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SUMMER 2012 VOLUME 38 NUMBER 3

American

Journal of the American Museum of Fly Fishing

The

Fly Fisher

THERE’S A SPOT along the AusableRiver that I fished each year, for acouple of decades, in late summer,

until the lodge I frequented closed its doorsfor good. The mere thought of that placebrings to mind its sandy roadside approachbefore a steep descent to the river—anapproach full of grasshoppers dodging theunderside of my boots as I made mywader-laden way to the water.

I love grasshoppers.I’ve been wanting to include Paul

Schullery’s “Grasshopper Country” in thepages of this journal for a long time—fromdays even before it appeared in his book ofessays, Fly-Fishing Secrets of the Ancients—but commitments to other authors andspace limitations had me putting it offagain and again. I kept thinking about thepiece, though, no doubt because of whatthe word hopper evokes for me: those late-summer days, a big buggy fly I can see, andgiven the right circumstances, some ag -gressive takes. Hopper (of course) suggestseven a certain quality of light. I don’t get tothe river nearly enough ever, and not near-ly enough during times when hoppers dropin from the bank, flailing. At long last, I’mpleased to present “Grasshopper Country”on page 2.

Gordon Wickstrom began fly fishing in1938, during “what authorities have calledthe Golden Age of Fly Fishing in America.”While acknowledging his presumption indoing so, he has ventured to name six peri-ods of American fly fishing, from 1845 (TheBeginning) to the recently begun NewPeriod. Wickstrom’s own categorization ofthe sport’s history, “A Modest Proposal fora Speech: The Six Periods of American Fly

Fishing,” along with its accompanyingchart, can be found beginning on page 18.

The museum is gearing up for a futureexhibit of saltwater fly fishing and its histo-ry. As we do, writer Jerry Gibbs will offer aseries of articles that explore little-knownearly history, equipment development, andmore recent events. In his first installment,“Pioneers and Pioneering: The Allure andEarly Days of Saltwater Fly Fishing” (page14), Gibbs highlights A. W. Dimock’s ad -ventures in Florida, particularly a fifty-twoday trip with his photographer son Julian,which resulted in The Book of the Tarpon(1911). For more about our saltwater pro-jects, see Gibbs’s introduction on page 13and Executive Director Cathi Comar’smessage on the inside back cover.

In March, we lost a man who’s been withthe museum since its earliest days, whosename appears on the list of trustees in vol-ume 1, number 1 of this very journal:Gardner Grant. On page 21, Trustee RichardTisch offers a remembrance of his friendand fellow trustee, for whom our library isnamed.

And as both temperatures and fish risehere in the northern hemisphere, it’s onlyfitting that John Mundt return with a freshinstallment of Keepers of the Flame (page20), this time profiling Bill Archuleta, whonot only repairs antique and high-end flyreels, but also offers his own custom-mademodels. Finally, look to Museum News tosee who we’ve been honoring, what we’vebeen doing, and which events you mightlike to attend. We’d be happy to see you.

KATHLEEN ACHOREDITOR

A Mess of Hoppers, SomeCategorization, and a Little Salt

Our Mission:

The American Museum of Fly Fishing isthe steward of the history, traditions, and

practices of the sport of fly fishing andpromotes the conservation of its waters.The museum collects, preserves, exhibits,studies, and interprets the artifacts, art,and literature of the sport and uses these

resources to engage, educate, and benefit all.

CATCH AND RELEASETHE SPIRIT OF FLY FISHING

Peter BakwinThomas Belk Jr.

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

Laura NapolitanoCoordinator of Membership and Operations

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

Sara Wilcox

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

the American Museum of Fly FishingJournal of

Grasshopper Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Paul Schullery

Salt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Jerry Gibbs

Pioneers and Pioneering: The Allureand Early Days of Saltwater Fly Fishing . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Jerry Gibbs

Notes and Comment:A Modest Proposal for a Speech:The Six Periods of American Fly Fishing . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Gordon M. Wickstrom

Keepers of the Flame:Bill Archuleta: Archuleta’s Reel Works . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

John Mundt

In Memoriam: Gardner Grant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Richard Tisch

Anglers’ Club Dinner Honoring Peter Corbin . . . . . . . . 22

Museum News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

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

ON THE COVER: Author A. W. Dimock takes a turn paddling while his captainfights with a tarpon caught by Dimock, giving both of them a chance torest sore muscles while exercising new ones. From A. W. Dimock, TheBook of the Tarpon (London: Frank Palmer, Red Lion Court, 1912), 129.

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 42

Manchester, Vermont 05254

We welcome contributions to the American Fly Fisher. Before making a submission,please review our Contrib utor’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

James HardmanWilliam 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

ON 28 AUGUST 1972, which seemslike both a long time ago and onlyyesterday, I caught my first brag-

ging-size brown trout. “Bragging-size” isa context-driven notion, of course, andthe salient context that day included mythen-brief two-month career as a fly fish-er and the modest size and reputation ofthe stream I was fishing. Under those cir-cumstances, my 15-inch brown, caughton a Joe’s Hopper, was worth the acco-lades it received when I took it back tothe bunkhouse and showed it off to myfellow Yellowstone seasonals, most ofwhom were probably just hoping that bybeing nice to me they’d get to eat thefish.

But there is even more context. Everyfish we catch is a story reaching back-ward and forward in our experience thatreveals more the harder we think aboutit. At the time I caught that fish, I ownedabout six flies. Seasonal park ranger

salaries were not only small, they were,well, seasonal. Lucky for me I had seenonly a few fishermen’s vests and flyboxes, so I had no idea how many fliesone was “supposed” to have to do thisright. I only needed one at a time, right?

But I can say for certain that among thatfirst little crew of flies, the Joe’s Hopper Icaught the brown on was, without ques-tion, the star. According to the primitivefishing log I kept that summer, I used thehopper more than all the others combined.I had been using it almost exclusively for amonth when I caught the brown andwould have seen no reason to change myways after such a triumph.

I say using “it,” although it could benot all my hopper fishing was done withthe very same fly. For all I know now, Imight have lost one hopper in a fish,bought a new one, eventually lost it too,and bought yet another (I bought fliesone at a time, with almost as much soul-searching and deliberation as other peo-ple put into buying cars). But consider-ing the chewed-back leaders I used thosefirst couple years, on which the finerdiameter tippet was quickly gone, Iprobably didn’t break off many flies. The

point is that I was from my start as a flyfisher a hard-core hopper fisherman.

At the time, Joe’s Hopper seemed tome the gold standard for grasshopperimitation, but then it was the only stan-dard I knew. Some said that a MuddlerMinnow could be greased with flotant(ChapStick worked well) and used forhopper fishing. Some even said it workedas well as Joe’s Hopper (not for me). Itwas also known, at least among theliterati I had not yet met, that other partsof the country had their own distinctanswers to the grasshopper question. Ifyou talked to well-traveled anglers, youmight hear of the Letort Hopper, thePontoon Hopper, the Whitlock Hopper,and others.

But if you dropped by your typicaldusty little fly shop in Montana orWyoming in those days, what you’d get ifyou asked for a hopper was Joe’s. If theywere out of Joe’s Hopper, they’d proba-bly suggest the Muddler, or a Humpy. Ieventually considered the Sofa Pillow—although formally intended to imitate avery large stonefly—a reasonable hopperalternative, too, but I always fished Joe’sHopper with more confidence.

Grasshopper Countryby Paul Schullery

This article appeared in slightly different form asa chapter in Paul Schullery’s Fly-Fishing Secrets ofthe Ancients: A Celebration of Five Centuries ofLore and Wisdom (Albuquerque: University ofNew Mexico Press, 2009).

A Joe’s Hopper, tied by Charles Krom. From thecollection of the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

Sara Wilcox

SUMMER 2012 3

JOE WHO?

Nobody seemed to know for sure whoJoe was.1 George Grant, one of the West’soriginal fly historians, tried to find outand was never able to learn more thanthat as a western fly pattern, Joe’sHopper was “evidently first used withsuccess by a ‘guy named Joe.’”2

Perhaps more important, Grant diddiscover that as you traveled around theWest, you could “find this same patternassuming the name of ‘Jack’s Hopper’ or‘Jim’s Hopper,’”3 leading us to the con-jecture that the name “Joe” really wasjust the market’s way of saying “someguy.” After all, would you buy a fly called“Some Guy’s Hopper?”

Not that the real Joe, if there was one,had any right to feel deprived of historicalglory when we lost track of him. As Grantalso pointed out, Joe didn’t invent the flyanyway, and it wasn’t even western.

It would be difficult for most Montanafly fishermen to concede that “Joe’sHopper” did not ride the riffles of theMadison or the Big Hole before it wasused elsewhere, but the original of thisfly was known as the “MichiganHopper” and was created by Art Winnieof Traverse City, Michigan.

It is consoling to realize that weadopted another’s child, gave it a newname, dressed it quite well, provided it

with an exciting place to live, andproudly presented it as though it wasour own.4

Although I imagine that George wasright about all this, I still must injectsome doubt and even confusion here. Itcomes to us courtesy of another George,George Leonard Herter, whose writingsconstitute the foremost loose cannon inthe study of American fishing history.Herter’s once-world-famous fishing-tackle catalog business prospered wellinto the 1970s as a sort of proto-Cabela’s,and Herter himself wrote an outrageous-ly entertaining series of books on theoutdoors, cooking, and life. His self-pub-lished Professional Fly Tying, Spinningand Tackle Making Manual andManufacturers’ Guide first appeared in1941 and was, according to the fine printin the front of my copy, in its revisednineteenth edition by 1971. Almost 600pages long by 1971, Herter’s book wasenormously detailed and helpful, waspraised by some very prominent out-doorsmen, and has been conspicuouslyignored by the fly-fishing establish-ment’s literati.

Like Herter’s famous catalogs, his fly-tying book was notorious for his gener-ous self-promotion and what amountedto an alternative American history inwhich Herter and his friends were the

center of the universe. Still, it’s worthchecking in with Herter now and then,just to keep us from ever being too sureof ourselves. He certainly had a differentview of the Joe’s Hopper story:

JOE HOPPER: Invented in 1929 by GeorgeLeonard Herter and named for JosephMcLin. This hopper has proved itself tobe one of the great stream trout andpanfish killers. It is widely usedthroughout North America.5

Joe McLin’s name figured in severalHerter patterns, so I assume he was afriend or possibly a guide whom Herterknew and respected.

Although it would be easy enough tosimply ignore Herter—at least that’s theapproach taken by most popular writerson fly-fishing history—we would be wiseto hear him out now and then, if onlybecause mixed in with all the guff andchaff of his version of history, there maywell be some truth. The problem is thatit is very hard to identify it. Perhaps, asGeorge Grant suggested, Herter’s Joe wasjust one of the Joes invoked by the flypattern’s various popularizers over theyears.

Lost in the happy provincialism thatwas still possible along a western troutstream in 1972, my universe was uncom-plicated by any knowledge of this histo-ry, much less by choices of various hop-per patterns. Other hopper patterns didexist in faraway places I had either notheard of yet or barely could imagine, butthey didn’t matter. Joe’s Hopper was it—whoever Joe was, or were.

But over the next thirty or so years,hopper patterns would come into theirown. Before sitting down to write this, Istopped by one of Bozeman’s four hun-dred and eleven fly shops and lookedthrough their generous bin-bank of hop-pers—herds of hair, acres of foam, milesof rubber legs, battalions of parachutes,rainbows of fluorescents. One or twopatterns looked so good I wanted to eatthem myself. The hopper has clearlyarrived.

But why did it take so long to get here?

PRET TY MUCH OUR FLY

As I’ve pointed out a number oftimes, many of the things Americananglers have convinced ourselves weinvented—streamers, for example, orsaltwater fly fishing—were actually doneearlier in England. The use of grasshop-per imitations is, at first glance, a goodexample. Many of the earliest Britishfishing books mentioned this or thatgrasshopper pattern, just as they rou-tinely mentioned using live grasshoppersfor bait.

Modern fly shops routinely feature dozens of hopper patterns, typically with foambodies, rubber legs, and other elements far removed from earlier generations ofgrasshopper imitations. This photograph by the author shows a case at George

Anderson’s Yellowstone Angler in Livingston, Montana.


