceand I are mere disciples. If you countyourself among us, you know who youare. Thanks, Nick! Long may you reign!

!

Renowned artist Mari Lyons often accompanied her husband Nick on his fishing trav-els across the country. Inspired by the landscapes she encountered and the fluid grace

of fly fishing, Mari produced hundreds of sketches over the course of several years.Many of these, including the above image, can be found in Spring Creek.

SPRING 2012 23

The museum gratefully acknowledges the outstanding support of our 2011 donors. This year we have included the namesof everyone who has contributed to our mission, including the attendees of our many fund-raising events. Please accept

our apology if any name has been misspelled, placed under the incorrect contribution heading, or inadvertently excluded.

Museum Donors

$25,000 and morePeter and Lillian Corbin viathe Friends of Corbin Shoot

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Inc.—In honor of Paul VolckerGardner and Ellen Grant

Johnny Morris andBass Pro Shops—In honor

of Leigh PerkinsThe Orvis CompanyR. K. Mellon Family

FoundationAlan and Nancy Zakon

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of Gardner GrantDavid and Margaret Nichols

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William PlattFranklin Schurz Jr.

Ronald and Joan StuckeyRichard G. and Wendy TischAndrew and Elizabeth Ward

$1,000–$4,999E. M. Bakwin—In honor

of Leigh PerkinsThomas Belk Jr.Berkshire BankKelly Boatright

Stephen W. Burke, MDA. S. Cargill

Alfred CasaleFitz Coker

Day Family Foundation

George and Beth GibsonGardner and Ellen Grant

Gerald GrinsteinScott Hague

Melvyn HarrisDr. James D. andSusan Heckman

Tim HixonJames Houghton

Charles and Caroline LeeLintilhac Foundation

Lou and Kathryn MarounLeon Martuch—In honor

of Leigh PerkinsWalter and Pam Matia

James MelcherStephen MyersGrant Nelson

E. Wayne Nordberg andJanet Mavec

George and Nancy RecordsWalter and Judy Shipley

Urban AnglerCharles Walton

R. N. Wilson—In honorof Paul Volcker

$500–$999David Beveridge

Austin and Meg BuckBrent Buckley

Buckley–King Law FirmJoseph and Beth Clark

Peter ColhounJace and Jacko DayE.&J. Gallo WineryFinn & Stone Inc.

Ronald and Jane GardCharles Goodson

John LopezFrederick W. Meier Jr.

William Moore IIIJohn H. Mullin III—Inhonor of Paul Volcker

Dianne SiebensJames Specter, DDS

Jim StensonAlan Vidinsky

George and Sandra WeiksnerJoseph C. Wells III

James Woods and CharityChapman—In honor of Paul

Volcker and Leigh Perkins

$250–$499Edward Beddow

Daniel Berry, MDMarilyn Best

Bill and Becky BurkePeter ChapmanBruce EcksteinJon Eggleston

Paul FordG. William FowlerJonathan Grimm

Fred HinkleyShepard Hurwitz, MD

Paul JenningsDiana Kalman

Sam KinneyGerold Klauer

Jim KleinTom Kukk

Maxwell and Mary LesterJerome and Arlene Levine—In honor of Gardner Grant

Rocco MaggiottoLee Mather Jr.—

In honor of Paul VolckerF. D. Meyercord

David and Peggy OdyPerkins Charitable FoundationFrederic and Penny Putnam

James and Donna Reidrk Miles, Inc.

