The American Fly Fisher FALL 1990 VOLUME 16 NUMBER3
rn Evolution
AT TIMES, it is llarcl to imagine comes to know just who the movers and and desktop publishingcapability. Work that our Museum is twenty-three shakers were, ancl just how this museum has also begun on renovating our inte- years old. We started life in I 968 was foundecl in the first place. There's rior spaces and, if all goes well, we in rented quarters at The Orvis a wealth of correspondence relevant to sho~rlclhave most, if not all, of the work Company on Historic Route 7A o~rrfsorniative years, of plans initiated, completed by late spring or early sum- in Manchester, Vel-niont. In ancl plans which, fi)r one reason or an- mer. 1983, we moved down the street other, f'ailed to matel-ialize. Still, one ir- With the first phase of the "Campaign to our own building, also on Koute 7.4, refutable I'act emerges from those old for the American Museum of Fly Fish- 1where we've remained ever since. All the letters, n~emoranclunis,and missives: ing" completed, we are ready to initiate while our collection-thanks to the self- one comes to the realization that with all a combination direct maillphonathon less efforts of thousands of Museum the ups and clowns and fits and starts for the membership at large. We are supporters and a declicated, tho~rgl~we've experiencecl over the years, after confident that our members will give often hard-pressed, staff of'both profes- all the victories and the defeats, too, that careful thought to their commitment sionals and volunteers-has grown to we, as a museum and a museum family, and give generously when contacted. epic proportions. It truly is the world's have grown and ultimately PI-ospered. This is an extraordinary opportunity to largest collection of angling and angling- Now, those of us carrying the torch build a great museum. related objects. feel that it is time another chapter was The end prrrpose of this activity is not Oftentimes, when I'm working late at adcled to our Museum's history. In our merely to increase the size of the mu- the Museum, I like to delve into some last issue I brieHy mentioned our pro- seum and its collections, but to expand of our old correspondence, shelved in a posecl plans for renovation and expan- its role in the life of the angling com- goodly number of acid-free boxes in the sion. Some of the ob.jectives of this mu~litynationwide as it moves into the stacks on the second floor. I've spent campaign are outliried in the "Museum new decade. Ultimately, a museum has many an evening sprawled out on the News" section of this issue, and signifi- to be more than a building, bricks, and floor up there, learning about the evo- cantly, many ofthose plans have already mortar-it must be, above all, about peo- lution of our Museum as an ed~rcational reached fruition. For example, we now ple. And, in this, the Museum is already institution. There are thousands of let- have full computerizatio~lincluding richly endowed. ters now, a fascinating collection. One hardware ancl software, laser printer, D.S.J. Preserving a Rich Heritage lournal of d~heAmerican Museum of Fly Fishing for Future Generations FALL 1 yqo VOLUME 16 NUMBER 3
1'KLlSTEES Foster- Birr11 Bob Alrtc ltrll The Original Jock Scott...... 2 IVilIi;tr~~lkrrr-ctt W:~llir
Chrrin~~ano/ I~PNorrr~l Notes & Comment ...... '9 Kobert 1. K;thri P~-~,.
Exn-~~li~rcUlwrlor Donald S. ,Johnson Exrrlrtitrc A.\.\~s/rrtrl Virginia Hulctt (.'trr~~tor/Dez~rlo~~~~~~~~t/A.%\~.s/cIII/ Alanna I). Iisller Ru~uarrhll'rtbliri~ Joe A. I'isilrro )%r, A,?tr.rlrn,r I-'/Y Fg.~'lsbrr ia puhlirhecl l'ottr time, .I \r;w I,v the htureurn .I[ P.0. I%,,s 12. Mancltestrr. Vermont 052.5.l. I'tlblh.~cian darcs arc winter, spring, wmmer. and fall. Alrrnhrrlnp due\ inclu TAFF FALL 1990 The Oripal Jock Scott by Joseph D. Bates, Jr. -Animal hairs have long been common THOSECURIOUS ABOUT the antecedents Scott (brother of the fifth Duke of Buc- ingredients ofjishingjlies,- the use of of classic salmon flies find historical re- cleuch), but that's about it. The famous human hair in fashioning pies, on search difficult because so little was writ- fly deserves a more complete pedigree, the other hand, is almost unknown. ten down. Information, as reported in and much of it now comes to light. Yet the hair of a beautqul woman angling literature, must be examined to First off, the two men weren't related. seems to have been both the inspira- try to separate fact from fancy, or truth Lord Scott hired Jock Scott originally -tion for and a key ingredient of one from legend. So is it true or false that partly because of the similarity of names, ofFe the most popular Atlantic salmon jly pat- the famous Jock Scott salmon fly was in- and Jock served him faithfully for tm,the Jock Scott, according to documen- spired by a beautiful and noble lady with twenty-seven years until his Lordship's tation uncovered several years ago and luxuriant "Titian" tresses so admired by death in 1860. Evidently Jock didn't tie herezuith published for the jirst time. her husband that he ordered this fly to the fly "on a boat on the way to Norway," Based on research by the late Joseph D. be tied because of them? as originally stated in Sir Herbert Max- Bates, Jr., the fly might more aptly have been Being a bit confused about the exact well's Salmon and Sea Trout (1898). For named the "Lady Scott." The article resulting color Titian represents, I consulted my the facts, let's turn to one of Lord Scott's from that research was, according to Mrs. faithful dictionary. It says, "a color used friends who, under the pseudonym of HehBates and their daughter Pamela Bates by Titian in his paintings, red-yellow in "Punt Gun," published Jock's obituary Richards, the last piece completed by Colonel hue, of high saturation and medium in the February 18,1893issue of The Field Bates before his death in 1988. His death brilliance." This seems to mean a shade ("The Country Gentleman's Newspa- end.ed the career of one of America's most of golden red, which evidently was the per") about a month after Jock's death prolific and best-known angling writers, hav- original color of the rear half of the Jock on January 24, 1893. It says, in part: ing authored some seventeen books (the latest Scott's body. In this country, women en- It was while acting as fisherman to Lord of which is The Art of the Atlantic Salmon dowed with such tresses are generally Scott at Mackerston in 1850 that he set Fly), and uncounted magazine articles. The called "red-heads" and are proud of it. himself to devise something new and tak- American Fly Fisher is grateful to the fam- Anglers usually know that Jock Scott ing; the Jock Scott was the result and, on ily of the late Colonel Batesfor the opportunity (the man) dressed Jock Scott (the fly) in trying it himself, he was so pleased with it to publish this article. J.P. 1850 while in the service of Lord John that he gave a pattern to the late Mr. For- - TAFF FALL1990 Color photographs by Linda M. Golder Opposite, a superb 'Yock Scott" using Ti- mental about Lady Scott's hair and important fly intrigued me enough to try tian hair, as originally intended, instead of didn't want to be bothered searching to find out whether it was true or false. yellow silk. It also exhibits the cowect feath- around for duplicates when orange silk I studied a few dozen Jock Scotts dressed ers, according to Colonel Bates, including did as well, or better. So, for a time, the during the last half of the past century Indian crow, toucan, jungle cock, and blue red-yellow (actually a shade of orange) and found that, in a few of the earlier chatterer. This pattern was dressed ,by Ted of the Lady's hair was duplicated in the ones, the rear half of the body was Kantner of Hatboro, Pennsylvania. fly by orange silk. Evidently the hair ep- orange, or more so than yellow. In them isode was brief and confined largely to there was no evidence of hair, which the Scott family. may indicate that this original phase in But anglers often object to orange in the fly's development was very short- rest, fishing tackle maker, Kelso, who one salmon flies because the color turns a lived. But the presence of the orange day, I think at Bemmirride, after trying a dirty brown when wet unless dressed body in some of the earlier examples lot of flies in vain, put it on with such with an underbody of white. So even- seems to confirm the truth of Lady marked success that he thereupon named it after the inventor and, as 'Jock Scott,' it tually buttercup-yellow silk was used in- Scott's part in the fly's history. will remain while salmon swim in the stead of orange. This provided a Jock did what he was asked to do. As Tweed. brighter touch and proved better for an experienced angler and fly dresser, practical reasons. he may have had misgivings. By chance (This article, in full, appears in my latest This addition to the lore of such an or design he was responsible for the very book, The Art of the Atlantic Salmon Fly.) Jock obviously was an expert fly dresser, whose occupation as fisherman, or gillie, customarily included keeping his employer's fly boxes full. But there is no record of his having devised any other pattern, so why did he originate this one? Brian Fabbeni, expert angler and fly dresser of Wales, supplies a probable an- swer. He procured photoprints of pages excerpted from a publication called Col- lection of Wroth Silver' written by R. T. Simpson (Rugby, England: George Over, Ltd., 1884), and housed in the li- brary of the present Duke of Buccleuch, that describes in part the local customs of the estate of Lord and Lady Scott. The booklet says about Lady (Anne Al- icia) Scott: Lady John at the time of her marriage (1836) was a noted beauty, and had glo- rious Titian hair, from a strand of which on one occasion a salmon fly was made, now celebrated amongst fishermen under Above, Lord and Lady John Scott of the name of 'Jock Scott' fly, an enlarged Wamichhire, Scotland, in 1847 model of which was presented by the and 1839 portraits, respectively. writer to the Reading Room at Dun- Lady Scott (Anne Alicia) was a noted church, given by her Ladyship while res- beauty with '~loriousTitian hair," ident at Cawston (near Rugby). which became an important compo- Dhspite the fact that this account was nsnt of the original 'fJockScott" published thirty-four years after the fly salmon fly. Courtesy of the Duke of was originated, it doesn't take much of Buccleuch, Bowhill, Selkirk, Scot- a Sherlock Holmes to mesh these bits land. Photogra@hed by Ronn Ballan- together. tyne. Lord Scott was a salmon angler who was proud of his wife and her luxuriant Titian hair. It seems natural for him to This antique Jock Scott want to memorialize it in a salmon fly as (c. 1890), top, tied with toucan well as to ask his faithful &lie, Jock, to veiling and Indian crow by an do so. This request seems to explain why unknown dresser, was consid- it was the first, and evidently the only, ered by Colonel Bates to be a origination Jock ever made. "pefect"Jock Scott. It was Jock naturally took great pains with given to him by the renowned what, to him, was an important assign- jlytier Megan Boyd, of Brora, ment. On request of Lord and Lady Scotland, in 1980. Scott he dressed several duplicates in Bottom, a full-dressed hairwing, this manner, but Forrest of Kelso and/ tied with available material, that or other anglers on the Tweed seem to retains the balance and propor- have found a bit of fault with the pat- tions of the classic Jock Scott. tern. Dressed by Bob Wawen. They were not inclined to be senti- TAFF FALL 1990 successful half-orange (later yellow) and half-black body; a combination used on several very popular flies, notably the Akroyd (called the "poor man's Jock :- F Scott" because it is a bit simpler) and the modern Rusty Rat (with a hair wing of qrey fox). These are successf~~lbecause ;he yellow is predominant in bright light while the black is more conspicuous on duller days or during evening fishing. The use of hair in fly bodies is rat-e, but not unknown. Fot- example, Kelson caused himself tt-ouble by claiming orig- L ination of'the Littly Inky Boy, an almost forgotten pattern having a hotly of black horse hair, closely coiletl. Despite the fact that many readers may not dress salmon Hies, this little ad- dition to angling lore wouldn't seem complete without inclucling the cort-ect dressing of the Jock Scott, using yellow instead of orange silk or Titian hair: Tag: Silver twist and yellow silk Tail: A topping and Indian crow Butt: Black her1 Body: In two equal sections; No. Kelson's Jock Scott Diagram 1, of yellow silk (butter- cup color) ribbetl with FOKEXIOS.I.AMONG THE NAMES of the nli~ny~)ronlinent a~lglers ;~nd Hy dressers who have narrow silver tinsel, ant1 contributetl to the evolution ofthe salmon Hy is (;corge hi. Kelson. His book Tllr Snlmon butted (veiled) with tou- Fly, publishetl in ~X<)rj,became the Bible of the salmon fly worltl-the first in its genre to give detailed instruction in the tlressing of salmon flies. Here, then, is an analytical can above and below, and tliagl-am of a ':jock Scott type" illustrating its parts and proportions, from Kelson's Tllr black herl; No. 2, black Snlrtrorr Fly. silk ribbed with bl-oacl sil- ver tinsel. Hackle: A natural black hackle, A. (;I// loop. from center B. 7'r1,q: here in t\vo sections-silver twist, succeecled by Hoss silk. Throat: Gallina Wing: Two strips of black tut-- CC. Ttril. Of' ;I tol~l)i~~g;ultl an India~rcrow fe;~ther. key with white tips, Dt, D2, D3. "Nrr//.\."Uct\veen DI (r:~il-l)~~tt);ind D3 (head-bu~t)lies the Bo(ijl, divided in golden pheasant tail, ~LIS- tl~istype 01' fly inlo t\cposections hy D2 (sectio~l-l~~~tt),each section having 5 Rib.v of tad, grey mallat-tl, pea- inse el; D2 is herc ~)recetlctl(in ortler of constructior~)by Toucan feathers above and cock (sword feather), l)elo\c. swan dyecl blue and yel- E. Nt~rltli,.Here distinguishetl as the "I'/tprr .\crfio~rIrnrklc~." When wound over nearly low, recl macaw, malliu-cl, the \vhole length of'the body it is termed the "ljo(i\l lr~rrkI(~." and a topping E2. 7%ro(rf lrrrrklr, usually written "Throat." Sides: Jungle cock Cheeks: Blue chatterer F. (rrrtlrr-rrli~rg.Here of "\\#hite-tipped"T~~rkey. Horns: Blue macaw G. 071~Il'i~~g, in most flies c;ll)pcd \c,ith a "toppi~~g." Black herl Head: HH. Iforrc.v. J. Sirllz.