Naturalist John Taverner, writing in1600, favored the grasshopper among hisbaits for several fish species.6 In 1614,Gervase Markham, probably because heread Taverner, made the same recommen-dation.7 In 1659, Thomas Barker recom-mended, among his fly patterns, “TheGraffe-hopper which is green, imitatethat. The fmaller thefe flyes be made, andof indifferent fmall hooks, they are bet-ter.”8 For the bait fishermen he added,“your graffe-hopper which is green is tobe had in any meadow or grafs in June orJuly.”9 James Chetham, in 1689, recom-mended two hopper patterns, the “GreenGrafhopper,” which had “Dubbing ofGreen and Yellow Wooll mix’d, rib’d overwith Green Silk, and a Red Capons Featherover all,” and the “Dun Grafhopper,”which had “the Body flender, made ofDun Camlet, and a Dun Hackle at top.”10

But when I checked Charles Cotton’sgreat 1676 masterpiece essay on fly fish-ing, I was reminded that Chetham wasoften not original; these two hopper pat-terns were obviously lifted by him nearlyverbatim from Cotton’s fly list for June.11

Walton himself recommended both arti-ficial hoppers and live ones, and said thelatter were especially good for dapping“behind a tree, or in any deep hole.”12

And yet even with the enthusiasm forhoppers displayed by all these authori-ties, grasshoppers seem not to be a sig-nificant element of modern fly fishing inthe U.K. At least that’s how my Britishfriend and fly-fishing historian AndrewHerd sees it:

The one really, really sad thing aboutliving in the U.K. is that there is noopportunity to use hopper patterns. Wedo have grasshoppers, but they aresmall, live in low densities, and rarelyseem to fall in rivers. No doubt they doonce in a blue moon, and fish will takethem because they make a good meal,but never in my wildest dreams would Iactually go fishing with a hopper in theexpectation of catching a fish rising tothem.

It is possible that in the past, whenfarm chemicals were less ubiquitousand grasshopper counts were higher,that these insects did form a greaterpart of trout diets, but the trouble isthat terrestrials became deeply unfash-ionable from the mid-eighteenth to theearly-twentieth century, and so the lit-erature isn’t very helpful on the subject.But I have my doubts that hopper-festsever were that common.13

I have also wondered if some of theinsects that the early British authorsdescribed as “grasshoppers” belonged toother insect families that we might nowcall leaf-hoppers or know by some othername. The U.K. has at least a couple

dozen species of genuine grasshoppers,but as Herd notes, they have not playedthe role in U.K. fishing that their Amer -ican counterparts have. So it turns outthat grasshopper imitation is, in fact, anarea of fly development and theory inwhich we Americans may have launchedour own original and largely uninheritedinquiry.

THE VICTORIAN HOPPER

But before crossing the Atlantic, weneed to consider the combination ofwhimsy and mystery that characterizedgrasshopper imitations in British fishingcircles in the late 1800s, because some ofthe same characteristics appear inAmerican hopper development of thatperiod.

For me, the imitations that most per-fectly capture the odd charm of this era inhopper fishing appear in Hewett Wheat -ley’s extraordinary book, The Rod andLine (1849), which prescribes the creationof an “artificial bait” to be cast with a flyrod. He calls it a grasshopper, but it is inshape a tapered worm, green with yellowribbing, tied on a leaded, eyed hook. It hasno wings or legs, just the steeply taperedbody (an alternative version has a treblehook as an outrigger on a short leader,dangling alongside the body).14

The eminent British angling authorityFrancis Francis, writing in 1867, provideda description and illustration of Wheat -ley’s grasshopper, and then ex pressedboth admiration and vexation at thisoddly shaped and even more oddlynamed fly.

Hewett Wheatley’s take on a grasshopper fly, as depicted at the top of this plate,is shaped like a tapered worm and lacks both wings and legs. From The Rod and

Line (London: Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1849), facing page 57.

SUMMER 2012 5

The most slaughtering way of fishingfor grayling is with the grasshopper.The grasshopper, so-called, is not agrasshopper at all, though actually anartificial bait, in nowise resembles agrasshopper; why it should have beencalled a grasshopper any more than agooseberry, which it much more resem-bles, I cannot conceive. No matter; thisis the grasshopper.15

The only theory I can offer about whya wingless, legless, green-and-yellow,tapered, wormlike thing should be calleda grasshopper is that for at least two anda half centuries before Wheatley’s time,angling writers had recommended thatanglers using live grasshoppers as baitshould cut off the wings and legs.16

Wheatley’s grasshopper wouldn’t be thatimprobable if it had a grasshopper’swings and legs. It remains a mystery tome why all these authoritative earlierangling writers should have so stronglyinsisted on removing the wings and legsof grasshoppers when modern fly theo-rists have for many years puzzled overhow to imitate the actions of swimminggrasshoppers, whose frantically thrash-ing wings and legs are thought to pro-vide the very motions that attract trout.

However, as British fishing historianFrederick Buller has pointed out, theWheatley “grasshoppers” also shared asimilarity of shape with the category oflures known as “Devil Baits,” which wereillustrated in Thomas Salter’s The Angler’sGuide (sixth edition, 1825) and otherworks of the period.17 So the Wheatleygrasshopper’s actual category of defini-tion remains a little unclear.

I bet it would work great on theMadison, though.

THE AMERICAN REVELATION

Whatever may have been the status ofgrasshoppers in England, we had lots ofthem. Especially on the Great Plains,appropriate habitats in the intermoun-tain west, and the Pacific coast, thegrasshopper was among the species thatmet ecologist Aldo Leopold’s definitionof a biological storm. Like the bison, thepassenger pigeon, several species ofsalmon, and any number of other nowsadly reduced species, the grasshopperwas not so much an animal as it was aspectacle.

A few miles east of my neighborhoodhere in Montana, traveling along theYellowstone River on 16 July 1806,Captain William Clark was among thevery first Euro-American commentatorsto try to comprehend the abundance ofgrasshoppers in the American West: “Itmay be proper to observe that theemence Sworms of Grass hoppers havedestroyed every Sprig of Grass for maneymiles on this Side of the river, and appearto be progressing upwards.”18 Not coinci-dentally, it is thanks to Clark’s expeditionthat we know that at least one Americantackle shop was selling grasshopper imi-tations in his day. Attached to a receiptfor various basic supplies (including lotsof fish hooks) purchased by Clark fromGeorge Lawton’s shop in Philadelphiawas a one-page circular that describedand promoted Lawton’s full line of tackle.This included, among many other artifi-

cial baits, lures, or flies, “Grafshoppers.”19

Judging from his invoice, Clark appearsnot to have bought any, and as long as hissupply of hooks held out he wouldn’thave needed them anyway, consideringhow many live grasshoppers were handyfor his use.

Awed mentions of grasshopper plaguesrecur regularly in nineteenth-centurywestern narratives. The most famous inAmerican history textbooks must be thesaga of the “Mormon Crickets” thatthreatened the early Mormon settlers’crops in Utah in 1848 and were destroyedby the timely and evidently divine inter-vention of seagulls.20 But other similar vis-itations by grasshoppers were not so suc-cessfully met. Environmental historianRichard White described a much morewidespread and economically disastrousgrasshopper irruption a quarter centurylater:

In a bad year, such as 1874, the grass -hoppers swarmed into the northernprairies in such numbers that farmersmistook them for storm clouds massingon the horizon. When the insectsalighted, they sounded like hail. Theyfell from the skies until they lay four tosix inches deep on the ground. Theirweight on trees snapped off limbs, andwhen trains tried to move over them onthe tracks, their crushed bodies greasedthe tracks and left the engine’s wheelsspinning uselessly. Grasshoppers ate thecrops; they fouled the water. Attractedby the salt left from human sweat, theyeven ate tool handles.21

Although the West owned the greatestgrasshopper legends, they were suffi-ciently abundant in many parts of theEast to justify the creation by anglers of avariety of imitations. Early nineteenth-century fly-fishing tracts in America wereheavily derivative of British works, ofcourse, and British works were also avail-able, but before long, American anglerswere taking a hard look at grass hoppersand developing their own imitations.

Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, one of flyfishing’s more critical yet open-mindedthinkers of the mid-nineteenth century,expressed great skepticism about thewhole mass of exact-imitation bug repli-cas that were apparently on the marketin the 1860s. I don’t know this for surebecause so few of the original assort-ment of commercial lures from that dayhave survived, but I suspect he was talk-ing about things quite similar to whatGeorge Lawton claimed to be offering inhis shop half a century earlier.

In addition to the imitations of the nat-ural fly, efforts have been continuallymade to use artificial representations ofthe other food and baits for fish; exactand beautiful copies of grasshoppers

An illustration from the ninth edition of Thomas Salter’s The Angler’s Guide(London: James Maynard, 1841, facing page 1) includes a fly labeled “Devil,”

which is similar in shape and design to Wheatley’s grasshopper.


and frogs have been constructed, andpainted of the proper color, but eitherfrom the nature of the composition orsome other cause, entirely in vain.Indeed it is doubtful whether any fishwas ever captured with such delusionsas grasshoppers, crickets, or frogs, andalthough they are still retained in theshops, they no longer find a place amidthe angler’s paraphernalia.22

Tackle historian and fly-rod–lureauthority Jim Brown has suggested a rea-son for the perceived and real shortcom-ings of these exact-model grasshoppers:

We may never know for sure but I betRoosevelt, and others that took offenseat molded rubber grasshoppers, were atleast in part expressing a taste for per-sonal craft rather than manufacturedproduct. Plus, I’m convinced that theold hard rubber bugs were easily dam-aged. I don’t think the rubber that theyused back then is like the soft kind thatthey use in rubber worms today.23

Whether or not anglers continued tobuy them, the lures/baits/flies did con-tinue to show up in both catalogs and

books. A. B. Shipley and Son, a well-known Philadelphia tackle dealer, adver-tised and illustrated an apparently life-like grasshopper in Forest and Stream in1881, the year the same illustration wasused in James Henshall’s Book of theBlack Bass.24

Paralleling and in opposition to theselurelike flies, professional fly tiers weretrying to develop more conventionalpatterns, which is to say flies in the man-ner of traditional flies, made of furs andfeathers. Orvis championed one suchpattern, both in Charles Orvis and A.Nelson Cheney’s 1883 fly-fishing classicFishing with the Fly and in the muchgrander Mary Orvis Marbury book,Favorite Flies and Their Histories, pub-lished in 1892.

Not everybody was impressed. Writingin 1892, the British fly theorist JohnHarrington Keene, who moved to theUnited States in the 1880s and tried hisbest to interest American anglers inmodern imitative theory, Halford-styledry flies, and his own distinctive flyinnovations, found nothing grasshop-per-like in the Orvis pattern:

Why this is so called I do not know.Orvis & Co. (tackle-makers), figure it intheir elaborate catalogue, “Fishing Withthe Fly,” but it certainly resembles nograsshopper of this sublunary sphere.All the same, it is a good Trout-fly, andwith it I have taken some big fish. It isthus dressed: Tag, silver tinsel and greensilk; tail, yellow swan and wood-duck(the black-and-white tipped feather);body, brown silk; hackle, cardinal; wingjungle-cock feather, with over-wing ofred ibis and yellow swan (dyed); head,peacock herl.25

By contrast, Marbury defended the flyas among the best in the large crop ofgrasshopper flies then being offered.Notice especially that she, like Roosevelt,rejected the more rigid, “exact-imita-tion” style of grasshoppers:

Every one who attempts artificialinsects sooner or later undertakes animitation of the grasshopper. Some ofthese imitations bear close resemblanceto the originals, and have been madewith bodies of wood, cork, or quills,and covered with silk, wool, rubber, andsilkworm gut; but they are apt to be

Above: From James A. Henshall’s Book of the Black Bass(Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co, 1881), 316.

Below: John Harrington Keene was one of many tiers toattempt an exact imitation of a grasshopper. His patternfeatured fish-scale wings and, apparently, a cork body.

From John Harrington Keene, Fly-Fishing and Fly-Making,2d ed. (New York: Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 1891), 132.