Diana RudolphLora Salladin

Nicholas SelchAlelaide Skoglund

TD BankThe Vermont Country Store

Chip WeinbergDickson Whitney

John Zuccotti

Up to $249William and Dorothy Achor

Gary AllenAlan Amendt

Ken Anthony Jr.Edward Arroll and

Mercer BordenCharles B. Barnes Jr.Stan and Patty Bazan

Ronald BeanDavid Beazley

Cathy and Barry BeckJames Becker

Robert BermanWilliam Berry

Doug BiederbeckGeorge Boder

Stephen and Gillian BoothJames and Judith Bowman

Murray BringDaniel Bullock

John ButterworthDonn and Patricia Byrne

Marc CabotHenry Caldwell

Philip CastlemanJoseph ChiesaAustin Chinn

Robert Clough

Michael CoeEdward Collins

James Collins—In memoryof Stan BogdanJudith ComarMark ConvoyParker Corbin

William CosgroveJ. Richard Cunningham

Dallas Garden ClubStuart DawsonNathaniel DayBirgit Deeds

Julia and Darrell DeMossCharles A. Donovan Jr.Thomas Doolittle, DDS

Mary Jane and John Dreyer Sr.Curtis DuffieldPatricia DupreeWilliam Dustin

Farmington ValleyTrout UnlimitedMichael Farrell

Robert and Connie FergusonLloyd Fields

Paul FitzgeraldLowell Fixler

Matthew and Martha ForelliMac and Ross Francis

Keith FulsherPeter Gambitsky

Chris GibsonJay GoldsmithDale Greenley

Rupert Greshman Jr.Thomas and Henrietta Hakes

Frank Harding IIIMillie HenningAustin Hogan

Leon and June HoltHarold Howard

Betty Frost JenkinsRupert Jennings

Leslie JensenWilliam Jordan—In memory

of Stan BogdanMichael and Jean KashgarianAnn and John Kaufman—In

honor of Gardner GrantJohn Kelleher Jr.

Tom KellyThomas KerrGeorge Klein

Lee Klingenstein—In honorof Gardner GrantWilliam KnoblochCharles Koosmann

Randy LabbeAllan Lamos

John Larkin, MDJames and Patricia Lee Jr.

James Lewis


Fred LordNick and Mari Lyons

James MacMahonJames Marriner

Lawrence MarsielloOscar and Peggy Martinez

Larry Marxer andSusan Hathaway

Bob Selb and Diane McCabeWilliam and Megan

McCollumJoseph and Elizabeth

McCulloughDuncan McDonald

Ted and Ann McKenziePaddy McNeely

Daniel and Eleanor MeckleyJohn Merritt

John and Nancy MerrittEvan Miller

William MitchellRobert and Louise Molzahn

John MooreBob and Joanne Moser

James G. Murphy—In memory of Stan Bogdan

Paul and Claire MurphyRose Napolitano

John NeelyMitchell Nelson

Eda Newhouse—In honorof Gardner Grant

OAF (Order ofAncient Fisherman)Stephen O’Brien Jr.

Frank and Meredith OltVincent Pacienza, MD

Arthur E. PapeRobert Patterson

David and Virginia PennockStephen Pioso

Allan and Alice PooleHarry PtasynskiMichael ReagorL. Keith Reed

Pendennis Reed Jr.Robert Rich

Kristoph Rollenhagen—Inmemory of Stan Bogdan

Harry Rubashm, MDBob and Mary Russell

Mickey SchwartzDavid Scorbati

James SecorFrederic and Jean SharfDr. Gary Sherman and

Lyn KohlsCarl Shrake

Leigh ShumanColby Sorrells

James and Carol Ann SpendiffKenneth SrokaGeorge StarkJames Stewart

Edward StilwillJames and Judy StoneGeorgia Sullivan and

Liam WasleyThayer Talcott Jr.