\. K. Clr~rkv.L. H(8trd. If one wants to do it as Jock originally I. Is a line showing ;I roper length of'tail and wing l)eyontl the hook-l~end. did, he would only substit~~teclosely coiled Titian hair for the yellow silk, as 2. Intlicates the pl;iCe of' the first coil of the fog relatively to the lrook-11crrl1, the barb s11~1)lyingthe I~estgl~ide to the eye in the initial operation of' tying on the "tag" the illustration on page 2 shows. If' yel- materi;~l. low silk is used, tying threacl ~~ntlerit should be yellow or white since darker 3. Intlicates the place on the hook-.slrr~rrk(relatively to the hook-por~rt),at which the ends thread might show through. of rhe grr/ loo/t sho~~lcltern~in;~te, leaving the go/], for adjustnlent. George Kelson, in his classic Tho 'This figure is intendetl also to give the st~~denta general itlea of the due proportions Salmon Fly (London, t 895) calls the Jock ant1 symmetry of ;I gootl Hy. 21s a whole, and in its parts severally. Scott "the utmost triumph in hat-mony In dressing, the terms "heaclwards" and "tailrvards" mean towartls right and left re- and proportion." While the above pat- sl)ectively, ;IS seen in the plate. tern, when properly dressetl with cor- The terms "bend of'the hook." "point of the hook," "point of the barh," "barh~junction," rect ingredients, now is us~~ally etc., explain themselves on ins1)ection. By a 111(11rc--a common term in Ireland-is considered too precious to get wet, sim- untlerstood a tuft of mohair introduced at some place on the body after the manner plified variations are essential in every of the upper group of' Toucan feathers seen in the plate in rear of section-butt D2. salmon fisher's fly boxes-ant1 in the But as this means of ornamentation is not considered favourable, I shall leave the boxes of those who fish for many other subject ;~loncfor a while. species, as well. 4 TAFF FALL 1990 Rooted in the Lommon longue of Britain? by Ralph W. Moon ONEOF THE PLEASURES of Hy ti sh- at the key to the mystery and in so doing is dependent on the work of earlier ing is its universality; it leads nat- raised the paradox. etymologists, does not really apply and urally to the study of a wide The difficulty in tracing a word like LaFontaine's opening statement may be number of related, interdepen- cnddi.7 is two-fold. First, and most ob- even more astute than he intended. dent fields. The novice flyfisher vious, the word is reasonably rare; even Shakespeare spoke of a peddler who had turns almost at once to fly tying; in modern English it is little known out- those with more experience side of etymological and fly-fishing cir- ribbons of all colours i' the rainbow; points delve into the mysteries of aquatic en- cles. References to caddis before the 17th more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can 1tomology, limnology, conservation and century are very rare, and before the learnedly handle, though they come to ecological activities, rod building and 15th century virtually non-existent. him by th' gross; inkles, caddises, cam- collecting; the really dedicated angler Word frequency in a language can give brics, lawns. . . . The Wznte~'.cTale, Act IV, Scene IV.? may, and usually does, develop an in- many clues to the searcher of word terest in the more esoteric nuances of origins, and by the same token the rarity Even a cursory reading of this passage related knowledge. of a word increases the difficulty in trac- might lead the reader to a quite differ- The search for the origins of an an- ing it. The second reason for the diffi- ent definition of caddis than that which gling-related word might never have oc- culty in the task at hand lies in the Hicken postulated. The appellation, curred to me-much less interested anomaly of our word beinga triple hom- "Caddis-man," was not Shakespeare's me--except for the implied challenge ographic-homophonic word. It is ac- term but Hicken's, and caddis here is sim- and paradox in an excerpt from Gary tually three separate words which are ply another kind of cloth material, like LaFontaine's book Caddisflies. He said, spelled alike and which sound alike. Lit- lawn, cambric, or serge or corduroy. It "the origin of the name caddis, or cad- tle wonder that the waters are muddied! does not refer to the peddler or to his dice, is a mystery, its roots lying in the It seems obvious then that we can look appearance, but rather to his wares. The common tongue of Britain rather than only at the meanings of the word as we etymologist Glen Wiggins says of caddis, in the more easily traceable Latin." He have it recorded in the language and "in reference to cotton or silk materials, goes on to credit British entomologist N. make our best guess. various versions of the word date to 1400 E. Hicken with a "deft bit of linguistic Remember? LaFontaine said that the and cadyses appeared in Shakespeare's detective work," for having traced the origin is a mystery (probably one which The Winter's Tale in this sense." He goes word as far back as Shakespeare's The shall never be resolved completely) and on to say that although Hicken has made Winter's Tale (161 I).' Hicken postulated has its roots lying in the common tongue a connection between the caddis relating that the peddler in the play with his of Britain. We shall see that the caddi~ to cloth and the insect caddis, the con- wares all pinned to his clothing has some which Shakespeare so casually men- nection has not been established.We visual relationship to the case-making tioned in TILEWinter's Tale does not have have come then to the first of the three larvae of the caddis. Although the com- its roots in the common tongue of Brit- words involved. parison is colorful and ingenious, it does ain, but rather in the more easily trace- Shakespeare has used caddis in a most leave some room for doubt, and with able Latin and Greek. Thus Hicken's explicit manner to indicate a type of unwitting aim Gary LaFontaine struck "deft, linguistic, detective work," which cloth, or ribbon. Most frequently such TAFF FALL 1990 5 ENDNOTES I Gary LaFontaine, Caddispies (New York. NY: Nick LyonsIWinchester Press, 1981) p. 153See also N. E. Hicken. Caddis Lanrar (London, Hutchinson, 1927) - William Shakespeare, The Complelr Plqs and Poerai of William Shakespmre, edited by William Allen Neilson and CharlesJenkins Hill (Cambridge, Mass. The Riverside Press, 1942)"The Winter's Tale," Act IV. Scene 4, 11.203-212 (p. 524) Glen Wiggans. Lanra~of the North Amrriran Cad- di.i/(y, Grnrm TrIrhoptrra (Toronto, Canada, Univer- sity of Toronto Press, 1977) p. 3 ' Ernest Klein, A Cornprrh~nsir,~Etyrnologiral Dirliur~nryifthr English Language (Amsterdam, Lon- don. NY, Elsevier l'itblishing Co.. 1966) j Sh;lkespeare, Co~rrpletrPlay and I'orins, "Henry IV, Part I," Act 11, Scene 4. 11.77-Xo (p. 645) " Sh;tkespeare, The Wirrtrr's Tale ' Klein, Elyrnologiricn/ Dirtionan' ' Ernest Weekly, Conriie Elymolog~mlDirtionan' "ax Kurath, Mi(ld1e Engluh Dirtionay, Univer- sity of Michigan. This reference is found under the listing of mdare, and Kurath has listed a number of manuscripts in the British Museum that illustrate the use ofthe word rrrddis in this sense. The earliest of thesc listings is 12Xti, and the latest is 1464. "' Izaak Walton and C. Cotton, Thr Compleat An- gler (London. NY, Toronto, Melbourne. Cassell and (;ompany LTD., 1901)) p. 216 " Weekly. Conrrse EhmoloRiral Dirlionaq As early as 1450, The Treutyse of Fi.thing If such a transition did, indeed, occur, I? Thr Oxford Dirtronny of Engli.ih EQmolo~,edited with an Angle tells of using a codworm as we are left with the almost certain con- by (;. 1'. Onions (Oxford, Clarenden Press, 1966) bait. clusion that ctrddk had its origin not in I" Wiggins, North Arnen'mn Carlrl1.Y~ I" Oxfir-d Engliilt Dirtionay (0xli)rd. Clarenden In june take the red wornle & nyp of the the romantic or Greek language roots I'ress. I 933) hed, & put (of) on the hoke a codworme but rather in the common tongue of I" TI~PNezo College Edition of the Amm'ran Herilnge Dictionary of the Erzglish Language, edited by William byfoyr. In (I) julye take the litle red Britain from the root cod. There is ap- cod Morris (Boston. Houghton Mifflin Co, 1976) worme and the codwornme to-gedur."' parently no known use of the root It' John McDonald. Thr OrzRins (Angling (Garden in reference to the insect species before City, NY, Doublecii~y;~ndCompany L.td.. 1963). This There is, however, no reference to the The Treaty~e(4 Fishing with an Angle, al- passage is found in the facsimile of the Yale Wags- form caddis in either the 1450 or 1496 though the definitive use of the word by taft Manuscript of "The Treatise of Fishing with an editions of this work; however, about zoo Angle" by Dame Juliana Berners which has been Dame Juliana Berners would argue that printed in McDonald's book. Page 20 of the man- years later in 1653, Thomas Barker's The even then it was in common use. Earlier uscript. line 14. p. 173. Art of Angling shows that by the middle uses of the word cod were almost solely "Thomas Barker. Tlzr Art of Angling (London, of the 17th century the two forms were confined to the Old English and Middle 1ti51) linked- ". . . gentle's paste or cadice English meaning of husk, bag, pouch or '"Walton and Cotton, Thr Complete Angler, p. 329 I!' Geoffrey Chaucer, Cantrrbuy Tales, edited by which we call cod bait."17 It seems (as in Chaucer) stomach, or pillow."'The Iohn Matthews Manly (New York, Henry Holt and reasonable, particularly considering the relationship of the earlier meanings to (;on~pany, 1928) dearth of angling literature in the 16th the caddis case is too obvious to be co- "I hMost etymologists agree that the Old English rodd and the Anglo-saxon reod have a common or- century and the paucity of it in the early incidental. While the Old English codd igin in primarily Scandinavian and Germanic lan- 17th century, that there may have been and its variant ceod are firmly en- guages including Norse, Icelandic, Swedish as well a transition from the cod-cad form to cad- trenched, the similarity of the word to ;IS the Germanic Middle Dutch, Old High German, dis-cadice. Walton in all of his discussions words of the same or similar meaning in Loti German and Slavic. Some sources studied in support of these origins, but not necessarily cited of the insect never refers to it with the a number of Scandinavian and Ger- include: cod-cad morphology, yet Cotton, while manic languages virtually precludes fur- Walter W. Skeat. Elyrnologiral Dirlionnry of thr English generally referring to the insect uses cad- ther attempts to discover its source."" Language (Oxford, The Clarenden Press, 1995) dis, does in one instance use the two Let it be enough to agree with Gary Weekly. Conri.ie Ehrnologiral Dirtionan' forms jointly. LaFontaine that the word caddis did in- Onions. Oxford Dirtionan. of Engliih Ehmolop deed have its roots in the common Eric Partridge, A Short ElyrnologiralDirlIona~of Mod- Now the cadis, or cod-bait, which is a sure rrn Engli,ih, (NY. Marmillan Co., 1961) killing bait, and for the most part, but tongue of Britain, but most certainly it Oxford English Dirtionan' much surer than either of the other, may greatly predates Shakespeare's use of it Kurath, Middlr English Dirtionan' be put upon the hook.lH in The Winter's Tale. Klein, E~rno/ogira/Dirliona~ TAFF FALL 1990 7 L PART 11 The Evidence for Early European Anghng: The Mysterious Manuscript of Astorga by Richard C. Hoffmann It has been six years since Richard C. gle" (author undocumented, 1496). THESECOND KNOWN MONUMENT of Span- Hoffmann's 'The Evidence for Early Herein, Professor Hoffmann again ex- ish fly fishing is a superficially self-evi- European Angling, I: Basurto's amines our early European angling heritage dent seasonal list of pattern recipes Dialogo of 1539" was published here with a superb documented essay that includes called the "Manuscript of Astorga."' Un- in The American Fly Fisher. An- a seasonal list of patterns and the second ex- like many early angling documents, this gling scholar David Ledlie, who at tant "monument" of Spanish fly fishing in appears fully accessible to enthusiasts, that time was serving as the editor of early seventeenth-century northern Spain. for four modern editions collectively this journal, called Professor Hoffmann's His clearly defined intention (in which he suc- provide the text in facsimile, in printed work a discovery of "extraordinary impor- ceeds admirably) k to provide a critical anal- transcription, and in multilingual tance." And rightly so, for Richard Hoff- ysis of the historical document itself (often (French, English, German) translations, mann had clearly demonstrated the comparing it to other "early" angling docu- complete with commentary: beginnings of an angling heritage-in this ments) and to provide parameters for what is case, Spanish-totally unrelated to the famed known and for what remains unknown about Jesus Pariente Diez, ed., En tom a1 manuscript "Treatyse of Fishing with an An- early fly fishing in Spain. D.S.J. manuscrito de Astorga y la pesca de la trucha AU photographs courtesy of the Tourist Office of Spain Opposite, the Orbigo River, near Astorga, is one of many good-sized streams draining southwards from the well-watered hills of the Catabrian Mountain range in northern Spain into the west-flowing Duero River. Right, the first two pages of the 1624 Astorga manuscript. The original man- uscript is reported lost in afire that swept the library of Generalissimo Franco, where it was last housed. Bottom, one ofjive examples of artijiczalflies used to illustrate this article, originally featured in El Manuscrito de Astorga ('yy- leaves"), a 1984 edition of the manuscript by Preben Torp Jacobsen. en 10s rios de Leon. Leon: Imprenta Prov- incial, 1968. Jesus Parente Diez, La pesca de la trucha en 10s rios de Lebn. Le6n: Editorial Ne- brija, 1979 [transcribes and remarks upon the manuscript of Astorga pp. 1 12- 1251. Preben Torp Jacobsen, ed., El man- uscrito de Astorga. Juan de Bergara. Afio 1624. With an introduction by Erling Kirkegaard. Hobro, Denmark: "Fly- leaves" [privately printed], 1984. H. R. Hebeisen, ed., DieAstorga-Hand- schrift verfapt im Jahre 1624 von Juan de in the manner following on the turning Bergara. With a discussion of fly tying by of this leaf and done in this year of 1624. Hans J. Elwenspoek. n.p. [Ziirich]: HRH Juan de Be~-gara.~ Fly Fishing Club [privately printed], n.d. In seasonal sequence thirty-three pat- [19881. terns follow, some with remarks on their Other references and summary inter- use for trout fishing. Four entries will pretations, notably those of the French- illustrate the manuscript's format, in- resident American George Beall, offer formation, and approach. more informati~n.~Yet the closer we T HE M AN I T When transcribed, the first entry after look the more we are puzzled. the opening page5 looks like this: This essay might in part be construed The object now called the manuscript as a review of the two most recent edi- of Astorga is a handwritten Spanish text. Alio de 1624 Henero y Febrero tions by the Danish fly fisher and angling Its first leaf reads as follows: Longaretas // Ay tres diferencim de longaretas writer, Preben TO~PJacobsen, and En nombre de Dios y de Nuestra Seliora. the Swiss H. R. Hebeisen. In fact, how- Este es un libro de aderacar y adobarplumas Laprimera Heua un Neeco crwloacerado ever, my curiosity was piqued well be- para pescar Truchas en algunos meses del ario henerr lue ego una pluma de pardo crudo fore appearance of the latter-and y enparticularEneroy FebreroyMarcoy Abril - conejado, luego otro negrisco plainly not satisfied thereby. Hence this y Mayo asta Sun Juan. Va sacado y AProbado como el primer0 cuer po sede leon- treatment is more intended to use the por libros de pescadores de mucha experiencia ada escura muerta bin co blanco evidence available in those books and Y cOmP"badoporLorenzOgarcia~ pescadorue- Dura asta Abril // elsewhere for critical analysis of the ac- cino de esta ciudad De astorga y sacado por mano dejuan de Bergara cuyo es el dicho libro Let us put into literal English what can tual document in its context, to identify comienca en la manera siguiente a la uuelta the limits of our knowledge, and to sup- de esta hoja y fuk en este ario de 1624,Juan now be put into English, but retain the original arrangement of information. gest appropriate strategies of further de BerEara.