Mary Orvis Marbury’s preferred pattern for a grasshopper, aspublished in 1892, drew criticism from advocates of more precise

imitations. Her grasshopper was just a large, colorful wet fly;neither its shape nor its colors were reminiscent of a grasshop-

per. Writer John Harrington Keene complained that “it certain-ly resembles no grasshopper of this sublunary sphere.” From

Mary Orvis Marbury, Favorite Flies and Their Histories (NewYork: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1892), facing page 113.

SUMMER 2012 7

clumsy, lacking as they do the springand softness of the real insect. Any onewho will invent a grasshopper with thenatural “kick” in it has a fortune in hishands. That pictured in the plate [i.e.,the pattern that Keene criticized as notlooking at all like a grasshopper] canclaim semblance only because of colorsthat in the water may suggest the red-legged grasshopper, so successful asbait. This pattern came to us ten ortwelve years ago from Mr. HarryPritchard, of New York, who for a timemade the only flies sold of the combi-nation; they were in great demand withhis customers. Since then this fly hasbecome generally known, and hasproved excellent for large trout andbass, as well as small trout.26

Keene, who had lived in Manchesterand worked with the Orvis family for awhile but had a falling-out of unknowncause, probably disapproved of theirgrasshopper for several reasons: first,because he was right and it didn’t lookmuch like a real grasshopper; second,because he was on the outs with them forwhatever reason; and third, because hehad his own much more realistic pattern,which was pictured in the 1892 bookcontaining his criticism of the Orvis fly.

Red-legged Grasshopper.—Body, yellow-ish green chenille; legs, mid-rib of hack-le, fibers clipped close; wings, sparrowsmall quill-feathers; head, peacock heil[sp.]. As will be observed, this is an imi-tation of nature. I have tried all kinds ofimitations, and this is the one with whichto best fool Trout, in a clear stream, in thegrasshopper season. Of course the natur-

al insect is more killing, but this is veryeffectual, even in comparison.27

Keene’s grasshopper used trimmed hack-le stems, bent to create the leg joints, andit attempted to match the long, thickbody of real grasshoppers with chenille.With such materials, it must have been awet fly after the first couple casts.

American fly theorists continued toexperiment. In the late 1800s and early1900s, not only tackle companies as well-known as William Mills and ThomasChubb, but writers as prominent as LouisRhead offered their own versions of thehopper, as did any number of lesser-known tiers and writers.28 By contrast,the extensive writings of Catskill dry-flyadvocate Theodore Gordon are almostdevoid of mentions of grasshoppers, asare the writings of some of Americandry-fly fishing’s other pioneers.29

THE LOYAL OPPOSITION

The reasons that some people ignoredgrasshoppers were complicated. AsAndrew Herd, quoted earlier, suggested,aquatic insects, especially mayflies, werewidely regarded among the best-readanglers as the true “flies” in fly fishing. Acombination of fashion and a growingliterature on mayfly imitation certainlywould have inclined fishermen to focuson them. Vincent Marinaro, writing inthe mid-twentieth century, suggestedthat grasshoppers were just too large andaesthetically inappropriate to appeal tomany anglers in Halford’s day and

mood. In fact, Marinaro admitted thateven at the time his first book, A ModernDry Fly Code, was published, there wereprobably still many anglers (himselfincluded) with serious doubts abouthopper fishing. Marinaro’s observationson grasshoppers are among the mostimportant ever published about hopperfishing because they suggest the com-plexities of the fly-fishing aesthetics andethics that prevailed by Halford’s time—and that endured well past Marinaro’stime among at least some anglers. This isMarinaro, writing in 1950.

It is with some diffidence that thegrasshopper (Melanoplus differentialis)is accorded a prominent position in for-mal dry-fly practice. The size of thiscreature and the attendant difficulty ofusing a comparable imitation on ordi-nary tackle ally its use more closely tothe art of bass bugging than to that ofdry-fly fishing. It must be admitted toothat it lacks a great deal of the grace andrefinement which accompanies theemployment of dry flies in the 16, 18,and 20 sizes. Aesthetic values are ratherlow where the use of Melanoplus is con-cerned, and its ungracefulness is some-what aggravated by its terrestrial originand lineage. In all likelihood an imita-tion of this animal would have not haveagreed with the fine sensibilities of aman like Frederic Halford, who wouldhave complained, no doubt, that it wasat variance with true dry-fly practice.His deprecation of so large an imitationas the Green Drake [a mayfly] is indica-tive of his philosophy on this subject. Iam in complete sympathy with hisviews, and would gladly trade the

Vermont tackle manufacturer Thomas Chubb offeredthis reasonably realistic grasshopper pattern in his

1893 catalog. It featured fish-scale wings and came inboth green and yellow. The body appears to be madeof chenille or some similar material. From the collec-

tion of the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

Louis Rhead’s version of a grasshopper pattern.From the collection of the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

Sara Wilcox


opportunity to fish to the grasshopperfor that of fishing to the pale wateries,for example. Then, too, there is always ajarring note, a lack of harmony, associ-ated with the ungainly efforts of eventhe most proficient caster in hisattempts to make a smooth delivery ofthis cumbersome artificial. There mustbe many people, acutely aware of thesedifferences, to whom the prospect ofsuch fishing would be offensive, partic-

ularly those who delight in the obliqueapproach to the art of fly-fishing—theflashing elegance of the slender rod, thegraceful curving movement of the line,and the fly falling like thistledown.30

What makes Marinaro’s comments allthe more interesting is that he then con-fessed that the opportunity to raise andhook really large trout overrode his own

prejudices and tastes, and he introducedone of the most intriguing and visuallyconvincing hopper imitations to comeout of American angling history, hisfriend Bill Bennett’s Pontoon Hopper, thebody of which was made of a hollow andtherefore buoyant goose or turkey quill.31

THE FIRST GREAT

AMERICAN HOPPERS

Like almost all fly patterns, virtuallynone of these American hoppers en -dured. Many didn’t outlive their origina-tors, or even the second or third season oftheir careers. Eventually, though, formysterious reasons of quality and charis-ma, if enough people take part in thissort of informal fly-making sweepstakes,a pattern or two will stick and make itsway into the greater, longer-lastingnational fly box. That is what happenedwith the Michigan Hopper.

Apparently some time in the 1930s,Art Winnie, a well-known Michigan flytier who was also known for developingthe Michigan Caddis (an imitation of thebig and generally misnamed Hexageniamayflies so famous on many midwesternstreams), came upon the right combina-tion of simple materials and visual appealin the Michigan Hopper.32 The originalspecimen of the Michigan Hopper in thecollection of the American Museum ofFly Fishing is tied on a conventionallyproportioned dry-fly hook. The fly hasthe shorter proportions of a regular dryfly rather than the extended lines of amodern hopper pattern. Its yellow che-nille body, mottled turkey-feather wings,and brown dry-fly hackle were easy toduplicate and easy to rename; not onlydid it become the Joe’s (and Jack’s andJim’s) Hopper in the West, by 1950 evenas thorough and authoritative a refer-ence work as J. Edson Leonard’s Flies list-ed Joe’s Hopper but seemed unaware ofWinnie’s original.33 So soon we forget.

One of the highly praised hoppers atmidcentury was the Western Grasshopper,an all-hair pattern tied by Paul Stroud ofArlington Heights, Illinois.34 I have notyet seen an example or a picture of thispattern, but the idea of a hopper at thistime made entirely of hair, presumablybut not necessarily deer hair, is intriguing.

Just why Winnie’s Michigan Hopperand its various regional counterpartsshould have taken hold while so manyother patterns didn’t is hard to say, butbased on what we now know about sub-sequent successful patterns, I’d guess ithad to do with the mottled turkey feath-er he used as a wing. Although he tiedthe fly on a conventional (rather thanextra-long) hook, the rather caddis-

Art Winnie first popularized his Michigan Hopper in the 1920s; this versionhas the traditional dry-fly proportions that prevailed among almost all

floating trout flies at that time. Courtesy of the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

Like many fly tiers, Art Winnie apparently varied his patterns. This original interpre-tation of the Michigan Hopper features an elongated body and extended tail as well as

a gold hook. Courtesy of the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

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SUMMER 2012 9

shaped feather wing reached back overthe bend of the hook. It captured theimagination of anglers and, presumably,of trout. It “worked” in every sense of theword—practically, aesthetically, andcommercially—and most of the subse-quent successful hoppers before thefoam-and-rubber-band era employedthe same feather.

While the first enduring Americanhopper imitation, the Michigan/Joe’spattern, became best known for its useon freestone streams in the Midwest andWest, a different style of hopper fishingdeveloped in the East, especially alongthe limestone streams of Pennsylvania.

Again, there was some confusion overthe pattern and its origin for while,although the involved parties seem tohave settled the question amicably andwith clarity. In short, in the years follow-ing the publication of his book Matchingthe Hatch (1955), which said only a fewwords about grasshoppers in preferenceto aquatic insects, Ernest Schwiebert de -veloped his Letort Hopper, a low-profile,unhackled, and proportionately long-floating fly, which he designed in coop-eration with Letort regular Ross Trimmer.This fly had a yellow nylon-wool body, acombination of turkey-feather and deer-hair wing, and a trimmed, vaguelyMuddler-style head:

The absence of hackle permitted thebulk of the imitation grasshopper and itsyellowish body to float flush in the sur-face film. The principal character of anatural grasshopper is rectilinear andslender, while the hackles of convention-al imitations [i.e., the Michigan Hopper]are indistinct and caddislike in form.The flaring deer-hair filaments weretrimmed away under the throat of the flyto make sure the yellowish dubbing ofthe body rode awash, just the way thetrout would observe a live grasshopper.35

Well-known fly-fishing and fly-tyingmaster Gary Borger has describedSchwiebert’s Letort Hopper as “the firstfly to effectively imitate the low-slung sil-houette of these big insects,”36 but if evensome of the illustrations that survive ofprototypical hopper patterns from thelate 1800s and early 1900s are evenvaguely accurate, they all would precedeErnie’s pattern. The big difference, ofcourse, is that Ernie’s pattern took, andthose others faded away. The LetortHopper has no doubt influenced manyhopper patterns since.

And in the matter of influence, Erniemust share the credit with veteran lime-stoner Ed Shenk, who, recognizing theconflict and confusion to be caused bythere being two competing LetortHoppers, chose to name his the Shenk

Letort Hopper, even though it originatedat roughly the same time as theSchwiebert version. While Ernie’s hop-per had a yellow nylon yarn body withdivided turkey wings, Ed’s had a dubbedspun-fur yellow body and “a mottledturkey wing with the feather folded, tiedflat, and trimmed in a broad ‘V’.”37 Bothhad trimmed deer-hair heads, and bothhave proven very effective on manywaters. I’ve carried a small and alarming-ly dwindling stock of them, acquiredfrom Ed Koch about twenty years ago, all

over the country, taking trout on themwith no regard for the presence orabsence of real grasshoppers.

STYLES ESTABLISHED,BLENDED, AND ENRICHED

I end this saga perhaps early, aboutforty years ago, because after that there is aproliferation of grasshopper models thatbuild on both of the older themes—theupright, bushy, indistinctly silhouetted

The Letort Hopper, developed for the “limestoner” trout streams of southeasternPennsylvania, presented a different profile than the often heavily hackled

grasshopper imitations that preceded it. This version was tied by noted springcreek authority Ed Koch in 1988. Photograph by the author.

A Shenk Letort Hopper tied by its creator, Ed Shenk.From the collection of the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

Sara Wilcox


Michigan Hopper style and the low,flush-riding Letort Hopper style—and Isee no need to recite them all, even theones I like best.

It does appear to me that the best ofthe two styles were more or less com-bined again in Dave Whitlock’s great andenduring Dave’s Hopper. Writing in1972, Dave described and beautifullyillustrated this fly as a “hybrid grasshop-per imitation that I designed out of adissatisfaction with the older standardhopper patterns.”38 It used the down-wing curled turkey wing, an underwingof pale yellow deer hair, and longuntrimmed fibers from the head thatextend to the sides for stability and toimitate legs.