Tyler Smyth ThompsonRichard J. Tisch

Trout Unlimited Chapter228 Taconic Chapter

William Troy

Thomas WalekDavid Harris Walker

Martin WeaverTim Weglicki

Frederick and Constance WestThomas Whitlock

David WhitneyC. A. Wimpfheimer—Inhonor of Gardner Grant

Joan Wulff and Ted Rogowski

In-Kind Donorsof Goods or Services

The Addeo FamilyBattenkill Watershed Alliance

John and Donna BedardKelly and Caroline Boatright

Helen BonebrakeCaptain Steve Brettell

Peter BurtonDebby Carey

Casting for RecoveryRoger Clark

Robert CochraneTom ColicchioJames Collins

Catherine ComarClark ComolloFrank Conroy

Ken CoxBert DarrowHope Davis

Deborah Pratt DawsonTim DelislePaul DixonEl Pescador

G. William FowlerGeorge and Beth Gibson

Dana GrayWillard Greenwood

Timothy GrellLuther and Sue HallErik Madigan Heck

William and Phyllis HerrickGraydon Hilyard

Leslie HilyardHousatonic River Outfitters

Diane InmanRichard JagelsJason JeffersBill Jenney

Gerald and Mary KaraskaThe King Fisher Society LLC

Jerry and Barbara KlutinisLyn Kohls

William and Francesca LearySeppo Leinonen

Carmine and Judith LisellaNick and Mari LyonsManchester Discount

BeveragesWilliam and Chris Mares

Walter and Pam MatiaBob Selb and Diane McCabe

Sara Cedar MillerMrs. Murphy’s Donuts

Mulligans of ManchesterJohn and Joyce Mundt

Megan MurphyJoe Mustari

The Orvis CompanyFrederick and Cassie Polhemus

Project Healing WatersFly Fishing

Paul Schullery andMarsha Karle

Richard SheltonMark Sherman

Stephen ShermanSpruce Creek Fly Company

Mark SusinnoRonald and Heather

SwansonTed Sypher

Tamarack Preserve, Ltd.Richard G. and Wendy Tisch

Jacques TorresU.S. Marine Corps,

Division of Public AffairsDave and Emily Whitlock

Gordon and Betty WickstromWindlough Farm

Journal ContributorsBryon BorgeltKen Cameron

G. William FowlerWillard P. Greenwood II

Bill HerrickGraydon Hilyard

Austin HoganRichard Jagels

Gerald KaraskaJ. I. MerrittJohn Mundt

Paul SchulleryMichael Valla

Gordon Wickstrom

VolunteersPatricia BeachGeorge Butts

William CosgroveTim Delisle

Wes HillErika KornbluthBrennan Murphy

Liam MurphyQuinnlyn Murphy

Steve MurphyRose NapolitanoWanda Robinson

M. Patricia RussellRobert SelbPaul SinickiRay Smith

Ron and Cheryl Wilcox

Exhibition LendersJohn BaileySusan Balch

Dotty BallantyneCharles Barnes

Cathy BeckPeggy Brenner

Casting for RecoverySylvie Malo Clark

Kristi Denton CohenSelene Dumaine

Debbie ElmerRachel FinnLyla Foggia

Karen GrahamBarbara Klutinis

Fanny KriegerMari Lyons

Mimi MatsudaEllen McCaleb

Annette McLeanMaggie Merriman

Diane MichelinCarol NicholsJudith O’KeefeMargot Page

Phillips Historical SocietyDiana RudolphAnnette RussKathy Scott

Molly SemenikSisters on the Fly

Rhea ToppingThe Woman Fly Fishers

Joan Salvato WulffNancy Zakon

Donors to the CollectionClayne BakerE. M. Bakwin

Charles R. EichelLorrain Fauey

S. V. FayPatrick FordGuy Grima

Dr. James HeckmanAustin Hogan

Robert HubbardWilliam Jordan

Bernard “Lefty” KrehNick Mayer

Bradford MillsProject Healing Waters

Fly FishingJessy SnyderJohn Swan

Gene TrumpPaul A. VolckerClaude WestfallJames WoodsNancy Zakon

Brick SponsorsMike ArnoldAlfred Casale

Megan HinckleyCatherine Jaeckle

John JayRobert Kaufman

Andrew McDermottSteven McGrathJames Mirenda

Trout Unlimited—Canandaigua

Ed Vallerie

Event ContributorsKathleen and Timothy

Achor-HochColin Adams

Vance AndersonBarbara Armstrong

Rick BainMichael BakwinFoster Bam andSallie BaldwinRick Bannerot

Charles BarnettDoug Barone

Jeff Baskin andJill Alcott Baskin

Scott BazanStan and Patty Bazan

Arnie Bean

SPRING 2012 25

Alex BercheckMarilyn Best

David BeveridgeCharlie Biddle

Jim BiggarJeff Blum

Richard BlumKelly and Caroline Boatright

Stanley BogdanBruce BolenRachel Bolen

Stephen BonebrakeTim Bontecou

Richard and Gail BowenEthan Braid

Shannon BrightmanJaci Brillon

Shawn BrillonHannah and

R. Duke Buchan IIIBrent Buckley