$- enquiry for those interested in the an- gling antiquities of Spain. We examine Put into literal English the page says: Year 1624 January and February in succession the historical object itself In the name of God and of Our Lady. (a manuscript text), the content of the This is a book about preparing and Longaretas6/1 There are three kinds of lon- text, and problems of authorship and dressing feathers to fish for trout in some garetas meaning, often comparing the Astorga months of the year and in particular Jan- The first Take a steely-colored negrisco' manuscript with other early angling doc- uary and February and March and April January Next a pardo8 feather the uments. Sought throughout are the and May up to [the feast of] St. John. shade of rabbit Next another It was assembled and approved from negrisco like the first. Body dull boundaries between what is known, books of fishers of great experience and dark tawny silk. Binding what is reasonably inferred, and what checked by Lorenzo Garcia, fisher and white. Lasts until April // remains unknown'about the place of fly resident of this town of Astoma, and as- fishing in early seventeenih-century sembled by the hand of Juan due Bergara, northern Spain. whose is the aforesaid book, and [it] begins Two successive entries about midway TAFF FALL 1990 9 through the manuscript may be repro- duced in translation like this: Encht~hiertns" Take one light glassy ~grisco of March Then one from a kingfisher"' Then a pnrdo of finely worked faded light spots. On top an- other of negi-isco like the first. Another bright red from a cock of the dungheap," of each item one turn. Body of' sieve [material]" and white binding and a fine purple thread. Kills well. + 1:s The well-known reddish green. 1st feather a faded ncgrlsro two turns nd a pardo of fine pattern gd another pnrdo of spotted pattern 4th a nrgrisco more smoky than the first which has some red in it;" Body of light green silk and cocoon raw green, and a side for the back of dark silvery silk, pnpico'" mud-colored, binding silvery and raw green; serves well from March till June A final example is the last entry in the manuscript:"' Sn1ticcl.c" of St. John'' have three kinds which are called Pilrcdrc, H~rzin,and M~~lrr(lrrl";they have two rregri.sco.cunclerneath from an ashell- black cock. Above, the l'ilrrdn [has] one of Siciotr"' darkly goltien." the Kltzm [one] ol'Si- cion [with] the background white, the stem dark, and the Mrlrida a ciarkly marketl pnrrlo, and all with a feather of Filomrr~cr""21s a cloak; body of dark silvery silk, sides orangey-yel- low; binding orange arltl raw silk. We must soon return to the substance and meaning of these and other pas- sages, but should first look more closely at the physical object itself-as now ac- cessible only in photographs. <:ompari- son of facsimile pages 2(j-27 ;mtl 29 reveals that the nlanuscript text is not co~ltin~~ousnor all in the same hand. In fact, what we may call Hand I or ':]uan de Bergara," since that scribe so names himself on the first written page, all- pears on pages 7, I I, 14, 15, 18, 19, 22, 23, 26, and 27. Hand I1 or "pseuclo- Juan" follows on pages 29, g 1, gg, gy,, 37, 397 419 431 45, and 47. It looks as if the page numbers were wrote across 2 f;lcing pages (14-15) of each page, placing only one entry on added after the photographs whicll ap- skipped 2 facing pages (16-17) each page. Entries written by pseudo- pear in both editions by Diez, f01- the wrote across 2 f'aci~lgpages (I8- I 9) Juan me more broken and formulaic numbers themselves are not on the skil)pe(l 2 f'acing pages (20-2 I) phrases hut provide more specific detail 2 sheets reproduced in his books where wrote across f'acing pages (22-29) than do those written bvi "luan."J they appear on those same sheets in the skippecl 2 facing pages (24-25) The year 1624 and connection with book of Jacobsen." Finally, the photo- wrote across 2 facing pages (26-27) Astorga are asserted in the manuscript graphs in Diez display patterns of' wear Pseutlo-Juan, however, wrote only on by the very hand of' ':Juan de Bergara." typical of the free side of a bouncl leaf rectos, none of which were skipped. Pre- Astorga was then a second-rank town in such that those pages with otltl numbers sumably all intervening versos were left the province of Le6n, part of the Crown look like rectos and those with even blank. of' Castile which dominated the early numbers like versos." If' so, ':Juan3': The two different hands also col-re- modern Spanish monarchy. Many good- spond with differences of form (major) sized streams drain southwards from the wrote his title page on p. 7 and of content (minor). 'Juan" placed well-watered hills of the Catabrian range skipped 3 pages (8-I o) section titles in the left margin of his through terrain apt for grain and into wrote the first substantive entries pages, used horizontal lines to separate the west-flowing Duero River. Not far on p. I 1 entries, and wrote down the whole of above the juncture of the Rio Tuerto skipped within running test 2 each page; pseudo-Juan ran titles into with the Rio Orbigo a road crossing and facing pages (I2- I 3) his text and wrote only on the top half Iberian tribal settlement was in Roman lo TAFF FALL lt)t)O manuscript is now presumed lost (de- ~troyed).'~ This history cripples our ability to ex- ercise critical judgement on the Astorga text and its contents. We lack several im- portant facts. To verify the authenticity and learn the original purpose of a pur- ported historical object, historians pre- fer to be able to trace it from creation to the present. But long periods in the history and provenance of this manu- script are wholly blank: from the alleged writing in 1624 until Pefia's use in the early 19th century; from Pefia to the late 1930s and ownership of Don Julio del Campo in Leon. How, when, and why did this item wash up in the provincial capital some fifty kilometers by road from its alleged home in Astorga? Without the original we also know nothing of several physical attributes of the manuscript: its dimensions,5O me- dia," form and composition of pages, '' or binding. Only George Beall plainly reports that the de Bergara text was bound with that of Pefia,33 but that would have to be a nineteenth-century binding-unless Pefia wrote in the orig- inal! What, then, may we reasonably infer from the physical object of written text itself? Chiefly and of most importance, it is probably an authentic Spanish writing of "1624," and not some other time or script is vexed. In the early nineteenth place. Both hands correspond with the century it seemingly passed through the alleged date and place.'* There is as well hands of a Leonese angler, Juan Pefia, no known reason for someone to have who in 1825 adapted some of the pat- forged such a document prior to Pefia's terns into his own manuscript listing of verified use of it in the early nineteenth artificial flies.26But only after another cent~ry.'~And the attribution to Astorga silent century did a reference surface in seems equally credible-though one Pages 26 and 27 of the manuscript text could wish for more precise internal cir- written by Hand I or 'fluan de Bergara." public print. Louis Carrere was a French fly fisher and angling writer long resi- cumstantial or external references than dent in Spain. In 1937, after the Spanish the one mention of Lorenzo Garcia as a Civil War sent him back to France, Car- "resident of this town of Astorga." times recognized as a city, and the site rere published a small book on wet fly early obtained the sure mark of regional fishing, P&he Sportive de la Truite dam les importance, its own Christian bishop. Torrents (Mouche Noyke) (Toulouse: F. Later eighth-century wars of Christian Boisseau, 1937)~with a preface by Car- What does the manuscript of Astorga resistance against the advance of Islam rere's friend and fellow fly fisher, Tony say? Any historical document should depopulated the entire Duero valley and Burnand. There in the course of a pas- first be read as literally and plainly as made of it a military no-man's-land. Lo- sionate defense of the wet fly, Burnand possible. With early angling texts in par- cal nobles led resettlement of the area (and not Carrhre himself) revealed that ticular it is important to guard against around 850, but Astorga commonly Carr6re then had photographs of Juan premature interpretation in modern thereafter yielded precedence to the de Bergara's manu~cript.~'Almost terms of the words, expressions, and sometime royal residence at Le6n. As- twenty years later the Federaci6n Leo- prescriptions of a past author. Even so torga became a way-station on the fa- nesa de Pesca [Leonese Angling Feder- taciturn a record as the Astorga manu- mous medieval pilgrims' route from ation] located the manuscript itself in the script gives the modern reader both in- France to the shrine of St. James (San- private possession of Don Julio del formation and grounds for subsequent tiago) at Compostella and long provided Campo of Le6n and then his heir, Dofia inference and speculation. commercial and ecclesiastical services to Victoria Gonzalez del Campo of Madrid. As mentioned, the Astorga text con- nearby agro-pastoral communities. Its About 1959 the manuscript was obtained tains thirty-three named prescriptions possible five thousand inhabitants in from Dofia Gonzalez del Campo by the for "feathers" (plumas) to fish for trout. 1624 were, therefore, thoroughly prov- Diputacion [provincial government] of They are arranged in roughly temporal incial participants in the cultural flo- Le6n which in 1964 presented it to the order from the longaretas of January to rescence which by then no longer well-known sportsman Generalissimo the salticas of June 24, the feast of John masked the imperial over-commitment Francisco Franco, then Spanish chief of the Baptist. Each entry plainly-if not and economic distress fading Spain's state." Franco died in November 1975. always clearly4escribes an assemblage "Age of G~ld."'~ At some time his personal library was of materials, designating particular bird After 1624 the history of the manu- reportedly destroyed by fire and the feathers by type and color and using TAFF FALL 1990 them variously alone or in layered or sequential combinations. Each "feather" may also possess a "body" (czrerfio)of silk and/or linen, a "binding" (binco) of silk or other thread, "wings" (ala), and a "head" (cnzirp is modern Spanish cn- beza), all of prescribed material and color. Careful reading further discovers in several prescriptions written by ':Juan de Bergra" himself indubitable allusions to actual insects-or at least to objects distinct from thepl~imasthemselves. The "buzzers" (z~rn~bonrs)of February and March, for instance, are called "com- panions of the r.s?t/oridos" ("So7l rottrpcc- Aeros de 10s es~trorido,~."),while r~~c.rrhirrtrrs of the same season "in mountains ancl cold waters have very fine orange stripes on their sides and fall as if tle;itl on the Pseudo-Juan, however, niakes no such remarks. Both writers ofTer seasonal ant1 me- teorological advice on the choice ant1 use of the pltt?rrc~s.This includes but goes be- yond mere labelling of' entries by months. 'J~uan,"fin example, prescril~es in March different negt-i.sco.s f0r sunny days (dins d~ sol), for calm weather (tirnrpo dr snzon), and fi~rclo~ldy clays (rtr r1irr.v tztiblos). In this context he fi~rtliel-notes, "This month is very gootl l0r fishing with the rod because it is springtinle ant1 the zephyr [west wind] antl the /ir~~otrio blow ancl the waters become more warm."'" Later in the angling season the second scribe ittlvises the ttrrrrotr lor chilly days and the crr.vcrrr10 for atiel-noons.'" Explicit inli)rnlation in the Astorga manuscript thus sustains sever;ll reason- able inferences about this text ant1 the angling practice which lay I)ehi~itlit. For the first, linguistic and ecologic::11 rekr- ences help confirn~the docunie~lt's01-i- gin in northern Spain. 111 several passages knowledgeat~lereat1et.s recog- nize names for chickens ant1 their kath- ers and can identify insects fitn1ilia1- to the language and the region of' western I'his kriowledge inclutled (I) a regional "Ry" (Sp;lnish mo\crr) being applied to the Lebn. This is self-evident in the notes sequence of distinct ancl identified feather creations." and definitions given by Diez :u~tll)y "the stream insects, antl (2) the design and Yes, it is ;tusterely doctrinaire to say Spanish exper-ts" to whom Jacol~senre- m;lteri;~lsSol- effective "feathers" user1 to the Astorqt manuscript lacks conscious fers."!' The terms like npgrivco ancl prrr(10 correspond \vitli certain insects, imitative awareness, but it is important which Juan de Bergara ~tsetlto denote weather, ant1 water conditions. to distinguish between what was really certain feathers are still well-known to 'I'he manuscript of' Astorga iml)lies, said in the text then and what we may Leonese fly fishers. In the light-colorecl 1)llt tloes not plainly state, an inlitationist now wish to read into it retrospectively. berw~ejos antl /orcarlinrr.s recom~nended (or ;it lei~~timitatively impressionist) And this very matter whether the for sunny late March days, they fill-ther theory linking particular "feathers" ant1 feather object is itself a[n] "[artificial] fly" see mayHies of genus Rilhrogrltrr, and in p;lrticul;~rinsects. The "1)uzzers" (pndos is an interesting point of difference the "well-known reddish green" (Rtrbi(t zrotrbotr(~,s)identifietl ;is the "fi-ientls" of among early angling texts. Feathers on vrrde fnmostr), the species Poly?ttitnrci.r the crmori(1o.s 01' Fel)r~tal-yand March- a hook are "flies" in the fifteenth-century uirgo, all varieties now familial- in the i.e. insects-are tlescri1)etl as artificials: British Library MS. Harley 2989," the Leonese rivers."' Native to that partic- '"I'hey have a feather of' strong blueish- Boke of St. Albans Treatyse," and later ular regional environment, too, are the grey trogri.sco ~lnderneathand above that English works. They are "feathers" in half-dozen varieties of wild 1)irtls with two feathers of pmrrlo with the blackest the many German references dating useful plumage. I' ant1 most specklerl pattern you can find. from the thirteenth century onward,Ihin Second, the authentic text plainly doc- Body dark fawn silk. Binding fawn silk the fifteenth-century English recipes in uments in early seventeenth-century As- ant1 sieve canvas threatl."" But note that Oxford Botlleian Library MS. Rawlin- torga well-cleveloped empirical s~tcha theory is nowhere articulatetl in son C 506," and in the manuscript of knowledge about the catching of trout. the ~nan~tscript,not even by the wortl Astorga. Only in the earlier Spanish rec- 12 TAFF FALL ICJCjO fishing tradition in the 153os, into the valleys of the upper Duero? The upper reaches of both systems are adjacent in the hills north of Burgos. And the west- wards medieval diffusion of other in- novations is well documented along the pilgrimage route from Navarra, across the Ebro, and through Burgos, Leon, and Astorga to Santiago de Compostella. Certainly this region of Spain must be- come the focus for concerted search through records of the sixteenth century and before for older references to plu- mas used to angle for trout or other fishes. Finally, know that the manuscript text from Astorga provides no precise in- struction on how to design, tie, use, or present its artificials. In seasonal order it lists sets of ingredients and that is all. This means we must recognize as sheer speculation all the modern commenta- tors' attempts to replicate the flies with modern Spanish techniques'hr other^^.