In the explosion of hopper patternscreated since Dave’s Hopper appeared,we’ve created some wonderful patternsthat, I suspect, are often more effectivethan anything in existence before 1970.We’ve fulfilled the dreams of the earlyhopper pioneers and created patterns thatsuccessfully emphasize behavior, the bigsplat, and the rubber-legged action of realgrasshoppers. But the two basic styles, thehigh/loose and the low/constrained, are

still the prevailing blueprints for mostconstruction of hopper imitations.

The amazing profusion of moderncom mercial grasshopper patterns avail-able today indicates the extent to whichthis element of the fly-fishing aesthetic haschanged in only a few decades. For a longtime, many hard-core fly fishers didn’twant to use hopper imitations becausehoppers were so different from mayflies.Now, people enjoy using grasshoppersprecisely because they are different frommayflies. Grasshoppers broaden the vari-ety of experience in the sport.

And yet I still admire the decision ofthose earlier anglers who chose to ignorethe grasshopper. For them, a grasshop-per was much like a bass bug, an artificialmouse, or some other perfectly accept-able lure that just fell outside the realmof their idea of fly fishing. Many of thoseanglers refused to use hoppers for rea-sons that suited them and that gave theirsport a definition and scope that suitedthe times and their personal preferences.Good for them for thinking that hardabout what fly fishing meant and howthey wanted to play the game. When itcame to hoppers, they just said no.

Or perhaps it would be more accurateto put it this way. Many of those anglersrefused to use grasshopper imitationsuntil they got their first startled glimpseof the caliber of trout that theseunorthodox fly patterns can coax to thesurface. Then, as the splash echoed intheir ears and the waves washed againstthe bank, each angler’s real commitmentto convention, tradition, and aestheticswould be put to the test. Hopper fishingdoes that to us.

!

ENDNOTES

1. Perhaps he was the same “Joe” withwhom “me” was said to have gone fishing inthe archetypical outdoor story opening (“Meand Joe went fishin’”) we used to hear aboutso often.

2. George Grant, Montana Trout Flies(Port land, Ore.: Champoeg Press, 1981), 123.

3. Ibid.4. Ibid.5. George Leonard Herter, Professional

Fly Tying, Spinning and Tackle Making Manualand Manufacters’ Guide (Waseca, Minn.:Herter’s, revised nineteenth edition, 1971), 466.

Dave’s Hopper, the durable and enduring pattern created by the great Americanangling artist and pattern innovator Dave Whitlock, was originally tied without

legs but grew them as the pattern evolved. Courtesy of George Anderson’sYellowstone Angler, Livingston, Montana, photograph by the author.

SUMMER 2012 1 1

6. John Taverner, Certaine ExperimentsConcerning Fish and Fruite (London: WilliamPonsonby, 1600), 21.

7. Gervase Markham, The Pleasure ofPrinces (London: John Browne, 1614), 30.

8. Thomas Barker, Barker’s Delight: Or,The Art of Angling (London: HumphreyMoseley, 1659), 9.

9. Ibid., 10.10. James Chetham, The Angler’s Vade

Mecum (London: T. Bassett, 2nd ed., 1689), 220.11. Charles Cotton, “Directions How to

Angle for Trout or Grayling in a ClearStream,” Part II of The Compleat Angler, byIzaak Walton (London: John Lane, 1897 edi-tion), 338. Cotton’s essay was first added toWalton’s book in the 1676 edition.

12. Ibid., 122.13. Andrew Herd, e-mail to the author, 16

July 2006.14. Hewett Wheatley, The Rod and Line

(London: Longman, Brown, Green &Longmans, 1849), 60–61.

15. Francis Francis, A Book on Angling(London: Longmans, Green, 1867), 281. BothWheatley and Francis illustrate this wormlike“bait.”

16. Paul Schullery, If Fish Could Scream:An Angler’s Search for the Future of Fly Fishing(Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books,2008), 137, 184.

17. Frederick Buller, “A Hoard of Mys -terious Salmon Flies,” The American Fly Fisher(Fall 2004, vol. 30, no. 4), 13–15. And John Betts,exercising his uncanny eye for the curiousdetail in historical literature, has pointed outthat in 1856, the catalog of British tackle firm ofMilward’s contained a drawing of a remark-ably modern, gut-loop-eyed grasshopper-likelure or fly, and that among the flies that Bullerillustrated in his article is very likely an exam-ple of that very grasshopper imitation. See

“Some Notes and Comment,” by John Betts,The American Fly Fisher (Fall 2004, vol. 30, no.4), 16. John has, I suspect, identified the earli-est known-age attempt at a precise imitationof a grasshopper in the U.K., which is consid-erably earlier than any known in the U.S.

18. Gary F. Moulton, ed., The Journals of theLewis & Clark Expedition, June 10–September 26,1806 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,1993), 205.

19. The circular was reprinted in PaulSchullery, American Fly Fishing: A History(New York: Nick Lyons Books, 1987), 38. Theinvoice to which it was attached was from an1803 shopping trip Clark made while provi-sioning the expedition.

20. “Fishing Grasshoppers and MormonCrickets for Nearly 100 Years,” Utah StateUniversity Extension information paper,www.sidney.ars.usda.gov/Research/gh_crweb.pdf; accessed 4 August 2006. Although thetitle of this very informative paper makes adistinction between them, it and othersources indicate that the species in question,Anabrus simplex, is not a cricket but agrasshopper.

21. Richard White, “It’s Your Misfortuneand None of My Own”: A New History of theAmerican West (Norman: University ofOklahoma Press, 1991), 229. My research inearly travel accounts of the greaterYellowstone area has turned up manyaccounts of tremendous flights of grasshop-pers that disturbed, inconvenienced, orshocked writers of nineteenth-century narra-tives. Mentions of grasshoppers as bait arealso common among early western travel andadventure writers. Two of many such state-ments follow as examples.

In 1860, J. G. Cooper, while near FortBenton, Montana, described the fishing forcutthroats on the Missouri River. “They bite

readily at almost any artificial fly; also atinsects, meat, pork, and even leaves and flow-ers, after they had been tempted withgrasshoppers.” J. G. Cooper, “The Fauna ofMontana Territory,” American Naturalist(May 1869, vol. 3, no. 3), 125.

In Charles Orvis and A. Nelson Cheney,eds., Fishing with the Fly (Manchester, Vt.:Orvis, 1883), 157, Lieut. Col. R. I. Dodge wasquoted as saying that “the Western trout takesthe fly well, but not so greedily as the Easternfish. The reason is, that they are from earlyspring gorged with food in the myriads ofyoung grasshoppers that fall into the streamsbefore getting their wings. The best monthsfor trout fishing in the Rocky Mountains areAugust and September, although good sportmay be had in July and October.”

John Monnett, Cutthroat & CampfireTales (Boulder, Colo.: Pruett PublishingCompany, 1988), 62–66, has a nice summaryof some of the historical details of westernhopper fishing, both with artificials and livegrasshoppers.

22. Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, SuperiorFishing (New York: Carleton, 1865), 272–73.

23. Jim Brown, e-mail message to theauthor, 11 August 2006.

24. The Shipley advertisement appearedon 13 January 1881, and possibly other dateseven earlier, in Forest and Stream, and inJames Henshall, Book of the Black Bass(Cincinnati: Robert Clarke, 1881), 316. TheShipley grasshopper was made on a ratherloosely loop-eyed hook. According toHenshall’s text, it was an artificial bait, ratherthan a fly.

25. John Harrrington Keene, “FishingTackle and How to Make It,” in George OliverShields, ed., American Game Fishes (Chicago:Rand, McNally & Company, 1892), 479.

26. Mary Orvis Marbury, Favorite Fliesand Their Histories (New York: HoughtonMifflin Company, 1892), 118. The fly is pic-tured on plate F, Number 47. Its predominantcoloring is brownish-red and does not,indeed, have anything to particularly recom-mend it as a grasshopper imitation. It seemssafe to presume, though, that in many watersthat were still inhabited solely by nativebrook trout, if grasshoppers were prevalent,this fly would work as well as an imitation asmany others.

27. Keene, “Fishing Tackle and How toMake It,” 481.

28. Here is a sampling of grasshopperpatterns, illustrations, and ideas from the1880s into the early 1900s:

Thomas Chubb, Angling Papers, Accom -panying Catalogue, Angler’s Supplies (presum-ably Post Mills, Vermont, 1888), 71, lists “greengrasshopper, yellow grasshopper” and severalother nonaquatic insects, including beetle,bee, cricket, and hornet. In the William MillsCatalog (New York, 1894) page 45 looks like agrasshopper imitation with the turkey wing,whereas page 43 has another variation on theShipley grasshopper theme.

Louis Rhead, American Trout StreamInsects (New York: Frederick Stokes, 1916),opposite 144, included a photograph of a flyin his “Nature Lure” series that was an

A grasshopper pattern created and tied by the late Jack Gartside.From the collection of the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

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attempt at precise imitation of a grasshopper.On 149, he described “the June greengrasshopper, made of solid cork wound invivid green raffia. It floats upright, and thequivering back wings of red cock’s hacklemake it a choice irresistible lure.” For fishingthis hopper, Rhead recommended “playingthe rod-tip so that the bait skips along inshort jumps, to imitate the natural insectwhen by accident it falls on the water. Strikeinstantly the bait is taken; for the fish canimmediately tell the difference between theartificial and live bait” (147).

Much later, George Leonard Herterwould offer a drawing in this same spirit butsaid to be made of deer hair. In ProfessionalFly Tying, Spinning and Tackle Making, 345,Herter illustrated a deer-hair hopper drawnto appear very realistic.

Harold Smedley, in his often very helpfullittle book, Fly Patterns and Their Origins(Muskegon, Mich.: Westshore, 1940), 88, list-ed a Palmer Grasshopper and said that “thiscork-bodied, floating imitation grasshopperwas the idea of and made by Mr. M. Palmer ofPasadena, California. It dates about 1915.”

Forest and Stream (February 1921), 74, inthe department titled “Nessmuk’s Camp Fire,”featured “Further Notes on the GrasshopperFly,” written by R. L. Montagu of California.This feature showed a variety of patterns anddiscussed experiences with several, followingup on an earlier article in August 1917.Montagu fished both wet and dry for hop-pers. Speaking of the 1918 season, when hesaw more hoppers than usual and noted thatthey reduced crops in his area, Montagu said,“It is not much good putting one’s fly into amass of grasshoppers where possibly noneare more than eight or nine inches away fromeach other. About the only thing to do whenconditions are so bad, is to watch outupstream for an open space in the floatinginsects and then put one’s fly in this place asit comes over the feeding fish. Fortunately,however, it was not quite so bad as this all thetime; if it had been, very few trout wouldhave been caught” (74).

Montagu gave the following pattern forhis successful fly:

Body—Quill dyed Naples yellow (No. 29,shade 3).Body Hackle—Same color but a shadelighter.Tail—Mallard (barred feather).Wings—Pheasant.Cheeks—Primrose yellow pale (No. 19,shade 1).Neck Hackle—A few turns of ginger. (74)

For hooks he used “Nos. 8, 9 and 10 Pennelllimerick eyed hooks” (74).

The drawing accompanying his discus-sion showed a down-wing, palmer-bodiedfly, with a wing seeming almost like a tentover the body. There are several other draw-ings that he said were stages in the fly’s con-struction, but they don’t look like it. Itappears that the editors somehow fouled upthe series, which seem to have nothing to dowith the final fly pattern.

29. Gordon, George LaBranche, EmlynGill, Samuel Camp, and other early dry-flywriters all had little or nothing to say aboutgrasshopper imitations, although some with-out question fished waters where hoppersmight have been useful. Perhaps hopper sea-son came after the mayfly hatches were overand were not noticed.

30. Vincent Marinaro, A Modern Dry-FlyCode (New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1950), 195–96.In the foreword to the 1970 edition of thisbook (New York: Crown, ix), Marinaro soft-ened his earlier hesitation even further, say-ing, “The unreasonable scorn for anythingbut mayfly imitations never made any senseto me. The established ethics for dry-fly fish-ing have not been changed by the use of ter-restrial imitations. You must still find a sur-face-feeding trout; you must use an imitationof an insect that he is taking from the surface.You must cast accurately and delicately, andyou must continue to dry your fly in theapproved fashion.”