Bill ButlerChris CarmelDavid CarrollChris Carty

Hugo CassirerPeter Champman

Jim ClancyRoger Clark

John and Whitney ClayJonathan Colton

Aleta ConnellJane Cooke

Peter and Lillan CorbinHeather Cornell

John CornellAaron Daluiski

Christina DaneseRenato Danese

Bert DarrowGuy Davies

Dickie DavisChristopher and Coral Dawson

Deborah Pratt DawsonJace Day

Deb Dennis

Scott DennisE. Bruce DiDonato

Steve and Adriana DiGiacomoStephen DiGiovanni

Glen DorfAnthony and Cheryl Dowd

Patrick DurkinTom and Suzanne Engel

Leslie EversMike Farrell

Brett and Kristine FerranceChristopher Fey

John FioreJonathan Fisher

Ruth FleischmannEric FlorianiKim Floriani

William FloydMac Francis

Keith FulsherTyler GaffneyBibi Garfield

Dodge GarfieldDouglas Garfield

Toy GarfieldChip Gaudreau

George and Beth GibsonJon and Mona Gibson

Jim GlowienkaGeoffrey GoldSteven Gold

Bob GoldmanJack and Sherri Grace

Michael GraceGardner Grant

Gary GrantTim Grell

John GrimmGeorge Guba

James HamiltonScot Hauge

Lauren HauserAndrew Hearny

Edmund HecklauDr. James D. andSusan Heckman

Thomas HelfrichWilliam Henz

Robert HotchkissAndy Irving

Stephanie JacobDiana KalmanKaren KaplanWoody KeeseeKevin KeoughWoods King

Andy KirkpatrickGerald Klauer

Jim KleinBruce Knecht

William and AudreyKnoblock

Todo KodamaPeter Krembs

Beverly LandstreetGeorge LangaStacey LangaJack Larkin

Ron and Cheryl LarsonKen Lawton

William and Francesca LearyGeorge LeeTrip Levis

Robert and Karen LewisCarmine LisellaRob Longsworth

Sara LowChristopher Mahan

Chris MailmanTim Main

Charlie MarquesWalter and Pam Matia

Ray McCreadyEd McDermott

John McDonoughDr. William McMaster

Guy MerisonKevin MescallEvan Miller

Dr. Peter J. and Sarah MillettBradford and Pamela Mills

Debra MitterholzerDon Mitterholzer

Jeff MooreDick and Lynda Morehead

Tom MortimerDan MosheimKit MosheimJohn Mundt

Rose NapolitanoJohn and Susan Neely

Thomas NewberryNick Newman

David and Margaret NicholsEd and Leslie Nicholson

Pat and Leslie NolandE. Wayne Nordberg

Geoff and Marsha NormanMarne and Peggy Obernauer

Erik and Jennifer OkenStacy Orand

Jeff PaigeJoseph PerellaDave Perkins

Leigh and Anne PerkinsMolly PerkinsPerk PerkinsCokie Perry

Lee PerryDiane Peters

Jim PetersStuyvesant and

Virginia PierrepontWilliam Platt

Fred PolhemusClifford and Elizabeth Press

John ProctorJames Prosek

Buck and Penny PutnamMarou Ramito

John and Cathy RanoJohn and Debbie Rathbun

Pen and Barbara ReedRobert Reilly

Barry RichardsEric and M. C. Roberts

Jamie RoddyTed Rogowski

Kristoph J. RollenhagenTom Rosenbauer

Jeff RupleSteve Sacher

Jim and Donna SanfilippoPhilip Sawyer

Franklin Schurz Jr.Jason Scott

Matthew ScottRobert G. ScottLeigh Seippel

Ottavio SerenaDavid SgorbatiJohn Shanahan

Harry ShawHewitt Shaw Jr.

Dr. Gary Sherman andLyn Kohls

Mark ShermanSteve and Debbie Sherman

Todd ShermanSteve SjogrenBarbara Skor

J. P. SmithBurr and Mary Sprague

Chris SteinbrinkPaul Stephenson

James StewartDick StrainEric Stroup

Tim SullivanDotty Thompson

Richard G. and Wendy TischRick Tomm

F. Jerome ToneJacques Torres

Dick and Laura TowsleeAdam TriskTony Vegh

Paul and Anke VolckerJoe Volk

Nora WagnerStirling Wagner

David and Jade WalshAndrew and ElizabethWard

Rick WarrenDana Weaver

George and Sandra WeiksnerJim Werleg

Al WhitehouseThomas Whitlock

Joan WulffEames YatesJoan Young

Alan and Nancy ZakonMartin Zimmerman

From Genio Scott, Fishing in American Waters,(New York: The American News Company, 1875), 17.


Upcoming Events

Events take place on the museum grounds in Manchester, Vermont, unless otherwise noted.

Always check our website (www.amff.com) for additions, updates, and more information or contact Kim Murphy at (802) 362-3300 [email protected]. “Casting About,” the museum’s e-mail newsletter, offers up-to-date news and event information. To subscribe, lookfor the link on our website or contact the museum.