^, and also Kirkegaard's assertion that some of the recipes are for flies in- tended to be fished dry. Indeed the lat- ter, based on the reference to breezy March weather being good for fishing with the rod and the occasional mentions of "turns" of feathers, quite fails to con- vince.'" Of course speculation has its in- terest and value; we should just avoid confusing it with historical knowledge. ticular relationship between the writer, 'yuan de Bergara," and the knowledge AUTHOR(S)AND MEANING he recorded. OF THE The manuscript does provide MANUSCRIPTTEXT grounds to speculate whether the ante- cedents of Leonese fly fishing lay further Once aware of the limits to the infor- east in Spain. In the view of Diez, some mation contained in the manuscript of Pages 29 and 47 of the manuscript, terms it uses for parts of the flies indicate Astorga, we could determine what it said illustrating Hand II or '~pseudo-Juan." an origin in Navarrese and Aragonese and then infer cogent statements about dialects."'Its statements about book- knowledge of trout fly fishing in early learning and angling experience could seventeenth-century Leon. But because also echo passages in Basurto, who was we know so little about the writer(s) of ord itself, the Aragonese Fernando Bas- himself Aragonese. Where the earlier the manuscript and the purposes behind urto's Dialogo of 1539, are plumas also author referred to the "esperencia de mu- it, it is difficult to determine the social and explicitly moscas artiji~iales.~~ chas et grandes pescadores" ("experience of place of the knowledge and the activity On the first page of the manuscript of many and great fisherman") and it documents. Astorga the hand of 'Juan de Bergara" claimed he had "mi trustornar de libros ha About all we really know of the cre- acknowledges two sources for the infor- sido grande" ("my churning through of ation of the manuscript is that those who mation there written down: existing books has been great")," Juan de Ber- assembled it and wrote it down, 'Juan written materials and local oral report. gara wrote "z~asacado y aprobado por libros de Bergara" and pseudo-Juan, were lit- The former, "libros de pescadores de mucha de pescadores de mucha experiencia" ("it was erate and, the first at least, likely male. experiencia," were not necessarily printed assembled and approved from books of We may reasonably infer that 'Juan" un- books, for "Juan" used the same "libro" fishers of great experience"). But how dertook his announced plan in Astorga for what he had produced by hand. The impressive a parallel is that? How else in 1624 and partly carried it out for some latter came from the old Astorga fisher might you talk of books and experienced reason of sense to him; pseudo-Juan and citizen Lorenzo Gar~ia,~%ho,Juan anglers? Might, too, both authors be completed the plan for some reason of says, checked the data. Surviving early playing with the common late medieval sense to him. - angling writings place us on the bound- and Renaissance rhetorical metaphor of We do not know who yuan de Ber- ary between oral tradition and literate appeal to learning from books and from gara" was. No evidence outside the man- culture. Special contributions of the As- people with experience? Still, both state- uscript itself has anywhere been torga manuscript are both to affirm writ- ments seem to share a common mental adduced to verify or amplify his exist- ten records of Spanish fly fishing extant position, although the texts are other- ence and character. Hence at this time before 1624 and to identify a particular wise very different. only the manuscript itself can be used to possessor of local knowledge and prac- May we thus contemplate a process of support allegations about him and none titioner of this traditional art. It does diffusion from the Ebro basin, where of the allegations hitherto made are so not, however, directly indicate any par- Basurto knew a developed imitative fly supported. Diez, Kirkegaard, and others TAFF FALL 1990 Robert Jon Colder L FRANCE 100 mi ,./NORTHERN SPAIN (1624) would have him be a monk."Nothing must abandon speculation, step back he think he was doing when he wrote in the manuscript suggests that. Literacy from the manuscript, and probe into the into it what we would call a list of pat- in Spain in 1624 is no sufficient grounds records of the world which produced it. terns for artificial flies? The verb form to infer clerical, much less monastic sta- They possess names, a date (1624), and he uses (twice, both on page 7) is "sa- tus.'"eall says he may have been a a location. For a premodern society, cado," which Jacobsen's edition first cook7; the statement is wholly unsub- early seventeenth-century Spain was translates as "is an adaptation" ("est ex- stantiated. Nor are there grounds be- much governed, and Astorga, the old trait") and then as "has been written" yond his having written the nianusci-ipt episcopal town, a node in that web of ("ecrit~),I," This is free to the point of for his having been a professional administration where officers of church being tendentious, for it emphasizes by scribe-and there are lots of other and state kept voluminous records. As- implication both a single antecedent ob- equally plausible explanations for his lit- torga's ArcAk~oMunicipnl now preserves ject and an act of inscription. But the eracy and his exercise of that skill here. rich remains from the fiscal,judicial, and root meaning of sacado is "get," "make," One basis for plausible speculation as managerial affairs of the late sixteenth- "gather." So Juan "put together" or to author and purpose is the peculiar and seventeenth-century municipality."!' "compiled" his book, which is not the quality of that single opening page Ordinary citizens took all sorts of every- same as "adapted" and does not mean where 'Juan" makes his only non-for- day legal business to trained notaries, he just wrote it out (for someone else). mulaic statements. The hand of page 7 whom the law obliged to record the gist And now the organizational peculiarities is the same as those to follow, but the of every document they compiled. Doz- of the manuscript must come into con- shape and look of the page are distinc- ens of protocol books from contempo- sideration. What had 'Juan" in mind tive, with aspects reminiscent of formal rary church notaries are now in the when he wrote his part only on every or notarial practice not evident else- Arcllizlo Dioces(~r~o(10 Astorga, and those other set of facing pages? Why, since it where. Visually, look at the heavy inking from Astorga notaries then holding a is the book of 'Juan," is the second part of many characters. Upper case letters secular comn~issionrest, together with of it written by pseudo-Juan, who fol- are common. This air of fbrmality car- other public records, in the Arclziz~oHis- lowed the plan of "Juan" and also left ries over into content reminiscent of tdrico Pror~i?lcirtlde Ledn."" Given the rel- one blank page between each of his en- rhetorical training. There is an invoca- atively small size of the community, a tries? It looks as if both writers antici- tion, a statement of contents, a reference male of standing in Astorga is reason- pated someone inserting further entries to "authority" (books and Lorenzo Gar- ably apt to have been named in some or comments among those they wrote cia), instruction to continue for the sub- record or another. The right haystacks down, although, in the event, no one stance, and then the date. Although do exist to absorb the hours of digging did. Any interpretation of the Astorga plainly this is no official document, it will take to find a needle--or better, a manuscript must account for these fea- someone has a sense of occasion. It key to the puzzle of the Astorga man- tures. would be good to know more about in- uscript.'" (But even that key nlay leave Diez has advanced and both Beall and struction in writing and writing manuals unopened the problem of pseudo-Juan.) Kirkegaard accepted without comment in [northern] Spain in the late sixteenth Because we do not know who Juan was the hypothesis of a scribe who was no and early seventeenth centuries to learn and he fails to say, we do not know what fisher recording information from what this may signify. The manuscript his manuscript was in his terms and books for the use of professional or craft needs comparison with contemporary those of his contemporaries. Why did he fishers."' Nothing in the introductory notaries' books and with other private produce what we have? Until we can bet- section (page 7) specifies or demands this manuscript books and jorilegia. "H ter answer that question, we cannot scenario; it is wholly speculative and un- To learn more about Juan de Bergara reach beyond narrow technical state- substantiated. On the only evidence we and Lorenzo Garcia is, therefore, a ma- ments to meaningful historical conclu- possess, the manuscript itself, this hy- jor research need-and success a reason- sions. pothesis of a non-fishing scribe is con- able, if dauntingly time-consuming, What we have is Juan's own "book." troverted by the book being Juan's own, prospect. Spanish angling antiquaries He tells us that he owns it. So what did by its workbook-like appearance, by the explicit reference to information from species of thrush is native to dl Spain and western Europe. Feathers of the upper parts are brown, and previous written sources, and by the du- the lower, whitish-brown. bious value of a written record for the 23 Close comparison of specific pages (e.g. p. 29) probable illiterates who then fished for reproduced in Diez 1968and Jacobsen convinces me a living." that the plates in Diez do display blank space where the plates in Jacobsen show the page numbers and Indeed, one can advance an equally that the numbers were not merely trimmed off for plausible (but no more certain) alter- reproduction in Diez. Further, the shape of digits native scenario for the reasoned creation I,4, and 6 in the page numbers is distinctly different of the Astorga manuscript. Conceive of from those digits as written by "Juan de Bergara" on the first leaf of the MS. The digits of the page Juan as a neophyte angler who compiled numbers appear more like those commonly written information for his own use and had it END NOTES by a twentieth-century European. verified by a veteran before provision- 24 To understand rectos, versos, and page num- ally writing it down (with room for ad- bers, consider the copy of TAFF now open before I Readers of The Amen'can Fly Fisher know a pre- you. It represents what are now standard conven- ditions and corrections). This hypothesis vious monument of Spanish angling literature came tions of modern Western printing and binding. You gains support from the design and or- from the pen of Fernando Basurto almost a century see two pages, that on your left (Latin verso) bearing before. See Thomas V. Cohen and Richard C. Hoff- an even number and that on your right (Latin recto) ganization of the manuscript and from mann, trans., "El Tratadico de la Pesca: The Little Juan's reference to earlier sources. It bearing an odd number. A verso page is free on its Treatise on Fishing of Fernando Basurto . . . 1539," left side and bound on its right, a recto page free fails, however, to account for psuedo- TAFF, 11:3 (Summer, 1984). 8-13. and Richard C. on its right side and bound on its left. The other Juan. And it would be more robust were Hoffmann, "The Evidence for Early European An- side of each sheet (leaf, folio) is a page of the op- gling, I: Basurto's Dialogo of 1539.'' TAFF, I I :4 (Fall, posite sort. Juan and others in Astorga (if not nec- 1984)~2-9. essarily Lorenzo) demonstrably not un- 25 On Astorga, its region, and early seventeenth- ' George Beall, "The First Book on Fly Tying?" century Spain, see the article in Enciclopedia universal lettered workmen but literate sportsmen Fly Fishen'Joumal, vol. 65, no. 258 (Autumn, 1976 ilurtrada europea-americana (Madrid, 1958),vol. 5, pp. with other occupations. Certainly redis- 173-174, and ''The Document of Astorga," The Fly- 784-787; Matias Rodriguez Diez, Historia de la muy firher, 14:4 (Fall 1981). 34-36. Earlier brief notices of nubk, leal y benem4nn'la ciudad de Aslorga (Astorga, covery of Basurto's book from ninety the manuscri~tare in the works of a French fly years before lends to the latter a plau- 1909); D. Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain (London, fisher long resident in Spain, Louis Carrere (see 1978). pp. 37-38; Claudio Sanchez-Albornoz, Des- sibility unimagined when Diez pro- below). poblarion y repoblacion del ualle del DucTo (Buenos pounded his theory. See the facsimile. I have intentionally retained Aires, 1966). pp. 259-390; J. H. Elliott,Imp&lSpain the original spelling rather than accepting the slight 1469-1716 (New York, 1963), pp. 281-337. Unsub- Hence we do not know the socio-cul- modernizations imposed in thelacobsen edition (p. tural place or significance of the fly fish- stantiated historical claims in Diez 1979, pp. 75-77, 25). are implausibly rosy. 'I The English version given in Jacobsen, p. 67, is ing recorded by Juan de Bergara, and " Diez 1968, p. 25, and Diez 1979, pp 126-137. notably not whether the practices were very free. Kirke~aardin labobsen, p. 63, erroneously gives " Page I I of the MS is reproduced as Plate I I in - those of professional craftsmen supply- Diez 1968 and p. 6 in Jacobsen. Transcriptions in '845. ing a commercial market, of peasants Burnand in Carrere 1937, p. 12: Diez 1968, p. 18,or Diez 1979, p. I 16,are closer to Louis Carrere m'a montre rkemment la photo d'un obtaining protein for household sub- the original than that in Jacobsen, p. 25. document extremement interessant, en ce que sur- sistence, or of literate seekers after sport. "iterally "elongated"; dialect term for certain tout il prouve que la pCche la mouche noyee n'est natural insects. pas une nouveautk, un perfectionnement plus meu- Clearly none can now be ruled out and ' Literally "darkish-blackish"; Spanish name for they are not mutually exclusive, but like- trier de la mouche "classique", c'est-A-dire seche. a sort of chicken. DPs 1624, J. de Bergara decrivait dans leurs wise not one can be demonstrated from ' Literally "earthen-brown"; the Spanish name moindres details, en espagnol, une quantite d'arti- the text as we know it. There was tra- for a kind of chicken. For a brief discussion of these birds and their feathers, so special to Spanish and ficielles. loutes sans exception noyees, el indiquait ditional fly-fishing practice in early mod- French fly fishers, see Jean-Paul Pequegnot, Frtnrh I'kpoque pendant laquelle chacune d'elles devait ern Spain, for the Astorga manuscript Ctre utilisee. La richesse, extraordinaire si I'on songe Fi.slii?