31. Marinaro and Bennett creditedPennsylvania angler Charlie Craighead withoriginating the pontoon-style body.

32. See Smedley, Fly Patterns and TheirOrigins, 78, William Blades, Fishing Flies andFly Tying (Harrisburg, Penn.: Stackpole &Heck, 1951), 126, for the pattern for a MichiganHopper. Paul Schullery, “Michigan Originals,”The American Fly Fisher (Summer 1980, vol. 7,no. 3), 12–13, for photograph of the fly andadditional discussion.

I am not sure where Cooper’s Hopper, aMichigan pattern mentioned by Ray Bergmanin Trout (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952),195–96, fits into this genealogy, but with itsturkey-feather wing, it is quite similar toWinnie’s Michigan Hopper.

One of the most famous of all Americanfishing stories, Ernest Hemingway’s “BigTwo-Hearted River,” is a tale of grasshopperfishing, using live grasshoppers cast gently ona fly rod. Between that story and a lesslengthy description of how to capture livegrasshoppers in another Nick Adams story,“A Way You’ll Never Be,” Ernest Hemingwayprovided the live-grasshopper fisherman—

and to a lesser extent, the fly fisher—with theessentials for this sport. Both stories wereincluded in Ernest Hemingway, The NickAdams Stories (New York: Charles Scribner’sSons, 1972).

33. J. Edson Leonard, Flies (New York: A.S. Barnes, 1950), 197.

34. Smedley, Fly Patterns and TheirOrigins, 128, said of the Western Grasshopper,“This all hair fly is the product of Mr. Paul D.Stroud, of Arlington Heights, Illinois. It is anexcellent floater and very realistic. It is easy tocast, durable—a good point for fishermen—and effective—a good point for fish. As Mr.Stroud is an expert fisherman, and a natural-ist, he is an adept fly-tier.”

Bill Blades, Fishing Flies and Fly Tying,254, also mentioned Paul Stroud’s deer-hairhopper. The Blades’ Hopper, 240, had ashaped-cork body.

35. Ernest Schwiebert, Trout (New York:Dutton, 1978), vol. II, 1467. This story was alsotold by Schwiebert in different form but withthe same essentials in Arnold Gingrich, ed.,The Gordon Garland (New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1966), 137–38. Schwiebert mentionedthe Michigan Hopper, Joe’s Hopper, Fore-and-Aft Hopper, and Muddler Minnow asinfluences.

Ed Koch, Terrestrials (Harrisburg, Penn.:Stackpole Books, 1990), 83–96, gives a nicehistory of the Letort Hopper variations.

Datus Proper, What the Trout Said (NewYork: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), offers a varia-tion on the low style, a simple yellow, deer-hair body tied lengthwise and doubled backon itself, with a hair wing. Proper, 226, saidthat “in my experience, trout have not beenvery selective when feeding on grasshoppers.”

36. Gary Borger, Naturals (Harrisburg,Penn.: Stackpole Books, 1980), 162–63, but hepreferred the wing of Dave’s Hopper.

37. Ed Shenk, Ed Shenk’s Fly Rod Trouting(Harrisburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 1989),127.

38. Dave Whitlock, “Western Fly Pat terns,”in Art Flick, editor, Art Flick’s Master Fly-TyingGuide (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.,1972), 115.

A grasshopper tied by Ted Niemeyer. From thecollection of the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

Sara Wilcox

Lefty Kreh gives a casting demonstration on the waters of Maryland’s Eastern Shoreduring the annual gathering of the Saltwater Fly Rodders of America in 1968.

Irv Swope

SUMMER 2012 13

Salt

THE MUSEUM IS currently planning a newexhibit for next spring that will have a salt-water fly-fishing component. This exhibit

will be a prelude to a much grander saltwaterexhibit set to open in 2014, one that breaks excit-ing new ground and is bound to attract newfriends and visitors to the museum.

The decision to focus on salt water is a naturalextension of the museum’s mandate to docu-ment the evolution of fly fishing as a sport, artform, craft, and industry. Visitors will enjoy trac-ing the history of saltwater fly fishing throughdisplays of evolving tackle, ranging from fasci-nating home improvements on early equipmentto the incredibly efficient gear that today hassaltwater anglers successfully targeting fishspecies of size and power inconceivable not longago. Displays will also include a remarkable pho-tographic record from the earliest days of thesport and some of the finest contemporary art-work that, in depicting saltwater fly fishing’scoveted species and their environment, spansstyles such as realism to impressionism andeclectic pop art. Additionally, visitors will betreated to exclusive and entertaining videofootage of the living legends of the sport—anglers who pioneered and made possible whatwe enjoy today as saltwater fly fishers.

“Pioneers and Pioneering: The Allure and EarlyDays of Saltwater Fly Fishing” is the first of aseries of articles that will explore little-knownearly historical highlights, equipment develop-ment, and more recent events related to fly fishingin salt waters with the kaleidoscope of colorful,predictably independent characters who helpedthe sport to evolve.

—JERRY GIBBS


FOR MANY, saltwater fly fishing hasseemed a relatively recent phenom-enon that burst onto the angling

stage between the late 1950s and the 1970sand has continued to expand influencesince. In fact, it is quite ancient. Listen toangling historian Dr. Andrew N. Herd:

Saltwater fly fishing has gone throughso many renaissances that it is easy toassume that every generation sets outwith the perverse intention of reinvent-ing it. There’s a great deal of disputeabout who dipped the first fly in the sea,but it happened at least two thousandyears ago, because Aelian [Romanauthor-teacher Claudius Aelianus] de -scribes it quite clearly: “One of the crewsitting at the stern lets down . . . lineswith hooks. On each hook he ties a baitwrapped in wool of Laconian red, andto each hook attaches the feather of aseamew.”1

In North America, the earliest docu-mented date for saltwater fly angling wasrecently uncovered in a letter of 28 Octo -ber 1764. The writer, Rodney Home, asubaltern of the then–recently appointedgovernor of the West Florida Colony,

quickly and successfully swam his flies inhis newfound local waters. “We haveplenty of salt [?] water trout & fine fish-ing with fly . . .”2 he happily reports.

By the 1800s, pioneering anglers onboth the east and west coasts were takingtheir freshwater trout and salmon tackleto bays, coves, and estuaries—even surf—to discover the effectiveness of bright,sometimes well-gnawed salmon flies andlearn the limitations of tackle built forfresh waters. Sea-run brook trout (salters)and striped bass were popular as early as1833, as reported in Natural History of theFishes of Mass achusetts by Jerome V. C.Smith, who regularly fished for thosesalters from points extending off CapeCod’s south shore.3 On the West Coast,saltwater bays—the Columbia River’smouth was prime—were giving upreturning Pacific Ocean salmon to thelong rod, as colorfully described by artist-engineer Cleveland Rockwell,4 and therewas even quite limited fly fishing on theTexas Gulf Coast.5 More activity in thesport was seen as pioneering anglersexplored the East Coast, sampling thegreat species variety around Florida’s still

little-developed shores, especially thoseon the state’s western side. Dr. JamesHenshall was catching redfish, sea trout,snook, jack crevalle, bluefish, ladyfish,and tarpon to 10 pounds on the fly alongboth lower Florida coasts in 1878, pub-lishing an account of his adventures inCamping and Cruising in Florida, 1884.6

The work appears to be the first toinclude accounts of tarpon fishing usingfreshwater fly tackle. Ten years later,author Frank S. Pinckney, in The Tarponor “Silver King,” credits New York physi-cian George Trowbridge as landing a 1-pound, 3-ounce baby tarpon on a fly.7

Trowbridge fished for multiple Floridianspecies, enjoying night forays for channelbass in Sarasota Pass. A. W. Dimock,whom we’ll focus on shortly, reportsviewing Trowbridge in Sarasota Bay fish-ing alone and “capturing from his lightcanoe . . . a twenty-two-pound channelbass and a sixteen-pound cavally [jackcrevalle], all on light fly-rods.”8

Pickney’s slim volume (today a collec-tor’s item), a delightfully opinionatedwork in which the author quotes alearned judge commenting that any

Pioneers and Pioneering: The Allureand Early Days of Saltwater Fly Fishing

by Jerry Gibbs

Captioned “Fish-rocks at mouth of Columbia River photographed by B. C. Towne,”this photo from the display panels that Mary Orvis Marbury brought to the 1893

World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago is one of the only images in those panelsthat features a saltwater setting. Although it’s difficult to tell for sure, it appears as ifa few of the figures standing on the large rocks on the right are holding fishing rods.

From the collection of the American Museum of Fly Fishing.

SUMMER 2012 15

maker of faulty tarpon tackle ought to be“drawn and quartered,”9 fired the grow-ing popularity of tarpon hunting, al -though it was merely one factor. Raillines and steamship routes were openingthe Florida wilderness at a fast rate.Florida angler and conservationist J. P.Wilson describes the inroads thusly:

Fishing destinations at the Halifax River,Indian River, Charlotte Harbor, LakeWorth Inlet, Jupiter Inlet and IndianRiver were now accessible through railheads at Punta Gorda, Titusville andDaytona. These rail spurs had pushedthrough the wilderness from theFlorida Tropical Trunk Line’s terminalin Jacksonville. By 1889 there were over650 miles of railways and 250 miles ofconnecting steamship lines advancingtoward remote Florida coastal destina-tions. Punta Gorda on Charlotte Harborwas the end of the rail line for South -west Florida. A short boat ride throughthe inside passage of Pine Island down toPunta Rassa took one to The TarponHouse, believed to be the oldest tarponfishing resort in America, and for thatmatter, probably the world.10

A. W. [Anthony Weston] Dimock’ssalt water fly sport included both tranquilwade fishing and physically rough

encounters with any large specimen thatwould eat his flies, the latter experienceparalleling his volatile business career.Accepted as a member of the New YorkStock Exchange before he was twenty-one, Dimock quickly dominated goldmarkets. At thirty, he was president ofseveral steamship lines, controlled a tele-graph company (the Bankers and Mer -chants Telegraph Company), and becamea partner of Maquand & Dimock,bankers and brokers (which eventuallybecame A. W. Dimock & Company).Then, suddenly, he fled the city, headedwest, and for several years simply hungout with both ranchers and Indians,hunting and fishing. He thrice made andlost millions on Wall Street. He was $4million in debt, though living in finestyle at the Peakamoose Clubhouse inthe Catskills, where in September 1894 heand his family were physically evicted inthe driving rain.11 The man continued topull releases from creditors, write youthadventure books, and finance fishingsafaris before dying suddenly in hisHappy Valley country home in theCatskills on 13 September 1918.12

Some of Dimock’s adventures couldhave been plucked from a Teddy Rooseveltjournal. His recollections in articles and

books are arguably the best in capturingthe zeitgeist of this early period of salt-water fly fishing; certainly, they areentertaining. Dimock launched numer-ous saltwater fishing safaris alongFlorida’s coasts beginning at least in 1882,three years before tarpon were declared agame fish. He fished and explored fromHomosassa down to Boca Grande, southto Cape Sable, poking up numerousEverglades rivers and even making aforay over to Bahia Honda in the Keys.To a great extent, he lived off the sea andland, camping, enduring horrendousstorms, and encountering Florida pan-thers, bear, moonshiners, sharks, and, ofcourse, tarpon. During a trip that result-ed in the 1911 publication of The Book ofthe Tarpon, he also employed a motor-ized coastal sailing vessel, the Irene, as amother ship to augment shore camping.