May 5Board of Trustees Meeting

May 6–19Online Auctionthrough Bidding for Good

May 19AMFF Tag Sale

JuneGallery TalkGardner L. Grant Library

July 14Ice Cream Social

August 9–12 “Angling and Art” Benefit Art SaleGardner L. Grant Library

September 22Community Appreciation Day(Free admission all day)

OctoberFall Members and Trustees Meeting

October 3Heritage Award Dinner and AuctionNew York City

October 13Fly-Fishing Festival

November 10Veterans Appreciation Day(Free admission all day)

December 8Hooked on the Holidays

I was surprised and pleased to see the Fall 2011 issue high-lighted women in fly fishing. I have been a great advocate ofwomen in the sport, and my private casting classes now com-prise almost as many women as men.

I know well many of the ladies featured, but if I was askedwho are the two top all-around lady fly fishers in the world, itwould be Cathy Beck and Sarah Gardner, who was missingfrom this issue.

Sarah can cast a 3-weight or a 12-weight rod equally well andis versed in fresh and salt water. She is also a certified coast-guard captain, runs her own offshore boat, rigs all her owntackle, and has a number of world records to her credit. Moreimportant, she has guided both women and men to worldrecords on fly tackle.

What is most impressive is that men vie to charter herbecause of her expertise.

—Lefty KrehHunt Valley, Maryland

There is an extensive list of women who have made significantcontributions to the sport of fly fishing, and we wish we couldhave recognized every one of them. Although the number ofnames selected for inclusion in our exhibit was restricted by thesize of our gallery, the names of and information about countlessother women are shared throughout the fly-fishing communityvia the Internet. We hope A Graceful Rise encourages everyone tobe fascinated by the groundbreaking women of the sport.

L E T T E R THE BROOKSIDE ANGLERFrom AMFF logo merchandise to uniquegifts for any angler, the museum’s store,the Brookside Angler, has something for

everyone. Either visit us in person orshop online at www.amff.com.

Items commemorating the groundbreaking newexhibition A Graceful Rise include hats and

aluminum bottles featuring the exhibition logodesigned by Deputy Director Yoshi Akiyama.

SPRING 2012 27

Recent DonationsPaul Volcker of New York City donated Popper, White (a

bass fly) and two large spoon lures. Nancy Zakon of Key Largo,Florida, gave us a framed shadow box called The Legends FlyCollection, which contains fifteen saltwater flies tied by legendsof saltwater fly fishing.

Nick Mayer of Lincoln, Vermont, donated his limited-edi-tion print, Beaver Pond Brook Trout (17/250). Austin W. Hoganof Piermont, New Hampshire, sent us a magazine article byBruce Day, Charles A. Herzog, Mike Kobos, Paul D. Narleski,and Louis C. Parker III, “The Parker-Hawes Rod,” from ParkerPages (Winter 2010, vol. 17, no. 4).

Two authors donated copies of their recently publishedbooks: Clayne F. Baker of Boise, Idaho, gave us Poetry of FlyFishing (Big Herby Production, 2011), and Patrick Ford ofMiami, Florida, sent Fly Fishing Daydreams (Skyhorse, 2011).

Bill Mares of Burlington, Vermont, gave us three books: afirst edition of White House Sailor by William M. Rigdon(Doubleday, 1962), Meet Mr. Eisenhower by A. Merriman Smith(Harper, 1955), and White House Sportsman by EdmundLindop and Joe Jares (Houghton Mifflin, 1964). And James C.Woods of Cambridge, New York, donated a collection of books(for a detailed listing, contact the museum).

BACK I S SU E S !

Vol. 22:Vol. 23:Vol. 24:Vol. 25:Vol. 26:Vol. 27:Vol. 28:Vol. 29:Vol. 30:Vol. 31:Vol. 32:Vol. 33:Vol. 34:Vol. 35:Vol. 36:

Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4Nos. 2, 3Nos. 1, 3, 4Nos. 1, 2, 4Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4Nos. 1, 3Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4Nos. 1, 2, 3Nos. 1, 2Nos. 1, 2, 3Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4

Vol. 6:Vol. 8:Vol. 9:

Vol. 10:Vol. 11:Vol. 12:Vol. 13:Vol. 14:Vol. 15:Vol. 16:Vol. 17:Vol. 18:Vol. 19:Vol. 20:Vol. 21:

Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4Nos. 3, 4Nos. 1, 2, 3No. 2Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4No. 3No. 3No. 1No. 2Nos. 1, 2, 3Nos. 1, 2, 3Nos. 1, 2, 4Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4

Back issues are $10 a copy fornonmembers, $5 for members.