~gFlies, tr. Robert A. Chino. Introduction by qu'elle date de Louis XIII, de cette collection d'ar- shows it in the early seventeenth century Datus Proper (New York. 1gX7),pp. 60-61. aigntes. prouve, me semble-t-il, que ce mode de !' The modern Spanish root mrub[ie]r suggests northwest as Basurto's Dialogo shows it pCche est bien le mode original, celui de qui sont concealment, hiding. conlplicity, or fraud. Does it sorties plus tard toutes les autres pCches sportives. farther to the east in the early sixteenth here name an insect or refer to the deceptive device century. Basurto discussed tackle, pres- Voila qui devrait sufire a reconcilier avec lui nos itself? purs. amateurs de hautes origines! entation, imitative theory, and the tech- I" The European kingfisher (Alredo allhis) is iri- niques of fly tying, but prescribed no descent blue and emerald green above and chestnut Burnand then continues his defense of the wet fly models. The Astorga manuscript gives below. without further reference to Juan de Bergara or the 'I Jacobsen, p. 72. notes a Spanish belief a bird of manuscript. Nor does Carrere himself mention this (only) patterns for flies, and merely im- the svable acquires a special coloration. material anywhere in this book. (The contrary as- plies an imitative rationale for them. l2 Page 26 of the MS ends here; the last two lines sertion of Kirkegaard in Jacobsen, p. 63, seems, Basurto's angling with fly and bait was of the entry appear on p. 27. therefore, to lack support.) '"age ng of the MS. (Most of p. 27 and all of p. Louis Carrere's book on wet fly fishing is a bib- self-consciously recreational. The an- 28 seem to be blank.) liographer's nightmare. The Bibliotheque Nation- gling of Juan de Bergara is wholly unex- I.' I follow the reading of Jacobsen, p. 34 "que tire ale in Paris. which is the library of legal deposit for plained-and will remain so until (or a bermejo," rather than Diez 1968, p. 20, and 1979, France (like the Library of Congress for the United unless) more may be learned of the "con vinco bermejo." States), knows and possesses only two editions: cat- p'l';%cobsen, p. 34, suggests this is a synonym for alog number BN8"S. 19972 P88/278 entitled Piche writer(s) and the manuscript produced n ada, i.e. "dewlap" or "wattle." Sportioe de la Truite dam 1es Torrents (Mouche Ncyke). in Astorga. MS. p. 47. Preface de Tony Burnand. Toulouse: F. Boisseau, An important part of historical knowl- " Literally, "'jumpers." 1937 (92 pp.); catalogue number BN8°Sz1~ggP881 edge is to know what is not known. In I' The church feast of John the Baptist is cele- 441 entitled "Mourhe Noyh:" Piche Sportive a2 la brated June 24. Truite dans Irs rrzrikres et les torrents. Preface de Tony that knowledge, the task of research is 'Viluda may be derived from pila, meaning Burnand. Toulouse: F. Boisseau, 1942 (99 pp.). The to move the boundary between the "piled" or "heaped." Ruria is probably related to editions are substantially identical and Burnand's known and the unknown. ruria "silvery-grey,". - and meladn to melado "honey- reference to the Astorga manuscript is precisely the colored." same in both (see p. 14 in Carrere 1942). "I Probably Sison, the Little Bustard (Otir tetrax), a Besides the 1937 edition of Carrere, however, With thanks to Paul Schullery, whose ques- species of ground-dwelling bird notably native to Diez 1968, p. 18,and 1979, p. I 15, refers to editions tions always force thought and research, and Spain. It has vermiculated buff plumage above and of 1946 and 1957 as well as a Castilian translation of to friends and colleagues, among then1 George the female's undersides are streaked black on white. 1963 These 1 have been unable to verify, even Beall, Tom Cohen, Helmut Zrle, and Adrian " The translation in Jacobsen, p. 81, here intro- though Beall, "Document," p. 34, reports repro- duces a reference to spots which is not in the orig- duction in Carrere's 1957 printing of four pages Shubert, who have helped me try to avoid inal. from the manuscript. wrong answers. Remaining mistakes are, of '"L Most likely not "thrush" in general, but "night- " Diez 1968. p. 25, and 1979, p. 115. course, my own. R.C.H. ingale" (Lzcscina megarlz~~~rhos)in particular. This 29 Kirkegaard in Jacobsen, pp. 62-63.1 have found TAFF FALL 1990 no independent and specific conlirmation of this Sf.Albrrrrs (If96). Bnrk,qmund, Confrxt nrld Trxl of"T/rr "" Diez 1968,pp. 2 I-22,and 1g7g.p. 1~4;Jacohsen. re ort 1,-rc~hsrrffisilrjngr uylh 011 Angl?, Scripta, I (Brussels, P, $5 'IPlates in Diez 1968 show pages approximately 1~8&).p. 41. For discussion, see Richard C. Hoff- That well before 1600 lay literates in Spain 7.5 cm by 12 cm, which seems to make the writing nlann, "A New Treatise on the Treatyse." Tlrr Amrr- greatly outnumbered churchmen is clear from a little small; they may be reduced. Diez 1979, p. irnrr Fly Fi.shrr. 9::4 (Sl~m~ncr,1982). 2-6. scholarship of Richard L. Kagan, Students and SorieQ I 12, makes them smaller still. The original margins " But only in passages peculiar to the 1496 in Enrl~A,Iodrm Spairr (Baltimore, 1972), pp. 7-30; are hard to see in Jacobsen's plates, but look about PI-intetl \,ersion (see facsimile and transcript in John Philippe Berger, "La lecture a Valence de 1474 lo cm by 15 cm. (;auld a user therefore easily slip McDonald. Tlre Ori,qrro o/ Arrglirrg (New York, 1g(i:4) igtjo." in Lrr~rrrt lrrture en Espngnr ct m France sous the book into a pocket? pp. 222-225). The earlier manuscript version has I'Anrirrr Rtgrrnr. Colloqtrr dr Madrid, 17-19/11/1980 "I I presume the material is paper, but then would only the word "dub" (McDonald, pp. 170-17:3). (Paris. I 98 I),pp. 97-107; Juan E. Gelabert Gonzalez. like to know about watermarks which could likely "' For a brief trcatnlent of the r~r~lrrnrrgrland rwd- "Lectura y Escritura en una Ciudad Provinciana del help confmm a date. And didJuan and pseudo-Juan r~srrurwell-documented for trout and grayling fish- Siglo XVI: Santiago de Compostella," Bz/llrlin hu- use the same ink? ing in late ~iiedie\,al Germany, see Richard C. pnriiqur, 86 (1984).264-n<)o; J. N. H. Lawrance, "The " How were the pages assembled into signatill-es Hoffnia~in,"Fishing for Sport in Medieval Europe: Spread of Lay 1,iteracy in Late Medieval Castile," or gatherings? Such information helps indicate tlie New E\~itlence,"S/~rrrr/~rn.(io(~ g8~). H~F-XI)~. A more R~rlIelit~.- of His/)nrrrc Sfudir.5. 62 (198.5). 79-94. original form and function of the paper sheets as complete tliscussion is Hermann Heinlpel, "Die " Beall. "Document," 11. 34. well as whether they were bound before or after Federschnur: Wasserrecht unci Fischrecht in der '' What the Latin Middle Ages called aporilegiutn being written upon. It could cast light on the oddly 'Refol-matio Kaisel- Siegni~tntls,'" Dclrtsrhrs Arrhirl resernbletl a later English "conmmonplace book." a discontinuous use of pages in this manuscript and /;if-E~fi~rvrhrtrrg d0.v A,littrlrcltrf:v, 15) (~gtig).451-488. collection of excerpts, sometimes organized, some- the relationship between those used by the two " Braek~na~n,11. :$I, 11-anscribesfron~ Id. 299. "Ye times not, f-I-on1re;~tlings of interest to the collector writers. must dubbe your hoke with the kderys . . . and ye or to a student. I'hey were a common school ex- 3"eall, "Document." p. 34. n~ustlokc what colowr that tlie flry is that the ercise, scholar's tool, and personal private activity ""That is really to say they look. to me antl to trowgth lepyth aftir ant1 ye same colowre must the among the more-or-less learned in medieval and colleagues with more Spanish experience than 1. feder-isse be and the same coloul- niust tlie sylke be Renaissance Europe. reasonably like other Spanish hands from the late of fix to hynde the fetlerysse to your hoke." ""Josi- A. Martin Fuertes. Fondo histonro drl Ar- sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. I'aleog- The I-ele\.ant section f.ron1 fills. c viii r-v of Bas- rhi7a hl~i~rtri/~nldr A.\torgn Crrtrilogo, Colegio Univ- raphy is not an exact science when it comes to dating urto's original is Englishetl in Cohm antl H0f.f- ersitario de Leon Unidatl de Investigacion, or localizing an otherwise unknown Ilantl, but if the rni~n~i,p. I :l. a~iddiscussed in Hot-fnlann."Evidence. I'ublicaciones 15) (Leon, 1980). hand has many features otherwise unknown to its I." p. 0. The key Ixissage reads in the (11-iginal:"dr "'I Personal comnlunication from Professor Jose purported setting, this causes suspicion. No features III~II~,~qrrr 71rr~~r)in10 plrirnrr rrrms tf-o frdo por r~rofrrrr(114 A. Martin Fuertes of the Colegio Universitario de of the hands in the Astorga manuscript cause sus- n,q11n hnvtrr 111 nlto rlr rrzrnl, porrlue dr nqrrrll rrrnnrw sr 1.e6n. Neithel- archive has published a catalog. icion. r/,r~nfrIn.\ /r-rtr/rrr.~n 111,s rrro,$rrr,rt,r~rrl~r(lrr-r/.\, qzt~ /IO~ ri\o "I Neither anonymity nor false dating stopped " Pe"axs record thus eliminates any t\\,entieth- In.$ /,n,qn'ion rorrl~.rnrti/rri~l~s." identification of tlie person responsible and, in con- century forger seeking, fi~rinstance, pn~litor no- I" MS. 11. 7 "7~~ru111"refersto mernhership in the sequence, tlie interpretive setting for two othel- im- toriety among persons interested it1 angling anti- conimunity, not nlel-e or necessarily residence, de- portant early angling documents: Heinrich Grimm. quities. spite the Jacol~sen11-ansl;~tion, p. 67. "Neue Beitriige zur 'Fisch-Literatur' des XV. bis ill 3"S pp. 22.2~:En Ins r~rotrtorirr.\j n,qrccrs rrrlir,~rt/,.\ Diez 1yti8, 11. 22. antl 1979. 11. 125. SVII. Jalirhunderts untl ubel- deren Drucken and Ins /men Ins rosfrras nntnr~l(~d(~\rntij drlrrn(lrrs p rrarrl " Hasurto. Urn/o,yo, li)ls. c \~irecto and c ix recto. Ruchfuhrer." Bot-.rrribliitlf~i,.drnde111.irhrn Bzrrhhandel romo rnurrtas err rl n,quc~.(Die7 15)(iX,pp. 19-20, and See Cohen ;md Hoffmann, pp. $1 and I:$, discussed Frrrr~kfrrrtrrAtr.~gn6~,24:8() (3 Nov igtj8). 2871-2887. 1979, p. 120, is corrected in Jacobsen, p. : Time Like an Ever Rolling Stream by Gifford Pinchot M(i?ly (O/~[P?\ 701// t('C0RIIIZP MENMAY (:OME and men may go, but the great limbs deer and bear drank and lis- nnrr~rGflo~d Prneho/ oc /l~crlo/ /hr S:iwkill brook flows on-feeding its tened as they drank. About their roots, pio?~rr?CO~LS~T~~(~/IO~II\/ (1t~1J(i/Irrt o/ tro~rt,[)I-otecting its insect, moll~rscan, cubs, fawns, and baby otters romped and thr U.S FOTP\/SC~Y~ICP. Sorrre I((~(ltr and crustacean life:. home and a hid- rested and romped again. In winter ?P(L~P~\mciy al\o lcnoro /krr/ kr 7il(i\ (I ing place ti~rn~yriacis of living crea- their cones and leaves strewed the snow 01iddy of Tr~ldvKoo\crlrl/ ntrd co- t~rl-es-a thing of' bea~~tyand a ,joy after every breeze, and on sunny days lo~tndrr,zul/h hznr, o/ /he I't ogrrcti7~r fi)reve~-. melted little cavities for themselves, and ("Brillit^ Moo~r") P(1r/y 171 1912. NO/nr(~trv ?troy Along its banks giant pines and henl- froze there as the shadows fell across knonr, ~LO~LJCIJE~,1/~i/Pr~rcho/ zon\ arr ~i?dc?r/ locks have germinated and grown, Hour- then]. angle7 nnd (1 firiblrrkrd rorrtr~rollotr t/orrr\ ishecl and died, decayed and vanished, Buffalo, moose, elk, wolves, and appearrd I?/ [ILP tllr?~f)op~ilar 7tr(ig(i~171r\ 0/ uncounted generations of them, each panthers left their tracks beside the tl~eln/r 20s (ind ecitly got rnchrtlrt~gAmei - leaving its contribution to the richness semi-human tracks of bears and coons, lcan Angler, Collier's, F~elci& St~enm, and glory of the place-and in their the webbed tracks of beaver, and the tri- Outdoor America, Rotarian, ~rrd r'he I~ranchesother uncounted generations angular imprints of mink. Saturday Evening Post. of scluii-I-elsand birds have fed and quai-- Great flocks of passenger pigeons hid Hzs book, Just Fishing Talk, f~omzirl~tclr relect and mated and carrietl on the busi- the sun, and where they settled the "Trme Lzkr An Eur7 Rollrng Sf7rcrrn" 1% (3- ness of their wol-Id. branches of stout trees were broken off crrpted, rons publrshcd 171 1936, clnd lull\ o/ Under the shade of little needles on and crashed to earth, to the thunder of Prncho!S Doylrood cipf~rc~ntrcrtkrf)rrr jly fib- innumerable wings. zng ula tile st?ectnr\ of hr\ nc1/171(~Mrl/otd, Kingfishers clattered up and down the Prnnsyl7~nrcici (rr~cl~irlrngIhr JNUJ~I/(of 111s gorge in high water and low, as through ctory brloul), hzs CI(~ZIP?L/UTPYI~Z ~IIC Adrro~r- Aborlr, (in (irzliq~rrstrrl rngrcir~ingr!/'Ponn- the years the weather and the water dncks of c~nenll1e7 rln, krs p~onrr~rtrgo//o~l\ .\ylrrot~iri:cSrirokill Rir~rl-,cirfisl 1ir~krroriln. sllaped the rocks and the floods ground to tnkr Flor?dn tarpon on (I fly, ritrrl oflr~t Frot~/i.sf~ircr,fr.omJust Fishing Talk by out great potholes with their in-arching adue~ztlrrr~rn thr So~ltlrPncifit 171 /Ire 20%. C;j[fi)rd Pine1101 (N(77~York: Trlrgrr~plr rims. HC~P 1.5 (ha l(i\/ \to?? 171 Iuc book M.P. P rrs.r, 1 93 6). Century upon century of milleniums passed over the Sawkill and left it very discovered America were still vigorous And we didn't have to. We let nature much as they found it. At times great trees when the first Pinchot to set foot take its course, and, because we did not pines and hemlocks fell across the in Pennsylvania twitched his first trout press him, before he was ten Giff was stream, at times the rush of the torrent out of the Sawkill, and found it good. casting a workmanlike Hy. From then to after great rains moved them away to With him came his son, a boy of nine- now on more than one occasion he has new positions, to be moved agan ' or to teen, who the year before had been on brought back more trout than his in- disintegrate where they lay by the slow his way to join Napoleon's army as a re- structor and progenitor. And he loves action of the elements. cruit when the battle of Waterloo put an to fish about as much as I do. Now and again a sandbar changed its end to his soldiering. "Dad," said the fifth generation of place, a pool was deepened by a I'all of The son threw himself into the life of Pennsylvania Pinchots on a day when rock or shallowed by the cutting of a new his new country with the vigor which everything was right, "how about fishing channel. Great trout grew fat and lazy distinguished him. The tribes of pine this afternoon?" in the slow current of beaver dams, and and hemlock along many streams paid "I thought I would," said I. the full-fed water snakes sunned them- him tribute, with the years much land "Hot dog!" replied this worthy son of selves where countless forebears had passed into his keeping, and he pros- a slang-infested father. "What rod you coiled in comfort before them. pered and grew strong, while the Sawkill goin' to take?" When the redmen came, the life of the hurried and tarried on its never-ending "Well, I thought I'd take the two-and- brook changed, but only a little. For they march to the sea. three-eighths-ounce Leonard. There's were no slaughterers, but conservation- His son, my Father, was born and too much wind for the one-and-three- ists, blood and bone, and took no more grew up in the little village which oc- quarters." than the natural increase. Each family cupied the level plain between the Saw- "What Hy you goin' to use?" had its hunting grounds in which no kill and the Delaware, and in the days "A spider," said I. other family might hunt except for food when artificial Hies were yet unknown, "Hot dog!" said Giff again, out of the while passing through, and the penalty became so skillf~tlan angler with more limited objurgatory vocabulary of youth. for breaking that game law was some- natural bait that few fly fishermen I have So father and son settled the prelim- times death. known could match him. inary details, and when four o'clock Now and again through the centuries I in my turn became a lover of the came off we went in the open car, up a forest fire set by lightning swept one Sawkill and its sister little rivers, and un- over the hill behind the house, past the or the other bank, or maybe both, and der my Father's eye I learned the uses little