Although Dimock used all manner oftackle—from hand lines to heavy rodand reel and occasionally harpoon—agreat deal of his sport was with an 8-ounce fly rod, with which he took theusual grab bag of inshore species. In anarticle titled “Saltwater Fly Fishing,” hebrands 2-pound ladyfish as the “UltimaThule” of fly-rod sport; by the time hisnext tarpon safari is done, three yearslater, he has changed his mind.13 Here’sDimock from The Book of the Tarpon:

The tarpon meets every demand thesport of fishing can make. He fits thelight fly-rod as no trout ever dreamed ofdoing and leaps high . . . a hundredtimes for every once that a brook troutclears the surface. . . . When grown tothe size of the average man he is no lessactive. . . . To one who has known thetarpon, the feeble efforts of the salmonto live up to its own reputation are sad-dening. . . . Time would be wasted inseeking for comparison among lesserfish than salmon. . . . Played gently froma smooth-running reel . . . his capture isnot beyond . . . a robust child . . . or thegreat fish can be fought furiously . . .they have landed on my head, caromedon my shoulders, swamped my canoe,and one big slippery form droppedsquarely into my arms.14

Note Dimock’s canoe reference. Vir - tually all of his tarpon fishing took placefrom a light Canadian Peterboroughcanoe, usually paddled by a hired captainwhile Dimock fished. Occasionally hetook over paddling duties, letting hiscaptain fish simply to vary the strain onhis muscles following successive tarponbattles. The ninety-three photographsillustrating The Book of the Tarpon weremade by Dimock’s son, Julian. They areremarkable considering that they weretaken using glass-plate technology, hisequipment a 17-pound view camera and

Left: A. W. Dimock frontispiecefrom Wall St. & The Wilds.Dimock was a trout angler aswell as saltwater fisherman.Photo from original book in theCornell University Library, published 1915, New York,Outing Publishing Co.Photo by Emlyn M. Gill.

Below: Dimock enjoying swimwith Florida manatee friend.Used with permission from

Florida Photographic Collection.Photo by Julian Dimock; used in

their book Florida’s Enchant -ments, published in 1908.


a 61⁄2-by-81⁄2 reflex. Julian followed hisfather in the Green Pea, a short, wideskiff with tiny motor run by a youngassistant named Joe. The verbal alterca-tions between father and son—andsometimes even A.W.’s captain—smackof a contemporary high-maintenancefilm director bullying his actors to get ascene down; in this case, boat-angler-plus-leaping-tarpon positioned withinthe window of best light. When Julianhad run out of plates for the day,Dimock generally quit fishing while theyounger retired to shore with “tent andblanket piled over me to shut out lightand air, while they kept mosquitoes anddeadly heat in. I’d do it again . . . ”15

On more than a few occasions,attempts at keeping the separation of theangler and leaping tarpon at a minimumfor the camera resulted in canoe cap-sizes, sending both angler and captaininto the water. Several times sharks sev-ered in two the tarpon A.W. was fighting,

at least once catapulting the captainfrom the canoe, whereupon Dimockfrantically paddled for the shallows, tow-ing his captain who, though still of thebelief that sharks would not attack ahuman in local waters, admitted that hewas “scared blue.”16 Dimock’s observa-tion of high shark numbers along theouter Keys led him to recommend pass-ing up this area for the sake of avoidingattacks on hooked tarpon.

Dimock kept scrupulous records ofhis fifty-two-day photo trip, whichresulted in The Book of the Tarpon. Hereported 334 tarpon taken, 63 of them onan 8-ounce fly rod. He warned that “astiff, single-action tournament style offly-rod fits the agile baby tarpon . . .while a withy, double-action articlecouldn’t follow for a minute the fish’schanges of mind.”17

Much preferring that his fly-rod fishranged from 2 to 10 pounds, he nonethe-less brought to hand numerous young

tarpon to 20 pounds and one record-set-ting Goliath. At the south end ofChokoloskee Bay in the Turner’s River,Dimock had just released a 10-poundfish using his 8-ounce fly rod when hehooked up with a huge tarpon thatimmediately leaped three times in rapid-fire succession then ran out most of hisline: “I needed more yards than I had feetof line to offer a chance of tiring thiscreature whose length exceeded mine bya foot . . . I yelled to the captain to pad-dle for his life, regardless of the fact thatthe man was already putting in licks thatendangered it.”18

An hour into the fight, Dimock andhis captain were well out into the bay butalways keeping within 200 feet of the tar-pon. Because of the inability to apply sig-nificant pressure using his outfit,Dimock’s strategy was to have his cap-tain paddle quickly to the fish while linewas reeled in, then impart a sharptwitch, which usually caused the fish to

Right: After an hour fighting his largest fly-rodtarpon up and down Turner’s River, Dimock’s

fish was now well out into Chokoloskee Bayand still not ready to quit. From A. W.

Dimock, The Book of the Tarpon (London:Frank Palmer, Red Lion Court, 1912), 140.

Left: Dimock’s tarpon was at the time the largestever taken using a fly and properly casting. Hisson Julian, however, finished the fight. From A. W.Dimock, The Book of the Tarpon (London:Frank Palmer, Red Lion Court, 1912), 189.

SUMMER 2012 17

make another leap, tiring it. At one pointat close range, the tarpon surged beneaththe canoe while Dimock thrust his rodinto the water, the rod tip swinging, notbreaking, as the captain managed tosweep the canoe into pirouette. Finally,admittedly exhausted, Dimock offeredthe rod to Julian, who had exposed all hisphotographic plates. The two changedplaces. With Julian on the rod, the tarponshot upriver, under a bank, and backdown to the bay, where it finally rolledon the surface. The captain feared a cap-size if he tried to boat the fish, to whichJulian replied: “Get it in the canoe firstand capsize afterward all you want, onlydon’t move till I measure it.”19 Oncetaped, the captain’s attempt at boatingthe fish failed as the fish surged away.Incredibly, the hook held. The secondboating attempt was successful: the fishslid into the canoe but with one morecontortion levitated, then pinwheeledout, flipping the canoe and dumpingJulian and the captain into the bay. Thetarpon measured 61⁄2 feet and was esti-mated at 140 pounds. Dimock believed itthe largest tarpon then taken on the flyrod, despite the double-teaming anglingeffort. It would remain so for some time.

After A.W.’s death in 1918, Julian gaveup photography, having published sever-al successful books on nonsporting sub-jects. He moved with his wife toTopsham, Vermont, where he becamewell known for high-quality apples andseed potatoes. The Dimock family publi-cations were housed with the VermontHistorical Society in 1997. Included is theentire magazine collection in whichA.W., Julian, and their respective spousesare represented through contributedarticles or photographs. The collectionincludes a variety of travel, recreation,nature, and country living periodicalspublished from 1903 through 1921.

The stage was set for an accelerationin the development of saltwater fly fish-ing from the 1930s through the 1950s andbeyond. Significant events—includingtechnical breakthroughs in the North -east, Southeast, and West Coast—will beexplored in an issue of the American FlyFisher next year.

!

ENDNOTES

1. Andrew N. Herd, “A Fly FishingHistory” (with a quote from Aelian, On theNature of Animals), www.flyfishinghistory.com/salt_water_fly_fishing.htm. Accessed 18 Jan -uary 2012.

2. Ken Cameron and Paul Schullery, “ANew Early Date for American Fly Fishing,”The American Fly Fisher (Summer 2011, vol.37, no. 3), 16; quote from Rodney Home letter,

1764, Accession #13918, Box W/5624, SpecialCollections/Marion du Pont Scott SportingCollection, University of Virginia Library,Charlottesville, Virginia.

3. Jerome V. C. Smith, Natural History ofthe Fishes of Massachusetts (Boston: Allen &Tucknor, 1833).

4. Cleveland Rockwell, “Pacific Salmon,1876,” The American Fly Fisher (Spring 1980,vol. 7, no. 2), 9. This is a reprint of an articlethat first appeared in the Pacific Monthly inOctober 1903.

5. Paul Schullery, American Fly Fishing:A History (New York: Nick Lyons Books,1987), 155.

6. James Henshall, Camping and Cruisingin Florida, 1884 (Cincinnati, Ohio: R. Clarke& Co., 1884).

7. Frank S. Pinckney, The Tarpon or“Silver King” (New York: The Angler’s Pub -lishing Co., 1888), 66.

8. A. W. Dimock, “Salt-Water Fly Fishing,”Country Life in America (25 January 1908),303–06.

9. Pinckney, The Tarpon or “Silver King,” 8. 10. J. P. Wilson, “A Brief History of Silver

Kings and the Anglers Who Stalk Them,”

Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, www.tarbone.org/component/content/article/3-about-btt /12-tarpon-tales.html. Accessed 18 January 2012.

11. “J. Q. A. Ward Ousts A. W. Dimock,”The New York Times (23 September 1894).

12. “A. W. Dimock Dead: Financier-Author Sportsman Who Dominated GoldMarket at 23 and Wrote Juvenile Books, Diesat Happy Valley,” The New York Times (13September 1918).

13. A. W. Dimock, “Saltwater Fly Fish -ing,” The American Fly Fisher (Summer 1979,vol. 6, no. 3), 6. This is a reprint of “Salt-WaterFly Fishing,” which appeared in the 25January 1908 issue of Country Life in America.

14. A. W. Dimock, The Book of the Tarpon(London: Frank Palmer, Red Lion Court,1912), 246–48. This book was first publishedin New York in 1911 by the Outing PublishingCompany.

15. Julian Dimock, Outdoor Photography(New York, Outing Publishing Co., 1912), 33.

16. A. W. Dimock, The Book of the Tar -pon, 66.

17. Ibid., 142. 18. Ibid., 133. 19. Ibid., 137.

Dimock was occasionally knocked from his canoe fighting tarpon. Hiscaptain and son were not immune either. From A. W. Dimock, The Book

of the Tarpon (London: Frank Palmer, Red Lion Court, 1912), 188.


ITHINK, DEAR READER, that I shouldbe able to make a rather good twenty-minute, after-dinner speech about the

division of the history of American flyfishing into six periods. I suspect, though,that I shall not be asked to make such aspeech, even though I should very muchlike to lecture just one more time. Butperhaps it’s for the best. Perhaps I couldnot stand on my feet, at my advanced age,for a full twenty minutes and hold forth instyle—especially after an indigestiblechunk of desiccated chicken, anticipatedwith a substantial whiskey.

And so I turn to the paper page, send-ing this, my hypothetical (a favoriteword among politicians lately) speech,

filled with doctrine, out into the worldwhere some editor or other might justpick it up and publish it. In that case, youmay come upon it, read it, and perhapsjoin me in my effort of division andnaming. If so, here goes.

AN AFTER-DINNER SPEECH

FOR ANGLERS

Ladies and gentlemen, I began fishingin 1938, in the middle of what authoritieshave called the Golden Age of Fly Fishingin America—signficantly the time of theGreat Depression. But I was too youngand besotted with thoughts of girls andperipheral matters to know or fully under-

stand that immensely important time inwhich I was growing up as an angler, flytier, and soon-to-be sailor. But, in spite ofevery distraction, I got well and perma-nently hooked on fishing and have nevercome loose.

Now, at the end of my fishing days, Igird my loins to propose that as of 2009,we have entered the New Period inAmerican fly fishing.

The New Period! It has a ring to it,does it not? The word new in a usage likethis has considerable rhetorical cachet.Many phenomena in human historyhave been dubbed “new.” (Think of, forinstance, the New Deal, the New Phil -osophy of the sixteenth century, the New

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

A Modest Proposal for a Speech:The Six Periods of American Fly Fishing

by Gordon M. Wickstrom

In the beginning there was:

The Beginning: 1845–1900

• Samuel Phillippe: the split-bamboo rod• Thaddeus Norris: how an American must fish• Washington Irving: the first modern fishing story

Six Periods in the History of American Fly Fishing

Then:

The Golden Age: 1920–1944

• Jim Payne: the fly rod perfected• Walt Dette: Catskill fly tying• Ray Bergman: story, lore, and tackle

And then there was:

The Identity Period: 1900–1920

• Theodore Gordon: defined the dry fly• George La Branche: the dry fly in rough water• James Leisenring: the wet fly and nymph

Illustration from H. Cholmondeley-Pennell, Fishing(London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1895), 34.

SUMMER 2012 19

Criticism of the twentieth.) Not onlythat, but I have ventured to name all theperiods of our sport—six of them.Perhaps, by virtue of having lived in, ifnot through, four of them, I may possesssome bit of senior authority in the matter.

Please have a look at the chart below.I acknowledge its presumption. But itseemed to me a job needing to be done;so I did it. And anyway, I do like suchcharts. Look at it. Isn’t it neat and orderly?I like outlines, displays, maps, abstracts—any way to try to see at a glance the shapeof things.

This graphic display of American flyfishing history, for better or worse, is allmine. Only the term Golden Age have Iborrowed from unimpeachable authori-ties. You will note that in addition tomaking up names for and dating the peri-ods, I have tried to suggest representativeevents and pro cess es influential in each.