To order, please contact Sarah Moore at(802)362-3300 or via e-mail at [email protected].

Vol. 37: No. 1

The museum invited the community to deck the halls with troutand holly as we celebrated at our annual Hooked on the

Holidays event on December 10. Many community members andfamilies, some spanning several generations, joined us for an openhouse, where they colored fish ornaments, decorated trout cookies,created snowflakes, and took advantage of the free admission to

view our latest exhibition, A Graceful Rise. The holidays arealways a special time, and we are thankful that so many of you

made room in your busy schedules to share yours with us!

Thanks to Ken Cox, fisheries biologist from the Vermont Fishand Wildlife Department, who told us “The Good, the Bad,

and the Ugly” on October 22. Cox joined us in the Gardner L.Grant Library to discuss the state of our rivers following

destruction from Tropical Storm Irene, which passed throughVermont in August. Even as many residents were cleaning upfrom the massive flooding on land, the fish were fighting theirown battle of survival with silt-filled rivers and loss of habitatcreated by the channeling and banking done to the riverbed.

On this map of Vermont, the red portion shows the areas mostseriously affected by Irene.

Kim Murphy

Sara Wilcox


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

James Hardman is a retired manufacturer of industrialadhesives and associated dispensing machinery; he is amachinist and has studied, collected, and restored early reelsfor forty years. He has served on the board of the AmericanMuseum of Fly Fishing, made presentations at meetings of theNational Fishing Lure Collectors Club and the NortheastAntique Anglers Show, and contributed articles on early reelsin Fishing Collectibles Magazine and the Old Reel CollectorsAssociation Journal. Additional interests include the restora-tion of early gas and steam engines and collecting early sparkplugs. He resides with his wife Patricia in Dorset, Vermont.

Paul Schullery was executive director of the AmericanMuseum of Fly Fishing from 1977 to 1982. He is the author,coauthor, or editor of forty books, including several relating tofly fishing and fly-fishing history. His most recent booksinclude Cowboy Trout: Western Fly Fishing as If It Matters; TheRise: Streamside Observations on Trout, Flies, and Fly Fishing;and If Fish Could Scream: An Angler’s Search for the Future ofFly Fishing. In 2011, Schullery was named to the “Legends ofthe Headwaters” honor roll by the Madison-Gallatin TroutUnlimited Chapter, Montana, for his work as a writer and his-torian of fly fishing. His fly-fishing memoir, The Fishing Life,will be published by Skyhorse Publishing in fall 2012.

Dennis LaBare’s interest in trout streams was nurturedearly by his father and during boyhood summers in GrandLake Stream, Maine. Before retirement, he founded an envi-ronmental consulting firm that provided services in wetlandscience, urban forestry, site planning, regulatory support, andstream bioassessment. As a volunteer, LaBare served as boardmember and officer of his Trout Unlimited chapter, ran water-shed monitoring programs and chapter fund-raising ban-quets, and served as chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Council ofTrout Unlimited. He is a TU life member and in 1993 receivedthe Trout Unlimited Conservation Award, Non-Professional—TU’s highest honor for a volunteer.

LaBare’s publication credits include Pennsylvania Anglerand Boater, The Angler’s Journal, Virtual Fly Shop.com, and achapter in The Guide to Trout Fishing in Maryland and SouthCentral Pennsylvania. His photography has appeared inVirginia Sportsman. He is the author of Tagewahnahn: TheLandlocked Salmon at Grand Lake Stream (2007).

Clarence Anderson is a longtime member of the AmericanMuseum of Fly Fishing whose recent contributions to thejournal include “The Dean of American Fishermen: HenryVan Dyke” (Spring 2010) and “H. L. Leonard Rod Markings: ARevised Chronology” (Summer 2010). His interest in the sub-ject of John G. Landman remains undiminished. Andersonlives in Upper Jay, New York, near the Ausable River.

Kathleen Achor

Marsha Karle

NUMEROUS POSSIBLE REASONS compel a museum to col-lect original works of art on canvas, panel, and paper. Itmay be the artist, it may be the subject, or it may be the

period depicted. It may be the medium, technique, or style ofthe piece. The American Museum of Fly Fishing collects sport-ing art for all of these reasons, and we are always on the look-out to enhance our holdings of artists whose passion andappreciation for the sport of fly fishing bring a special perspec-tive to the canvas.