red Schocopee schoolhouse where changed0 the lives of land and water of the worm. I took full manv a trout Rubia and I cast our votes at every elec- dwellers for a few or many generations. with it, and in due and early season grad- tion, to the brook I have been fishing for For uncounted ages the redmen uated to the wet Hy and the dry. more than fifty years. hunted on the Sawkill, and still the But my best performance with any Hy There we put our rods together, first greater and the lesser tribes of wood and was far below the high craftmanship of carefully anointing the ferrules by rub- stream lived with them, not one de- my Father's handling of a worm. bing them on our noses, as good fish- stroyed, not one dangerously reduced in When my son announced his partici- ermen do. Then we chose white and numbers by anything the Indians did. pation in the affairs of this world by the brown spiders, with long hackles and lit- Then came the change. barbaric yawp of infancy, his Mother tle hooks, out of my horn snuff box, with White men appeared. With new weap- and I destined him to be a fisherman. Napoleon's tomb carved in relief on the ons of destruction, new zeal for slaugh- Anxiously we waited for the time when cover; made sure that the barbs had ter, new appetite for conquest, they he might take his first trout, and take an been broken off with a pair of sharp- made new demands on nature for the interest in taking it. At the age of three, nosed pliers (we never fish for trout with means to live a new kind of life. With accordingly, we explained to him about barbed hooks any more); tied leaders to their coming the axe began to modify fishing, which dissertation he obviously spiders with the Turle Knot; and oiled the face of the earth, and the days of the failed to comprehend, and asked him if the hackles of our spiders with three wilderness were numbered. he wouldn't like to catch a tiny speckled parts of albolene to one of kerosene. The slow and uneventful march of the little trout. Then the war was on. centuries over the Sawkill changed al- Being, like other youngsters, ready to It was a good war, and a swift. Before most over night to the rush of oncoming try anything once, he assented-and the you could say Jack Robinson, Giff had civilization. The old order, grown out of cortege moved in solemn procession to a nine-inch native. Untouched by hu- thousands of generations of adjustment, the stream. It was no light matter. The man hand, back into the stream he went, and the old balance, painfully won son and heir was about to begin his ca- thanks to the debarbed hook, with through the life and death and inter- reer-atch his first fish. nothing but a little healthful exercise to necine struggles of myriad forms of life, So I hooked a trout, handed Giff the remember his adventure by. I always get suddenly found themselves powerless rod, and urged him to pull. He pulled; great satisfaction out of that. before a new and strange attack, against the trout struggled on the bank; and the Then no more rises for a while, until, which they had no time to develop a boy, casting an indifferent eye on what as the sun sank low, thick and fast they method of resistance. should have engaged his whole I.Q., came at last-the little to swim away un- The Indians gave way before it, and passed on with no interval whatever to hurt, and the less little to drop into the disappeared. The buffalo, the elk, and matters of greater juvenile interest. creel after they had been put to sleep the panther followed them. The pri- What a shock was there, my country- with the back of a jack-knife. We had all meval forests went down before the men! Rubia and I were struck with hor- we wanted long before it was time to need for houses and ten thousand other ror. I couldn't be consoled even by the quit. So we sat down on a log and held needs for wood. The white man was fact that I had just taken several trout a session on the State of the Union. reaping where he had not sown, and na- on a leader made by myself out of a "Dad, how long has this brook been ture paid the price of the better living, knotted succession of single strands of here?" asked Giff, after long pondering. the faster thinking, and the more stable Rubia's hair. Was it possible that the son So I told him, as best 1 could, and existence of the heirs of all the ages. of such parents could fail to love to fish? when we got home I tried to write it Hemlocks that overhung the riffles We couldn't believe it, and, what was down. And that's what you've been read-- and pools of the Sawkill when Columbus more, we didn't intend to stand it. ing. U NOTES & COMMENT Attention Please: Your Participation is Requested by David Klausmeyer DURINGTHIS PAST SUMMER, I took a trip its youth, could still turn a fish or two. in the true adaptive spirit of the pioneer, to the headwaters of the Rio Grande Of course, these fly patterns were these anglers soon devised flies that River in southern Colorado. This wa- born in England and the eastern United would better meet the conditions of the terway, known more for being a part of States. Not looking like any insect in par- Rio Grande, the Gunnison, the Frying the border between Mexico and the ticular, 01- perhaps because they suc- Pan, and those high, still beaver ponds? United States than for being an excellent cessfully imitated a wide variety of If only those anglers could have com- trout fishery (which it is), begins in a species, the anglers of' that day found municated with Mary Orvis Marbury ten valley bordered by the jagged, snow- these flies to be highly adaptable. What- or fifteen years later. What would those capped Continental Divide. 'I'he moun- ever the reason, they worked then, and letters have contained? tains of the Divide sweep up from the they work today. Unfortunately, with the passage of valley's grass- and aspen-covered floor, As I stood in the waist-high grass time a great deal of parochial angling with the gathering flow of the river emp- which led to the rims of those high history is being lost. Flies and special tying through a series of canyons to the mountain ponds, I wondered about the techniques that grow out of local, iso- East. early anglers. They were pioneers, not lated situations are being discarded in I, like just about every other angler just to the land, but to the formation of favor of those that are popularized by planning a trip, conduct at least a small the Western sporting tradition. At the the angling press. Now, I know the re- investigation into the insects I might en- time they exchanged letters with Mar- buttal to this: maybe those flies and their counter and the general characteristics bury, they were using the popular East- methods of use are being shunted aside of the different pieces of water I'll be ern Hy patterns, some of which may have in favor of better alternatives. fishing. I determined that the salmon heen bro~~ghtwith them when they set- Yes, in some cases this may definitely stonefly would be migrating to the shal- tled in Colorado. Yet why do I think that be true (my own fly boxes contain a sub- lows, and in the evening would crawl o~~t stantial number of patterns based on the onto handy rocks and branches to shed latest styles and employing a variety of their nymphal shucks. The water of'the synthetic materials). But even when this river, however, might still be a bit high is the case, it doesn't make those older and dingy from the snow melt. Both Hies and methods of angling any less turned out to be true. worthy of study and discussion. And be- I was told that higher up, well above sides, I don't believe all of us really do the larger main flow of the Rio Grande, approach our angling in so systematic a beaver ponds could add some real spice fashion. Let's face it: fads come and they to this trip. These ponds, slightly murky go. A lot of flies have been tossed in and with little flow, contained eager wastepaper baskets simply because some brook trout that were infatuated with author (and if you become a popular the Royal Wulff, various hopper pat- author, you get to be known as a "guru") terns, and just about any other dry fly said that another set of forgeries are that I cared to flop onto the water. And what this year's successful angler will be the grassy banks were a nice break from using. Yes, just like cars, boats and ways the rugged wading of the lower Rio. to invest money, some trout flies are con- But these trout were also receptive to sidered "sexy." the wet fly. The Leadwing Coachman, The only exception to this seems to be Brown Hackle, Gray Hackle ancl White in the world of salmon flies. The re- Miller are just a few that I tied onto the newed interest in the traditional pat- end of my leader. I found that these old terns for their sheer beauty, challenge tried and true favorites, recommended to dress and fascinating history, offers to Mary Orvis Marbury by Colorado an- renewed faith that not all anglers are caught up with the latest craze. Indeed, glers who fished that state's waters at a I;n,rn ,~~(I.YI~II. TAFF FALL 1990 19 seum of Fly Fishing is one of the greatest tributes to the fact that there is at least a small group of true piscators who are concerned with preserving our angling heritage. Livingston Stone, And it is with this concern in mind that I am asking you to get involved in a proj- ect which will allow you to both preserve and share the local traditions of your J. B. Campbell, own "home waters." What the AMFF and I are asking is and the quite simple, and yet will prove very enjoyable. Record, if you will, the recipes for the locally developed Hy patterns for the streams and rivers (and salt water) in your region. Every area, even the most popular fishing destination, has had creations of feather and fur which have gone overlooked, and yet played at Hatchery Rainbow Trout least a small role in the development of our sport. These flies will undoubtably have only local reputations, but due to their parochialism, will possess great charm and be of unique interest. by Robert Behnke Please also include a history (if known) of the fly or flies you submit, and if you would like, include an actual sample. Any actual flies you submit don't have to be original or true antiques, although original dressings are certainly welcon~e. I WAS PLEASED TO READ the article on Green (an assistant to Livingston Stone) If, on the other hand, you would prefer Livingston Stone, authored by Frank E. on "Campbell Creek" on Campbell's to submit a contemporary dressing of an Raymond, in the Spring 1990 issue of ranch. The propagation of McCloud old pattern, don't worry-this isn't a fly- The American Fly Fisher. I regard Liv- River rainbow trout by the U.S. Fish tying contest. Your new dressing doesn't ingston Stone as a role model for the Commission began in 1880, under the have to have that "professional look." fisheries profession. He was a decent, supervision of Myron Green on Crooks As space permits, the patterns for honorable man and a highly competent Creek (later, Green's Creek). these flies and their histories will be pub- pioneer fish culturist. He was also a man 5. The rainbow trout propagated lished in The American Fly Fkher or the of vision who recognized the limitations from the McCloud River was a mixture Greenheart Gazette, and proper credit will of artificial propagation to maintain the of a steelhead and a monanadromous be given to the angler making the sub- abundance of the salmon of the Pacific fine-scaled trout ("red-banded" trout of mission. And let me assure you that your Coast. He recommended that to ensure Livingston Stone). There never was a contributions will become a part of the the abundance of Sacramento salmon, "pure Shasta rainbow" in fish hatcheries; Museum's collection of historic angling the entire McCloud River drainage be it was a hybrid mixture from the start. artifacts. left in control of the native Wintun In- Thus, the common belief that all Just in case you're not sure what is dians to protect the virgin environment hatchery rainbow trout trace their being sought, let me give you a brief (a wilderness area set aside for native origins to the McCloud River is erro- example. In an article entitled "Under Americans and native salmon).' When neous. It is also erroneous that "pure" the Rhododendron Canopy," I de- this recommendation was unheeded, he McCloud or "Shasta" rainbows presently scribed several flies developed in the promoted the concept of a "National occur in Argentina or elsewhere as a re- Great Smoky Mountains of Southern Salmon Park" in Alaska.' sult of early stocking (an article in the Appalachia. Two of these, the Yellow- The historical information given in August, 1990 issue of the Ontis News tells hammer and the Clay Hart, enjoy great Mr. Raymond's article on Livingston of catching a "turbo-charged McCloud local reputations and yet are virtually Stone, J. B. Campbell, and the early rainbow" in Argentina). Besides the few unknown outside of the region. In this propagation of rainbow trout from the hundred thousand eggs taken and sold piece I described the recipes for making McCloud River reflects three major by Campbell and Green during 1877- these flies and gave, to the best of my points of error that have been thor- 1879, the propagation of McCloud River knowledge, their histories. There: a oughly incorporated into angling and rainbow trout by the U.S. Fish Commis- small piece of angling history preserved. fisheries literature during the past loo sion lasted from 1880 through 1888. You may contact me directly about years. I believe The American Fly Fisher is During these nine years, only 2,676,725 this project, or you may contact the Mu- an appropriate publication to document eggs were shipped. From about 1890 to seum. All contributions that I receive, the corrections of these errors. 1900, the U.S. Fish Commission found after careful recording and referencing, 1. The first rainbow trout propagated new, much more abundant sources of will be forwarded to the Museum for in fish hatcheries did not come from the rainbow trout eggs to ship to federal, inclusion in the collection. McCloud River, but from waters of the state, and private hatcheries in steelhead I hope that you are willing to join me San Francisco Bay area, propagated by runs from the Klamath, Willamette, and in this project. I know that you will enjoy the California Acclimatization Society Rogue rivers, Oregon, and from Red- participating in the preservation of our starting in 1870. wood Creek, California. It can be as- sport. [You may contact D. Klausmeyer 2. The first hatching of eggs of sumed that any hatchery stocks of directly at 1708 Branson Avenue, Knox- McCloud River rainbow trout was in McCloud River Trout were over- ville, Tennessee 379 17.1 1877 by J. B. Campbell and Myron whelmed by this massive infusion of 20 TAFF FALL 1990 steelhead eggs (the first shipment of Fish (;ommission began trout propaga- under the name of "California brook rainbow trout eggs to Argentina in 1 yo4 tion on the McClo~~tlKiver in 1880, pay- trout" in 1870. In the first years of op- consisted of "20,ooo steelhearl" ant1 ments by the California Fish e~-ation,eggs were taken from local wa- "50,000 irideus" (probably domesticated Comnlission fi)r Mc(;loutl River trout ters near San Francisco Bay such as San hatchery rainbows)." eggs were matle to 1. B. <:ampbell. Andreas Reservoir and San Pedro and Most of my information on the history Given the above facts, an investigative San Mateo brooks and hatched in the of rainbow trout propagation can be reporter might suspect something un- basement of City Hall and on the Berke- found in the reports of the U.S. Fish cle~-handedwas going on among federal ley campus of the University of Califor- Commission, starting with the first re- employees benefitting from the sale of nia (Strawberry Creek). Livingston port for 1872-1873 (especially the ac- trout eggs. Everything I have learned Stone gives an account of the Acclima- counts of the McCloud River operation about Livingston Stone, however, ar- tization Society's program in the 1872-73 by Livingston Stone) and the biennial gues against'hny impropriety. I suspect U.S. Fish Commission report (also reports of the California State Fish Com- that because Stone's charge from the fi)unct in biennial reports of the Cali- mission, beginning with the first report U.S. (:ommissioner of Fisheries, Spen- fornia State Fish Commission). The first for 1870-1871. These documents, sup- cer Bail-d, was to propagate salmon, he recorded shipment of rainbow trout plemented with other key references had to demonstrate the feasibility of eggs out of California was made in 1875 cited, allow for a relatively precise timing adding trout propagation to the salmon to Seth Green in New York (500 eggs of of the parental sources of rainbow trout propagation program at little or no ad- what Green called "California mountain first used in artificial propagation and ditional costs. To do this, Stone's assist- trout").' the dates of shipment out of California. ant, Myron Green, probably made Seth Green'.'