That was relatively easy until I cameto the Golden Age—the point at which Ientered the scene as a kid—when greatnames, developments, and events beganto overwhelm me. It only got worse pass-

ing through the critical TransitionalPeriod, when many fly rods were hungup on garage walls while spinning reelsswished.

The effort to choose representativesfor the TU (Trout Un limited) Period,when the fly rod was, as it were, reborn,was maddening. There was no end torepresentative persons, books, and devel-opments to include here.

As if things were not bad enough, mysearch for a hero or two for my NewPeriod was even more troublesome. Imade a list of those who I knew stood forsomething new and important whocould fill my bill. Although it seemedbest to stick with the dead rather thanannoy the living, nevertheless I felt I hadto mention that woods man par excel-lence and master of the tiny fly, Ed Engle.Engle sums up for me the finest of theold and new of trout fishing when hedeploys his gear in the simplest of ways.His writing, more and more, hints of aNew Period, of its gentleness, goodhumor, and modesty. And, too, there isDaniel Galhardo in San Francisco, intro-

ducing to these shores the ancientJapanese fly-fishing technique and tackleof Ten kara: a long rod without a reel, alight fixed line, and exquisite flies forsmall, intimate waters.

Finally, allow me to play the prophet.I think that, in this New Period ofangling, we are part of an important and,for many, difficult cultural shift. In spiteof all the terrible news of the day, we arestruggling toward a finer humanity. Wemust live better with less and with agreater delicacy, clarity, and balance. Wemust cultivate a moral atmosphere ofbenevolent reciprocity. It may be thatfishing a fly on a clear, cold stream is anapt metaphor for what we want, demon-strating, as it does, the qualities—envi-ronmental, psychological, social, eco-nomic, and political—essential to theNew Period. We long for the new as wetreasure the old and so are enabled to liveand fish worthily.

And so I commend my chart to yourinterest, with that little box of notions atits side. It has been my pleasure.

!

After-Dinner Notionsto Take Home

• The Beginning: breaking away fromBritish traditions

• The Identity Period: introduction ofbrown trout and aquaculture

• The Golden Age: ethical, technical,and geographical definition

• The Transitional Period: war, nylon,transportation

• The TU Period: internationalization,conservation, and speciali zation; troutart, politics, and the Internet

• The New Period: nativism, privatiza-tion, shortened casts—and restraint

Followed by:

The Transitional Period: 1945–1960

• War, the spinning reel, and tailwaters• Ted Trueblood: the beautiful angler• Vincent Marinaro: the American master• A. J. McClane: the complete authority

And now:

The New Period: 2009–

• The end of expansion• Reconsideration, reform, and restoration• Older, simpler methods• Back to home waters

Next:

The TU Period: 1960 –2008

• Catch and release—wild fish• The great expansion—globalism• Technological advance and rise of synthetics• Celebrities and guides

© GMW


K E E P E R S O F T H E F L A M E

YEARS AGO I had an antique Hardy trout reel that hadparts missing and was in desperate need of repair. Towhere could an angler turn for such specialized work?

My late friend Joe Garman rummaged through his business-card file and suggested I call a man named Bill Archuleta. Billhad a lifelong interest in fly reels and was working at that timeas a professional machinist in California, performing reelrepairs in his free time. The tired old Hardy was shipped off toArchuleta’s Reel Works, and the end result was a perfectlyfunctioning reel that has not made a hiccup since. Bill hasretired from professional machining and now devotes his full-time efforts to the repair of fly reels and the custom manufac-turing of his own special-order offerings out of his shop inGrants Pass, Oregon.

Such a level of expertise was painstakingly acquired overdecades of fly-fishing and professional life. Bill graduated fromSan José State College with a bachelor of science degree inindustrial education and pursued a career in prototypemachining. That background enabled him to produce replace-ment parts that are no longer available for many types of reels.He regularly performs repairs on reels by Hardy, Orvis, Ross,Scientific Anglers, and Streamline, and his shop is the desig-nated national repair station for Marryat.

My personal experience with Bill Archuleta was positive,and the sentiments expressed by others on a Classic Fly Rod

Forum online thread mirrored mine. I had to chuckle at oneresponse to an inquiry that was made regarding Bill’s price toreplace a worn spindle on an old Meek reel: “$75. Consideringthe machining involved, I think that price to be very fairindeed. In contrast, I just had a visit from the local Roto-Rooter guy for a clogged drain pipe at my house. Took him tenminutes to clear, and it cost me $230.” Like great gunsmiths orautomobile restorers, it’s comforting to know that antiquereels can be made whole again for service on the stream.

Bill’s client base spans the globe, and his coveted customreels are entirely handmade, down to the machining of theindividual screws and engraving. Bill informed me that it takeshim approximately sixty hours to craft one of his reels and thatsome collectors refer to them as pieces of sculpture. He added,“The beauty and love that goes into each reel is just thrown infor good measure.” The final prices are in the low thousands,but match the standard going rates of local machine shops.

Bill Archuleta is a true Keeper of the Flame, and the mod-ern angler can be grateful that there is a place to ship hard-fighting reels for some thorough TLC. For more information,please visit www.archuletasreelworks.com.

!

John Mundt is a former trustee of the American Museum of FlyFishing.

Above: An Archuleta reel in progress.

Left: Bill Archuleta in his shop.

Bill Archuleta: Archuleta’s Reel Worksby John Mundt

Photos courtesy of Bill Archuleta

SUMMER 2012 21

GARDNER GRANT was warm, generous, affable, keenlyintelligent, and an exceptional advocate for salmon andtrout and their habitats. That he was a gifted fly fisher-

man in both fresh and salt waters, acutely aware of the behav-iors of his favored quarries—brown trout, Atlantic salmon,bonefish, and tarpon—has been recognized for decades bymany people, including luminaries in the sport. He countedJoan and Lee Wulff, Lefty Kreh, Leigh Perkins, Stan Bogdan,and Ernie Schwiebert among his many angling companionsand, more importantly, as friends. He cast his flies worldwide,and his net of friends extended as far.

Gardner also pioneered trout and salmon conservation formore than fifty years, having served as president of New York’sTheodore Gordon Fly Fishers, the Federation of Fly Fishers,and this museum. His leadership in these organizations andsage advice were widely recognized. In addition, he served onthe boards of Trout Unlimited, the Atlantic Salmon Fed eration,the Hudson River Foundation for Science and Envi ronmentalResearch, and Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History. As alongtime member of the Anglers’ Club of New York, he con-tributed many articles to the Bulletin, its publication chroni-cling the fishing adventures of the club’s members. Last fall’sissue included “Tarpon of the Loxahatchee,” in which Gardnerdescribed his winter-fishing “home” river in Jupiter, Florida,and his travails casting fruitlessly for a couple of years to babytarpon with a 7-weight rod. Although he wrote that he sufferedfrom a “severely damaged ego and a tired casting arm,” I thinkit likely that only the latter was true. Like many other anglingproblems he had successfully solved, the close-mouthed silverkings were finally hooked by Gardner’s changing his approach:a sink-tip line with slowly retrieved flies at 7- to 10-foot depthsreplaced the standard floating line.

His contributions to this museum are legion. He received theHeritage Award in 1998 for his decades-long association with themuseum, having contributed enormously his time, his advice,and his fortune. The recent award-winning video, Why FlyFishing, released on behalf of the museum, was his inspiration,as were, in part, both the original and modified, extraordinarilysuccessful Anglers All traveling exhibits that have been seen bymore than a million people in venues from the East Coast,through the Rockies, to the West Coast. During the inevitableand frequent challenges a small nonprofit experiences—and ourmuseum was and is no exception—Gardner often providedfund-raising recommendations and innovative exhibit ideas,nominated new trustees, offered sound policy advice, and pro-vided substantial financial support to ensure that the museumcontinued to evolve and convey the beauty of the sport to flyfishers and nonanglers. He was instrumental in the museum’smove from a small, crowded building in Manchester to the cur-rent graceful and ample quarters adjacent to the OrvisCompany’s flagship store. In recognition of his continuous andsubstantial contributions to the museum’s growth and prosper-ity, the Board of Trustees dedicated the library in his name.

For more than two decades he caught salmon from theGrimsa, an Icelandic river flowing over wader-tearing volcanicbottoms and through treeless, shimmering grasses. I fished it

with him twice, and we both caught strong-shouldered silverfootballs from Strengur, one of his favorite pools. He was usingthe Lady Ellen Fly, designed by him, named for his wife, andtied by his dear friend Keith Fulsher, and it had been success-fully fooling salmon for years.

In recent years, he fished with joy at the Potatuck Club inNewtown, Connecticut. It is a bucolic retreat, full of wilybrown trout, leaping rainbows, and head-shaking brookies. Hecaught and released them all by the hundreds over the years,primarily on the dry fly. I remain happy to have nominatedhim for mem bership in the club, as he had nominated mealmost twenty-five years ago for membership on the board ofthis museum.

Gardner, in his work, his fly fishing, and his cold-water con-servation efforts, was exceptionally successful. These accom-plishments separated him from others; however, his friendshiptruly elevated him, and us. We enjoyed his company as hesavored ours; we cared deeply about him and he reciprocated,expressing his feelings of warmth. He was a friend who will beremembered and always missed.

RICHARD TISCHVICE PRESIDENT, BOARD OF TRUSTEES

I N M E M O R I A M

Gardner Grant (1 October 1926–28 March 2012)

Gardner Grant at the American Museum of Fly Fishing’sgrand reopening celebration on 11 June 2005.

Jim Hardman


ON MARCH 8, the American Museum of Fly Fishing kickedoff 2012 with its annual Anglers’ Club of New York din-ner. The event honored accomplished artist, longtime

trustee, and generous museum supporter Peter Corbin. It was anunparalleled success.

The Anglers’ Club dinner is always an intimate gathering ofloyal museum members, patrons, and new friends who meetfor an evening of fellowship and fund-raising. The event paystribute to the museum’s leaders and its mission, and it raisescritical funds for the museum’s exhibits and programs.

This year, not only did the dinner sell out, but we far sur-passed our revenue expectations. The live auction enjoyedspirited bidding, and our paddle raise helped us generate sub-stantial funds for our future goals.

The museum thanks the following supporters who donatedand provided auction items for the evening: Tim Bontecou,Robert Cochrane, Jim Collins, Peter Corbin, Henry Cowen,Guy Davies, Estancia Los Chanares, Patrick Ford, GeorgeGibson, Joe Gonzalez, High Adventure Company, WilliamLeary, Arne Mason, John Mundt Jr., Rick Murphy, Joe Mustari,Stacy Orand, the Orvis Company, Dave Pecci, Joe Saracione,Dr. Gary Sherman, Dr. Mark Sherman, Ted Simroe, RichardTisch, and Joan Wulff.

Thanks, too, to all who participated, and especially to PeterCorbin for, in the words of Walter Matia, “having the courageto follow his passions and for bringing us a wonderful chroni-cle of our sporting heritage.” See you at this event next year!

!

Yoshi Akiyama

Left: Flanked by his wife and daughter-in-law, honoree Peter Corbin smiles broadlywhile listening to the tributes given to himby guests Donald Crist and Jace Day.

Right: Board of Trustees President Jim Heckmanshakes hands with Peter Corbin while presenting

him with a token of the museum’s appreciation: aninscribed bamboo rod crafted by Vermont rod

maker Jim Becker.

Kim Murphy

Anglers’ Club of New York Dinner Honoring Peter Corbin

SUMMER 2012 23

Orri Vigfússon to Receive2012 Heritage Award

For fifteen years, the American Museum of Fly Fishing has,with our Heritage Award, honored individuals and organiza-tions whose commitment to the sport of fly fishing and naturalresource conservation sets standards to which we all shouldaspire. This year we are pleased to announce that Orri Vigfússonis the 2012 recipient of this award. As the founder and chairmanof the North Atlantic Salmon Fund (NASF), in an effort to pro-tect the waters of the migratory Atlantic salmon, Vigfússon hasworked for more than twenty years to end mixed-stock fishingand the use of fish netting, and has worked with governmentsto regulate commercial fishing practices.