Our permanent collection holds fewer than one hundredpieces of original art. These oil paintings, watercolors, acrylics,ink drawings, and pencil sketches span the years 1875 to 2009, andhighly acclaimed artists such as Frank W. Benson (1862–1951),Ogden Pleissner (1905–1983), Stanley Meltzoff (1917–2006), PeterCorbin (b. 1945), and George Van Hook (b. 1954) are repre-sented. As each exhibition and public program is planned, welook at these works to see how they complement the program

topic; the connections we find give us an exciting opportunityto augment a theme with expertly executed art.

The museum has a wish list of sporting artists who arenot—but should be—represented in our collection. The paint-ings created by these artists lend themselves to our education-al mission. Some of the early artists on this list include WinslowHomer (1836–1910), Frank Dumond (1862–1951), Aiden LassellRipley (1896–1969), and Milton Weiler (1910–1974). There is anendless wish list of contemporary artists as well, includingArthur Shilstone, Thomas Aquinas Daly, Flick Ford, DianeMichelin, John Swan, Mark Susinno, and C. D. Clarke.

Please consider how you can strengthen our sporting artcollection through the donation of art or through a contribu-tion to our acquisitions fund.

CATHI COMAREXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Sporting Art at theAmerican Museum of Fly Fishing

Above: Stanley Meltzoff was the first artist toillustrate saltwater game fish in their naturalenvironment. Drifting Blue, oil on canvas byMeltzoff, 1974. Donated by Derby Anderson.

Above: Freshwater Fish of the Northeast was published in 2010.This book was written by David A. Patterson and was illustrated

by his son, Matt Patterson. Kokanee Salmon, pencil and acrylic onpaper by Matt Patterson, 2009. Donated by Matt Patterson.

Right: Florian K. Lawton (1921–2011) was known for hisattention to detail and his depiction of country land-

scapes and urban cityscapes of northeastern Ohio. QuietPool, Chagrin River, Hunting Valley Ohio, watercolor

on paper by Lawton. Donated by the Florian K. LawtonFoundation. (This work, along with a complete artist

biography, is currently on display at the museum.)

The American Museumof Fly Fishing

4070 Main Street • PO Box 42Manchester,Vermont 05254

Tel: (802) 362-3300 • Fax: (802) 362-3308E-MAIL: [email protected]: www.amff.com

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF FLY FISHING, anationally accredited, nonprofit, education-al institution dedicated to preserving therich heritage of fly fishing, was founded inManchester, Vermont, in 1968. The museumserves as a repository for and conservator tothe world’s largest collection of angling andangling-related objects. The museum’s col-lections, exhibitions, and public programsprovide documentation of the evolution offly fishing as a sport, art form, craft, andindustry in the United States and abroadfrom its origins to the present. Rods, reels,flies, tackle, art, books, manuscripts, andphotographs form the basis of the muse-um’s collections.

The museum provides public programsto fulfill its educational mission, includingexhibitions, publications, gallery programs,and special events. Research services areavailable for members, visiting scholars, stu-dents, educational organizations, and writ-ers. Contact Yoshi Akiyama at [email protected] to schedule a visit.

VOLUNTEER !Throughout the year, the museum needs vol-unteers to help with programs, special pro-jects, events, and administrative tasks. You donot have to be an angler to enjoy working withus! Contact Sarah Moore at [email protected] tell us how we would benefit from yourskills and talents.

JOIN!Membership Dues (per annum)

Friend $10,000$5,000$1,000

Sponsor $500Business $250Benefactor $100Associate $50

The museum is an active, member-ori-ented nonprofit institution. Membershipdues include four issues of the American FlyFisher; unlimited visits for your entire fami-ly to museum exhibitions, gallery programs,and special events; access to our 7,000-vol-ume angling reference library; and a dis-count on all items sold by the museum onits website and inside the museum store, theBrookside Angler. To join, please contactSarah Moore at [email protected].

SUPPORT !The American Museum of Fly Fishing relieson the generosity of public-spirited individu-als for substantial support. Please contact us ifyou wish to contribute funding to a specificprogram, donate an item for fund-raising pur-poses, or place an advertisement in this jour-nal. We encourage you to give the museumconsideration when planning for gifts, be-quests, and memorials.

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