." clearly made the dis- A gap in our knowledge concerns the arrangements to establish a trout hatch- tinction between "California mountain arrangements or business relationship ery with J. B. Campbell on Campbell's trout" and McCloud River rainbow between the U.S. Fish Commission as property as a trial run. This is specula- trout. He stated that the mountain trout represented by Livingston Stone and tion, however, and the type of business- (from California Acclimatization Soci- Myron Green and J. B. Campbell during professional relationship among Stone, ety) was first imported in 1875 and the the operation of Campbell's hatchery Green, and Campbell remains un- McClo~~dTrout (from "California state from 1877 through 1879 I have not known. hatching works at San Leandro") in found any mention of Campbell or his The mistaken belief that the first rain- 1878. Green believed the "mountain" hatchery in any of Stone's accounts in bow trout used in artificial propagation trout (from San Francisco Bay area) and the U.S. Fish Commission reports or was the Mc(:loud River rainbow is due the McCloud trout were two different other sources. Seth Green' stated that to the fact that during the 1870s what we species and that the McCloud trout was eggs of the McCloud River rainbow now consider as one species for all forms the "true rainbow troutn-thus, the be- trout were first procured from J. B. of rainbow trout was regarded as many lief that the McCloud rainbow was the Campbell in 1878 for Green's Caldonia, different species. In 1870, the California first ("true") rainbow trout used in fish New York, hatchery. For the years 1877, Fish Commission was established. A culture. The first large brood stock and 1878, and 1879, the reports of the Cali- group of citizens formed the California first massive production of fry for wide- fornia Fish Commission list payments of Acclimatization Society to get a hatchery scale stocking, however, was with the $182, $128, and $200, respectively, to program established until responsibili- original Bay area rainbow trout estab- Myron Green for McCloucl River trout ties could be taken over by the State Fish lished at the Caldonia, New York, hatch- eggs. Did Green turn these payments Commission. The Acclimatization Soci- ery. over to J. B. Campbell? After the U.S. ety hatched the first rainbow trout eggs Mr. Raymond quotes from a 1946 ar- TAFF FALL 1990 2 1 ticle by J. H. Wales on J. B. Campbell salmon and all of the then-unknown species of Pa- and trout propagation. The original cific salmon were all "salmon," it was believed that different species of a "generic salmon" were inter- Museum paper by Wales on the McCloud River changeable and eggs of Pacific salmons could be was published in 1939 in California Fish obtained at much less cost and in much greater and Game 25(4). Wales' statement that numbers than could the eggs of Atlantic salmon. Giftshop J. B. Campbell sent McCloud trout eggs I 892. Transactions of the American Fisheries So- 1 ciety. Stone was one of the five founders of the to Seth Green in 1874 is an error that American Fish Culturist Association in 1870 (later, has been institutionalized in the fisheries the Am. Fish. Soc.). At the 1892 meeting Stone cor- literature. For example, MacCrimm~n,~rectly predicted the doom of salmon in the McCloud and called for a national salmon park to be estab- citing Wales (1939) as his authority, lished in Alaska. wrote: "Rainbow trout were first intro- ' H. R. MacCrimmon. i 971. World distribution of duced outside their native range in 1874, rainbow trout. Journal of the Fisheries Research when S. Green transferred a small con- Board of Canada. 28(5):663-704. " Seth Green. I 880. Transactions of the American signment of eyed eggs from the Mc- Fish Culturists Association. Comments made at Cloud River to his hatchery at Caldonia, ninth annual meeting on propagation of California New York" . . . "From 1874 to 1879, all mountain trout and McCloud River rainbow trout. rainbow trout shipped outside of their ' I 88 I. U.S. Fish Commission Bulletin, vol. I. native range were of stock collected by Green's comments on p. 23, similar to above. " 1886. Amrlirnn Angler, May I 3. Green stated that Our popular J. B. Campbell." It is clear from the rec- on May q. 1878, he obtained 150 McCloud River t-shirts are made of 100%) ords of the California Fish Commission trout fry at <:alifornia state hatching works at San pre-shrunk cotton in the USA. and from Seth Green's testimony that Leandro donated by J. G. Woodbury, Superintend- Specify color (navy or cream), and the first rainbow trout eggs shipped to ent. He arrived at his Caldonia, N.Y.. hatchery with I 1:3 live fish on May 16. This shipment, Green be- size (S, M, L, XL). $10 each, plus his Caldonia hatchery occurred in 1875 lieved, was "first of this variety ever brought to east- $1.50 postage and handling. and these eggs were from San Francisco ern states." Green received 7,200 eggs in 1879 and Bay area rainbow trout. The first record 6.078 eggs in 1880 of McCloud trout, sent by J. B. of McCloud River trout eggs received by (:amphell. ' P. R. Needham and R. J. Behnke. 1962. The the California Fish C:ommission is 1877 origin of hatchery rainbow trout. Progressive Fish ($182 paid to Myron Green for 45,000 Culturist 24(4):156-158 eggs). This timing agrees with remarks These beautiful made by J. B. Campbell in the December 10-oz. double 2 1, 1882 issue of Foresl and Stream that, old-fashioned "I have been engaged in fish culture for &. ; . - .;A glasses are made seven years." If holding ponds and ' of hefty 24% lead hatching facilities were constructed on crvstal and Campbell's property in 1876 to take orge deeply etched with the museum's spawn in 1877 (peak spawning of rain- logo and slogan. $47.50 for a set of bow trout occurred in February on wson four, plus $4 postage and McCloud), then by late 1882, Campbell handling. would have been in his seventh year of fish culture. In 1962, the late Paul Needham and I published a paper pointing out the fact that, contrary to the common belief that the original rainbow trout propagated bv Livin~stonu Stone on the McCloud River was a resident (nonanadromous) fbrm, most of the eggs and sperm ac- tually came from McCloud River steel- head.' I thought it about time the record was corrected on other issues concern- SOMEOF YOU, new to the Museum's Our pewter pin (left), ing the origin of hatchery rainbow trout. ranks, may wonder about the identity of measures 1"h x '/z"w and features A final correction concerns the intro- the man holding a fly rod in the en- our logo in silver on an olive-green duction of shad into the Sacramento graving that serves as the American Mu- background. Our fully embroi- River. Livingston Stone's 1873 introduc- seum of Fly Fishing's logo and that dered patch (3l/zVhx 3"~)~is silver tion was not the first. Seth Green suc- prefaces each article in this journal. The and black on a Dartmouth Green cessfully transported shad to California flyfisherman depicted is a Scotsman twill background. Both are $5 in 1871. named George Dawson (18 I 3-1 883),who each, plus $1 postage and was a trenchant political writer, news- handling. ENDNOTES paper editor, author of Pleasures of An- gling with Rod and Reel for Trout and ' Livingston Stone. 1874. Report of operations Salmo?~(1876), and outdoorsman. His during 1872 at the United States hatching establish- obituary called him "a ready, wise, dan- ment on the McCloud River, and on the California gerous writer," but it is for his love of Please make checks and money Salmonidae generally, with a list of specimens col- orders payable to: The American lected. U.S. Fish Commission Report for 1872 and nature that we like to remember him, Museum of Fly Fishing, and send 1873, appendix B VI:l68-200. NO one knew what and for the very fine quality of the en- to: AMFF, P.O. Box 42, Manches- species of salmon (it was the chinook or king salmon) graving by artist T.B. Thorpe. In the occurred in the McCloud River, much less the spe- publication office of the Museum, Mr. ter, VT 05254. Mastercard, Visa, cies of trout. The main reason Stone was sent to and American Express accepted. California to obtain salmon eggs by the U.S. Fish Dawson is more than a symbol, he has Call 802-362-3300. Conlmission was to stock Atlantic Coast rivers in an become family. We call him, simply, effort to restore "salmon." Because the Atlantic "George." M.P. 22 TAFF FALL 1990 A FRUITFUL SUMMER:the Museum is to 1800 square feet, addition of a pub- In thanking Elizabeth Johnson, pres- awarded two important grants, and lications office and reception/exhibits/ ident of the Samuel S. Johnson Foun- launches a major fund drive, The Cam- giftshop area, expansion of the library. dation, Museum Executive Director Don paign for the American Museum of Fly Also in the plans is the creation of an Johnson announced that the Founda- Fishing: "Preserving a Rich Heritage for audio/visual area, a children's interpre- tion grant would be utilized in devel- Future Generations." A new computer tive area and aquarium. oping educational programming at the system is installed and plans for the ren- Museum and in helping to expand the 0 EQUIPMENT/FURNISHINGS:Full com- Museum's traveling exhibits program. ovation and expansion of the Museum puterization, including hardware and are finalized. The IMS award, a Museum Assess- software, laser printer, desktop publish- ment Program I1 (MAP 11) grant, is the ing capability, new exhibition cases, au- third IMS grant awarded to AMFF in diolvisual components, new furnishings the last five years. The Museum was AMFF Cam ai n for meeting room and staff areas. awarded a Map I grant in 1985, and an Objectives 8ut f; ined 0 ENDOWMENT:$25,000 endowment IMS Conservation Survey grant in 1988 Members of the Museum's Develop- which will provide the capacity and flex- The MAP I1 program will enable AMFF ment Committee met near Aspen, Col- ibility necessary to meet the expanding to acquire the services of a professional orado, for four days in July to finalize and future needs of the Museum. This museum surveyor who will perform a plans for the Campaign for the Ameri- resource helps to insure the highest holistic survey of AMFF's collections can Museum of Fly Fishing: "Preserving quality of service for the fulfillment of management policies and practices. a Rich Heritage for Future Genera- the mission and goals of the organization MAP 11, like MAP I and the IMS Con- tions." Essentially, the campaign has two as a stable financial foundation. It is the servation Survey, is considered a pre- goals: to improve and expand the Mu- difference between excellence and me- requisite for attaining national museum seum's Manchester, Vermont, facility diocrity. Purposes and restrictions for accreditation. and to create an endowment. the application of endowed funds may More specifically, the objectives of the include use in educational programs, year-long campaign, officially launched capital needs, acquisitions, research pro- AMFF Exhibit at Carter in mid-September, are: gramming, staff appointments, and youth programs. The ultimate goal of Library and Museum 0 RENOVATION/EXPANSION:Major ren- endowed funds is to meet the needs of ovation of the Museum's interior spaces, We've recently added yet another mu- the institution and the interests of the seum, in this case the Jimmy Carter Pres- expansion of exhibition areas from 1000 donor(s). idential Librarv and Museum in Atlanta, In announcing the start of the cam- Georgia, to the list of institutions due to paign, Development Committee Chair- host AMFF exhibitions in 1991.As many man Bruce Begin, an AMFF trustee and of our readers are already aware, Pres- THE CAMPAIGN FOR Director of Development at Proctor ident Carter and his wife Rosalynn, are THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF FLY FISHING: Academy in Andover, New Hampshire, skilled and, according to AMFF Presi- "Pv<.,,,~,,,,V,, R, days of tt~ef/in&s((en(/ Ji~hit~g) it1 ttlidg~/y1 qj0 (it frrcstee Lni1i.s Borrfm:s ho~tiefll Trrc.stec G. U~ckI;irrl(r~ !/or(,grotrte(/) otld J. the Rnnc11 at Roaring Fork tiear Basalt, Colorado. Leff to rigllt: Lezois Borden Ill, Barton Cnn~er(rigllt) ~11o7ile(/zrisitol~ 7ilitl1 Artlt~trStern, Exec~cliz~eDirector Don Joh~~son,Forresl Straiglil, Bruce Begin, Peter their casting expertise at oier firsf Annirnl Corbin, and Wallace Mlrrq Ill. Mzrsez~mFestiz~al, June i 990. M':~ll;~r.eM urn\. I1 I , .. . .. ---.;lli=" ii- Alanna Firhcr Y Tr11.st~oArttrrir Slrrtr 4 l 0z~rpainterlsz~rgeon, Dr. Bob McLellan of Boston, Massncli~csetts, applying a fresh coat o/'paint to tl~e Mwezrm's gallery spaces in prep- aration for John Szuan9.s "Time On the Water" exhibition. Alanna Fisher at the Museum fi:'di/o~.itr smrch qfte rlt,sk. Mnrgol Pagt~zrc!orkitrg 011 c.o/y rtt tht~ hltr.cc~~tm'.v rolleclions mnnc~gemrtrIcrrea. Sornr I!/ thr Rl rtsrlr nr :s grozoing rod coll(~cfioncrnd librteq can br sertz in thr backgro~cnd. Alann;~Fisher ~\lrcr.\i~rrttrc.ro.trlor /Ilretrrro I.'i.\/rc~t/)rtllitt,q IIrc /rni.v/ritrg torrclr~.vo?r our "Ho~t~In~~~~o~It1 hliclligrrn" clxlrihil. TIINI'sI~~ISIBP Fo.c.1~). H(II~I qf Grrrnzi~irl~,(,'on n~rlic~tl,/)roz~i(ling t,x/)~rl s~rprn]i.sion. 011 llrt, orid id . . . illrc.\(,ron dirrclor Don Joh~z.son(lef!) anrl nrrclionrrr- Lvwmn Fo.\.v cerranging a?rclion items for /he M~r.vr~rrrr~vr&orrl-sc~~ing dinnrrlrrrec/io,r hrlrl in Ma? 1990 ref Ilrr Clrrrgrin Vrrllr? Htrnl Clrtb, Gn/r.c Mills, Ohio. Alal~n;~Fisher Esrr~r/trl(,1)rrc~c.Iot. 1)otr Jolrtr.\otr /)tr.\c,~rlr~l,\l~r\c.cotr T-s1rirl.s mnrl pius lo z~i,vilo,:\ Clrcerl(~.~(slo trrlitrg) re trrl PmI 0nri.c (s~rttrd)Ma? 1990. Clrrrrlr,~crnrl Pnl, tl~~.c.erndrenl.