The success of his conservation efforts is visible by the grow-ing salmon stocks throughout north Atlantic rivers. Vigfússonand NASF have also had recent victories in Iceland (helping tosuspend plans for three large hydroelectric dams) and in Dorset,England (establishing regulations to end two hundred years ofsalmon netting).

We are pleased that Vigfússon will add the Heritage Awardto his already long list of recognitions: two knighthoods and ascore of environmental prizes, including the 2007 GoldmanPrize, which lauds the efforts of grassroots environmentalistsworldwide who work to protect the world’s natural resources.

Orri Vigfússon will be honored with a dinner at the YaleClub in New York City on October 3.

Orri Vigfússon attending the openingceremony celebrating the start of the river

year 2011 at the River Helmsdale in Scotland.

Glyn Satterley

Museum logo merchandise, whichincludes hats, t-shirts, travel mugs,and a reusable shopping bag, is agreat way to show your support.

Gear Up for Summer!


Romi Perkins (1929–2012)Longtime museum supporter and former Trustee Romi

Myers Perkins passed away on February 13. She was directlyinvolved during the museum’s formative years and continuedto enthusiastically sup port our public programs. Romi Perkinswas known for her passion for outdoor sports as well as for thefish and game cookbooks that she wrote for the Orvis Company.She will be missed.

Fit to Be “Tyed”What do anglers do in Vermont when they can’t get on the

river? Stock their fly boxes, of course! The American Museumof Fly Fishing helped several budding tiers do just that whenwe hosted our annual Fit to Be “Tyed” event. This year con-sisted of a series of four Saturday fly-tying sessions in Februaryand March designed to start at the beginner level and lead thetier to more advanced patterns. George Butts began with theWoolly Bugger and Maple Syrup patterns, and Paul Sinicki fol-lowed with a black ant and beetle. Kelly Bedford came next,teaching the famed Gartside Sparrow pattern. The series endedwith Peggy Brenner, who taught feather-winged streamers. Aspecial thanks to our four featured fly tiers, who explained theproper use of a vise, showed the array of materials used to cre-ate flies, and volunteered their time to teach the step-by-stepprocess of creating the perfect fly.

Recent DonationsJim Pizzagalli of Shelburne, Vermont, donated a rod and

reel that belonged to Duckie Corkran: an Orvis Light Salmonfly rod and a J. W. Young & Son (Redditch, England) Beaudexsalmon reel. Patrick Ford of Miami, Florida, gave us a set oftwenty-five Stu Apte saltwater flies, a set of fifty-one Bill Curtissaltwater flies, a set of forty-four Billy Pate saltwater flies, anda collection of photos and DVDs capturing the sport of salt-water fly fishing.

Above: In the Fit to Be “Tyed” introductory session,attendees peer over George Butts’s shoulder as he

demonstrates the steps to tie a Woolly Bugger.

Romi Perkins fishing in Argentina, 1971.

Above: Fly tiers gather around Kelly Bedford as hedescribes the history of the Gartside Sparrow.

Below: The final session of Fit to Be “Tyed” was the mostadvanced. Here Peggy Brenner demonstrates the beginning

steps to tie a feather-winged streamer.

Photos by Kim Murphy

SUMMER 2012 25

The Florian K. Lawton Foundation of Aurora, Ohio, sentus Fly Fishing Scene, an original watercolor painting by FlorianK. Lawton. Claude Westfall of Orono, Maine, donated a shad-ow-box frame titled Penobscot River Atlantic Salmon Patternsand photos of the Veazie Salmon Club and the Penobscot Riverand Atlantic Salmon. And John Swan of Portland, Maine, gaveus a first edition of his book, A Painter’s Life (John Swan FineArt, 2010).

In the LibraryThanks to the following for their donations of titles that

have become part of our permanent collection. Skyhorse Publishing sent us the fortieth anniversary rere-

lease of Sparse Grey Hackle’s Fishing Days, Angling Nights (1971,2011) with a foreword by Nick Lyons; Eric Leiser’s The Book ofFly Patterns (2012); and Luke Jennings’s Blood Knots: A Memoirof Fathers, Friendship, and Fishing with a foreword by ThomasMcGuane (2012).

Frank Amato Publications, Inc. sent us R. S. Hooton’s SkeenaSteelhead: Unknown Past, Uncertain Future (2011); Skip Morris’sThe Art of Tying the Bass Fly: Flies for Largemouth Bass, Small -mouth Bass, and Pan Fish, 2nd ed. (2011); and Ann R. Miller’sHatch Guide for Upper Midwest Streams (2011).

Upcoming Events

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

August 9–12 “Angling and Art” Benefit Art SaleGardner L. Grant LibraryPublic reception Saturday, August 11, 4:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m.

September 29Smithsonian magazine Museum Day Live!Free admission with ticket, available for download at

www.smithsonianmag.com/museumday/

October 3Heritage Award Dinner and AuctionHonoring Orri Vigfússon, North Atlantic Salmon Fund

founder and chairmanYale ClubNew York, New York

October 13Fall Members and Trustees Meeting

October 13Fly-Fishing Festival

November 10Free admission all day to honor veterans

December 8Hooked on the Holidays and Community Open House

Always check our website (www.amff.com) for additions,updates, and more information or contact (802) 362-3300 [email protected]. “Casting About,” the museum’s e-mailnewsletter, offers up-to-date news and event information. Tosubscribe, look for the link on our website or contact themuseum.

Every spring we invite the community to prepare for theopening of Vermont trout season with our annual SpringTraining day. On March 31, a group of anglers and future

anglers to came to the museum for a series of family-friendlyactivities to loosen up their casting arms and stock up their fly

boxes. The museum would like to thank Kelly Bedford andPaul Sinicki for teaching fly tying. Here, Paul helps a young

tier through the steps to create a Vermont Caddis.

Sara Wilcox

B AC K I S S U E S !

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:Vol. 37:Vol. 38:

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

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:Vol. 22:

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, 4Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4

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

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


The official catalog for the American Museum of Fly Fishing’sgroundbreaking exhibition, A Graceful Rise: Women in Fly FishingYesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, is now available for purchase.

This 105-page book profiles all of the women featured in theexhibit. Hundreds of images, both color and black-and-white,complement their stories, ranging from photographs, mementos,and other items from various personal collections to materials andartifacts from the museum’s own archives.

$19.95 (plus postage and handling)

To order, please visit the musem store online at www.amff.com orcall (802) 362-3300.

Karen Graham

Mimi Matsuda

Carrie Stevens

Catalog cover image courtesy of University of Wyoming, Charles J. Belden photographs andnegatives, Collection Number 00598, American Heritage Center. Used with permission.

SUMMER 2012 27

Kathy Scott

Susan Balch

Diana RudolphDiane Michelin

Annette Lilly Russ

Sisters on the Fly

Helen Shaw

Fly Rod Crosby

Maggie Merriman

Ginger Rogers


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

Jerry Gibbs served as Outdoor Life’s fishing editor for thirty-five years, having filled the position in 1973, following the deathof Joe Brooks. He is the author of several technical fishingbooks as well as the award-winning short story collection SteelBarbs. He was recipient of the American Sportfishing Asso -ciation’s Lifetime Achievement award in 2005 and JohnsonOutdoors’ Fishing Journalist of the Year in 2006. He has pre-sented position papers to federal fisheries agencies and statefish and wildlife agencies. His work has won top honors fromthe Outdoor Writers Association of America, including theprestigious Excellence in Craft award in 2008. His stories andphotos have appeared in most of the nation’s salt- and freshwa-ter fishing journals, to which he continues to contribute. Gibbshas fished in salt and fresh water across the United States andCanada, and in Europe, the Caribbean, Central and SouthAmerica, Russia, New Zealand, and Australia. He lives on theMaine coast with his wife Judy and their French Brittany, chas-ing striped bass and fly rod–manageable bluefins while schem-ing ways to head south when the fish do.

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.

Gordon M. Wickstrom of Boulder, Colorado, holds a Ph.D.from Stanford University and is a professor emeritus of Franklinand Marshall College. He has written for Gray’s Sporting Journal,Fly Tyer, Anglers’ Journal, the Art of Angling Journal, and Wild onthe Fly and is a regular contributor to the American Fly Fisher.He has published a linear display of the chronology of fly fish-ing and writes and circulates quarterly the Bouldercreek Angler,“a gazette for those who fish” and the Bouldercreek Actor, “agazette for those who make theatre.” He blogs at boulder-creekangler.blogspot.com.

Wickstrom’s Notes from an Old Fly Book was published bythe University Press of Colorado in 2001. Late in an Angler’sLife was published by the University of New Mexico Press in2004. His The Great Debate: A Fantasia for Anglers was pro-duced on stage and published in 2006.

Dennis Welsh

Todd Hosman

Marsha Karle

OVER THE PAST four years, the museum has been ex -panding its programs to encourage people to learn aboutfly fishing’s past and present and to broaden the audience

we reach. Through our exhibitions, publications, communityevents, gallery programs, and presentations—and through thisremarkable journal—our goal is to ensure that our audience isexposed to a great variety of fly-fishing subjects and issues. Ourcurrent initiative is no exception, and the museum looks forwardto presenting the story of American saltwater fly fishing.

We began our saltwater project in 2011 when Jerry Gibbs,retired fishing editor for Outdoor Life magazine, was contractedto compile the long history of American saltwater fly fishing.Within a few months, Jerry submitted an eighty-page reportthat traced saltwater angling from its first mention in Englandbefore 1840 through the current innovations that haveenhanced the saltwater fly-fishing experience. Jerry has also puttogether a timeline of the saltwater story as it relates to othersignificant American history events and, most recently, a reportthat documents the development of saltwater fishery conserva-tion. These important reports will assist us as we map out anexhibition for our gallery and a subsequent exhibition that willtravel across the country for installation at other venues. Jerryhas also agreed to write a few saltwater articles for publicationin our journal, the first of which appears in this issue.

Another aspect of this saltwater project is to capture the his-tories of some of the living pioneers of the sport. This pastMarch the museum brought together nine such pioneers: MarkSosin, Bill Curtis, Stu Apte, Flip Pallot, Nick Curcione, JoanWulff, Chico Fernandez, Nat Ragland, and Lefty Kreh. Each

participant was first individually interviewed, then a panel dis-cussion of all nine was convened. Through the talents of pro-ducer/director Jeffrey M. Pill (who was also responsible for ouraward-winning DVD Why Fly Fishing), along with his profes-sional crew of cameramen and soundmen, these pioneers werefilmed over a three-day period. The raw footage gathered willserve two purposes: first, it is an important document con-taining the histories of these saltwater pioneers; second, themuseum, through postproduction work, can include the inter-views in the exhibitions and possibly produce a separate,expanded DVD about saltwater fly-fishing history.

The museum is most appreciative of the project funding wehave received through the generosity of the following contrib-utors: Dave Walsh, Mike Bakwin, Pete Bakwin, Brad Mills, BillLeary, and the late Gardner Grant. Offering guidance through-out this project are several museum trustees, including JimHeckman, Nancy Zakon, Pat Ford, Gary Sherman, Bill Leary,Andrew Ward, Walter Matia, and George Gibson. We appreciatethat the International Game Fish Association hosted the recentsaltwater pioneer filming project, waiving all facility fees, andallowed our crew access to its spectacular headquarters building.

Deputy Director Yoshi Akiyama is leading the project. Yoshiwill be working closely with Jerry Gibbs to bring you an inter-esting, interactive, and complete look at the saltwater story. Ifyou have some information to share or saltwater artifacts thatmight be of interest, please e-mail Yoshi at [email protected].

CATHI COMAREXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Telling the Saltwater Story

The museum had the unique opportunity to interview and film nine of the earlypioneers of saltwater fly fishing (seated at table, from left to right): Stu Apte,

Flip Pallot, Chico Fernandez, Nat Ragland, Lefty Kreh, Nick Curcione, Joan Wulff,Bill Curtis, and Mark Sosin. This filming is part of an exciting initiative to

document the history of American saltwater angling. Photo by Pat Ford.

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 Laura Napolitano at [email protected] to tell us how we would benefitfrom your skills 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 contactLaura Napolitano 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 museumcon sideration when planning for gifts, be -quests, and memorials.

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