~ of tlrr firmil? zillriclr /o~rn(ledII~P jiemed Ot-r!i.c Compreny itr Manchrstrr, Vrrmonl, in 1856, zorrr in lorcln lo Iicl/) cel~hrntrthe Vrrrnont Bic~ntrn~rirel. Crenrrdinn rc~r~ho,%scholrrrRichard C. HoJ(rrnann nntl zo+r Ellrn r !i.silcrl the Mrt.srrrwr last Jlrly. Ricl~rerrlis srrlr hrre t~crwrirrir~g(1 z~olronrfrow~ our lrrrgr Azr.slin Hogren Collfclion. A Treasury of Reels J The Fishing Reel Collection of The American Museum of Fly Fishing text by Jim Brown photographs by Bob O'Shaughnessy Over 200 black and white photos Large 8%"x11" format - over 285 pages of individual reels Four-color dust jacket More than 75 historic illustrations All proceeds benefit the museum Printed on acid-free paper Comprehensive bibliography and index The American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, Ver- museum's substantial reel holdings. Each reel is fully identified, mont, has one of the largest and finest public collections of fly dated, and described, and more than 200 of the more important reels in the world. Its collection of more than 750 reels includes a examples are expertly photographed by Bob O'Shaughnessy. The significant number of baitcasting, surfcasting, deep-sea, trolling, result is a volume that should appeal to all anglers, interested in and spinning reels as well. Here for the first time this giant collec- the history of their sport and most particularly to the growing tion is brought before the public in its entirety. number of reel collectors. Antique, classic, and modem reels are all represented. Reels Jim Brown is a librarian who lives and works in Stamford, owned by presidents, entertainers, novelists, and angling Connecticut. His first book, Fiskillg Reel P~teiztsof the United States: luminaries as well as reels owned and used by everyday anglers 1838-1940, is now widely accepted as a standard reference work are brought together in this richly diverse collection spanning in the field. nearly two centuries of British and American reelmaking. Bob O'Shaughnessy is a Boston-based photographer who has The book begins with a lengthy introductory essay on the worked in the advertising business for the past 30 years. He is history of the fly reel that traces the origin of the fishing reel and past president of the New England chapter of the American Soci- subsequent development and evolution of the fly reel from earliest ety of Magazine Photographers and a member of the Fly Casters times. This is followed by a comprehensive catalog of the of Boston and the Atlantic Salmon Federation. ...... a. e...... CLIPANDMAILTODAY...... Yes! 1 do want to order A TREASURY OF REELS directly from the Museum. (Order one for a friend, too!) signedand numbered limited-edition copies at $50.00 each Postage and handling $5.00 Total My check to the American Museum of Fly Fishing is enclosed. Please bill my Mastercard Visa American Express card. CARD # EXP. DATE SIGNATURE worn by the Arditi and the Alpini troops honored by being named to the National in Italy during World War I. I also saw Freshwater Hall of Fame in Hayward, a home movie of Ernest Hemingway Wisconsin. LETTERS fishing off Key West in which he was There is one minor error in my bi- wearing the same hat. ography on page 28. I was born and I had occasion back in the late 1970s raised in South Dakota, not North. I re- to interview the Horton Bay people who call that one of the gals I met at the knew Hemingway. I learned a lot about customary Saturday night dance at the Hemingway Fan them, not much about Ernie. Trianon Ballroom in Chicago expressed My students who fly fish are forever wonder why I did not talk like I was from Really enjoyed the Summer 1989 issue asking me why in his stories and novels the South, and said so in the best possible of The American Fly Fisher. It's an admi- his characters almost always seem to use imitation of a Scarlet O'Hara dialect that rable magazine: clean, strong design; bait rather than flies. Hoppers in "Big could be managed by a Back 'o The entertaining, literate writing. You're to Two-Hearted River," worms in The Sun Yards Irish woman which she was. Her be congratulated. Also Rises, and even a salamander once knowledge of U.S. Geography was a bit The Hemingway article you put to- in "Now I Lay Me"-and I tell them he amiss. gether was absolutely fascinating. It was does it to catch fish. Wilson Harris [a Best regards; plans for the future of interesting to read that he caught a character in The Sun Also Rises-Ed.] the Museum are exciting. grayling; I thought they disappeared gives Jake some flies he has tied, but Frank Raymond from the Lower Peninsula of Michigan thinking back over the fiction I can't re- Redding, California by 1916. I was going to do a story on the call any of his characters using them. Fox River for another publication a cou- Paul Smith French Info on Dickerson ple of years ago, but it fell through (I'm South Glastonbzily, Connecticz~t almost grateful, considering that the I greatly enjoyed the article on Lyle L. Dickerson in the Spring 1990 issue of outfitter wanted me to come in May, at Paul Smith, ruho teaches at Trinity College, the peak of the blackfly season). The American Fly Fisher. In my youth I Connecticut, was recently elected to the Board knew "Dick" quite well, as he lived not I also visited the Hemingway Room at of Directors The H~mingraaySociety. the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library very far from my parents' home in De- troit's East Side. last summer. I mentioned I was re- More Hemingway searching a story, so they let me have I bought my first rod from Dick in access to a photocopied original of "Big I excitedly picked up The American Fly 1936 or thereabouts. It was an 8014 as I Two-Hearted River," not to mention Fisher and was truly impressed by your recall, later traded for a three-piece rod that favorite from my prurient adoles- presentation of the Hemingway diary (not a Dickerson, alas!) for easier carry- cence, "Up In Michigan . . . ." How ex- along with your editorial preface page ing in travel. A year or so later Dick traordinary. Tom Daz~is and accompanying article. The photo- made a seven-and-a-half-foot rod for my Bailey's Harbor, Wisconsin graphs, map and drawings were great brother. Both of these would show in the touches that took me back in time. Con- ledger, I imagine. gratulations on a great Hemingway is- The next rod Dick made for me was sue. Scot! F. Schwar, Chairman another 8014, which also should be The Ernest Heminpay Fo~rndation noted in his ledger. And in the late 60s of Oak Park he made an extra tip for a two-piece, eight-foot Payne rod for me, which I still We were rather hoping one o/'ozcr readers Reader7 uushzng more znforrnat~on on The have. I also had an 8013, acquired in wozcld conlment on "He?nin,gway'sgrayling." Erne~tHemzngway Fo~~ndatzonof Oak Park, 1975, recently traded to a French collec- Ernest was tutored in the natt~ml.science.s by can ZU~Llo Scott at P.O. Box 2222, Oak tor for a Bedford rod. My brother's his father, Dr. Clarence Hemin,gwq, and Park, Illznozs, 60303. The Foundatzon IS a seven-and-a-half-foot rod is now owned having spent his boyhood s1tmmer.s in north- chartered, non-profit organ~zatzonruhzch by a nephew in Sault Ste. Marie, On- ern Michigan he was undoubtedly well ac- pz~bluher "The Hemzngruay Dzspatch." The tario, Canada. I doubt if this data will quainted with the region4 jlora and fauna. Fo~tndatzon's ultzw~ategoal zs to establ~sha be useful in tracing extant Dickerson One could assume that Hemin~rvay knew Hern~~zgwayCenter In one of the two Hem- rods, but if so I shall be very happy. what a grayling looked like. Or did he? Most zn,pay boyhood homes zn Oak Park. George E. Beall az~thorities[see Recollections of My Fifty Anglet, France Years Hunting and Fishing by Willinn1 B. And Yet More Hemingway Mershon (Stratford Company, Boston, MA, I have read your article with the great- You're Welcome 1923) and Awtin Hogan's The Historic est interest, and think it should be pub- I would like to thank the entire Mu- American Grayling (The American Fly lished in The Hemingruay Reuiew, SO all the seum staff for making the first Museum Fisher, Winter, 1975)] agree that the puy- members of the Hemingway Society Festival Weekend on June 1-3 a very ling disappeared front the Lower Peninsltla could enjoy it. Reading the diary was a memorable event for me and all those by the early 1 900's. One wonders, then, zf a thrill-there must be so many things still who participated. I felt honored to have small, remnant population existed in Bear unpublished by Herningway. taken part, and thank you for inviting Creek when Heminpuayfished there in 1916, Ove G. Suensson me. William Chandler or did Heminpay .simply confuse the gray- Ekshamdsgatan 83, I tr Burlington, Vermont ling with another fish? Perhaps our readers S-123 46 Farsta Sweden will help us solrle this con~~ndrum?D.S.J. Southern Booboo The Hat Again The American Fly Fisher welcomes letters This week I received the Spring 1990 and commentary from its readers. Please ad- You're the expert on those photos (see issue of The American Fly Fisher and am dress correspondence to Editor, TAFF, P.O. "Letters," Spring 1990), although I still very pleased with your treatment of my Box 42, Manchester, Vermont 05254. All wonder about that hat-it looks very story about Livingston Stone. It seems letters are subject to publication unless oth- much like the dress hat (without feather) appropriate that also this year Stone was enuise specified. CONTRIBUTORS Dr. Robert J. Behnke is a professor in the Department of Fishery and Wildlife Biology at Colorado State University and serves as a cooperator with the Larvel Fish Laboratory. He is a world-renowned ichthyologist and expert on the systematics and biology of trout, salmon, and related fishes (family Salnionidae). He has thirty-five years of experience with fishes and fishery concerns throughout much of the northern hemisphere. In addition David R. Klausmeyer holds degrees to publication of over fifty technical in English (B.A.) and Political Science articles, chapters, and books, prepara- (M.A.) from Oklahoma State Univer- tion of numerons reports and presen- sity. He was formally a management tations, and services as a referee for development specialist with the Uni- many journals, Dr. Behnke also serves versity of Tennessee. Dave now makes as Senior Translations Editor fbr Rus- fine cane rods on a full-time basis, and sian fisheries translations by Scripta is actively involved in Trout Unlimited. 'I'echnica. Aside fi-om his academic re- He regularly speaks to TU and FFF sponsibilities, Dr. Behnke is a private chapters and appears at fly shops to consultant and advisor on fishery and talk about cane rod construction related environmental concerns. throughout the eastern United States. Dave. wife Barbara and his two chil- dren~rikand Sandra live in Knox- ville, Tennessee. Ralph Moon spent his career with the Social Security Administration in southern Utah, for which he has writ- ten a weekly newspaper column for fifteen years. His articles have ap- peared in Fly Fishn-man, Flyfishing the West, The AIIIPTIC~?~Fly Fkher, and Fly- fishing NEWSViezi~s & Re71ie7u.~. He is cur- rently an editorial advisor and book reviewer fbr Flyfi~her,and editorial as- sociate for Fl~fislii7zgNPIOS Vieua & RP- ~~irzo~c. He is a member of the Executive Richard C. Hoffmann is Associate Board of the Federation of Fly Fishers, Professor and Chair of' the Depart- President of the Western Rocky Moun- ment of History at York University in tain Council of the FFF, Curator of North York, Ontario. His specialty is the Federation's International Fly Fish- social and economic history of medie- ing Center, a member of the ~oardof val and early modern Europe. A fly Directors of the Henry's Fork Founda- fisher of twenty years' experience, he tion, and a member of a number of was National President of Trout Un- on early English records of fly fishing other fly fishing clubs and conservation limited Canada during 1985-87, and in and on the (re)discovered Spanish organizations. 1981 received from the Izaak Walton tract of 1539 by Fernando Basurto Fly Fisherman's Club its Haig-Brown gained him the Museum's own Austin Award for "outstanding achievements Hogan Award in 1985 and the 1986 in fish habitat conservation." Gregory Clark Award of the Izaak His articles in The American F~JFi.~hrr Walton Fly Fisherman's Club. Untitlrrl origi~1nldrrtuling 1)y Tommy Brrtysl~nzo (I886- I 967). n co~ltrr~l/)orct~~rind goor1 Ji-iend uf Rorlrrick Hnig-Broz~111,rord rt rioted nrtist, rooorl cn~71~r.,fly tier, rod 1)11ilrl1~r[1?1rl co~z~~ers(ttio~z(rli.~t. From lllr rnllectio~rs?fl/rr Arnrrican M~isr~tmof Flv Fislrin~. The Collection That Keeps Growing EVERYDAY is like <:hristmas at of which are now part of the Museum's pedia in the early gos, as viewed in an 1 the Museum, with our collection permanent collection. old home movie recently donated to the growing dramatically over the In our next issue, we plan to offer a Museum-written by our great writer1 last two years. Fortunately, the special journal detlicated to the world of friend, Robert F. Jones. We also look responsibility of managing and salmon fishing, as an adjunct to the forward to presenting a perspective on monitoring this assemblage of opening of our Salmon Exhibition in early salmon reels byJim Brown, and an rods, reels, flies, and other tackle I 99 1 . ?'he Spring Arnrricrrn Fly Fisher will excerpt from Trey Combs' upcoming is now in the more-than-capable hands feature a pictorial essay illustrating the book on steelhead fishing. B As always, it's encouraging to see so of our curator, Alanna Fisher. During outstanding salmon-related components the summer, Alanna and Doug Mc- of our collection and a journalistic win- many manuscripts arriving at our door. Combs, the Museum's summer intern, dow on a past world-a trip to one of We'll have much to offer our readers in catalogued hundreds of new objects, all the grand salmon camps on the Pata- the months ahead. D.S.J. The American Museum of Fly Fishing JOIN! ance, and the International Association of' Sports Museums and Halls of Fame. The following back issues of The Membership Dues (per annum*) We are a nonprofit, educational insti- American Fly Fislwr are available at $4 Associate* $25 tution chartered under the laws of the per copy: Sustaining* $50 state of Vermont. Volume 5, Numbers 3, 4 Patron* $250 Volume 6, Numbers I, 2, 3, 4 Sponsor* $500 As an independent, nonprofit institu- Volume 7, Numbers 2, g, 4 I Corporate* $ 1000 tion, the American Museum of Fly Volume 8, Number g Life $1500 Fishing must rely on the generosity of Volume 9, Numbers 1, 2, g Volume lo, Number 2 Membership dues include the cost of a public-spirited individuals for substan- Volume I I, Numbers 1, 2, g, 4 subscription ($20) to The Awrrricnn F[v tial support. We ask that you give our Volume 12, Number 1 Fisher and to the Greenlteart Grtzrtte. institution serious consideration when planning for gifts and bequests. Volume 13, Number g Please send your application to the Volume 14, Numbers I, 2 membership secretary and include Volume 15, Numbers 1, 2 your mailing address. The M~~seumis Volume 16, Numbers 1, 2 a member of the American Association Summer hours (May I through of Museums, the American Association October 31) are lo to 4. Winter hours of State and Local History, the New (November 1 through April 30) are England Association of Museums, the weekdays lo to 4. We are closed on Post Office Box 42, Manchester, Vermont Museum and Gallery Alli- major holidays. Vermont 05254. 8021362-3300