Fly tiers ask me how they can receive credit for originating a new pattern, an excellent question best answered by a tale of two flies.

My part in the story began in 1992, when an Atlantic salmon fly in a glass-covered frame stopped me in my tracks at the Port-Menier airport on Anticosti Island in Quebec. As I recall, a tier originated it circa 1913, and that one in the display on the wall had a huge hook.

The fly’s dressing looked identical to a Black Ghost streamer, a Maine invention with a worldwide reputation. The sole difference was the wings, and even then, the materials looked close, because the Black Ghost sported white saddle hackles and the Canadian design white hair.

Herbert L. Welch of Oquossoc invented the Black Ghost at the Boston Sportsman’s Show in 1927, and like the Canadian fly, his dressing included yellow hackle for the tail and throat, black-floss body, silver ribbing and jungle-cock eyes.

In the decades since, white hair for a Black Ghost wing has become rather common, perhaps the third option for this recipe. The original choice, saddle hackle, would be the first, followed by marabou.

In my humble opinion, Welch never knew about the Canadian salmon fly. I’m an amateur fly-fishing historian and had never known about the Atlantic-salmon fly myself until 1992.

Since then, I have lost the name of the Canadian fly and its inventor and can’t find the information on the Internet. In short, even though Welch created his fly some 14 years later, the Canadian tier who first developed the pattern is obscure in the annals of fly-fishing history.

Why did the Black Ghost become so well known when the Anticosti fly is just a curiosity to someone such as myself?

Three factors help explain this phenomenon:

• Herbert Welch had earned a reputation as a master taxidermist, fly tier, angler and fly-fishing speaker at large sportsman’s shows. In those years, he was one of America’s most highly regarded fly rodders.

• Welch also lived in the Rangeley region, and back in the 1920s, fly fishers from across the world and from all economic levels trekked to this name destination for its salmonid treasures.

• On the other hand, the Canadian tier spent his time on Anticosti Island, a somewhat well known spot for wealthy clients who could afford sport there. In those days, though, it had limited angling traffic compared to the Rangeley area.

Big-name fly rodders — guides, writers, fly-shop owners, activists and so forth — have much better chances to get credit for patterns, but that’s not to say a relatively unknown tier cannot hit the big time with a fly.

In 1985, Jerry Partridge originated a variation of Joe’s Smelt that had a pearl-piping body rather than silver piping, and anglers in the Belgrade Lakes named it “Jerry’s Smelt.”

Partridge sent samples to Maine Sportsman magazine columnists, national magazine writers and book authors, a ploy that worked. Since then, I’ve seen Jerry’s Smelt mentioned in national magazines and fly-fishing publications. Dick Stewart also put it in “Flies for Trout” and Tom Fuller did in “Underwater Flies for Trout.”

Sometimes, folks tell me they came up with the pearl-body variation first, which makes me smile. Even Partridge didn’t say he did it first, but he surely beat others at promoting it — or Jerry’s Smelt wouldn’t have been in all those publications.

Through the history of fly-tying, folks like Partridge have made slight variations to flies and became famous. Following are two perfect examples:

In the 1890s, Theodore Gordon of New York originated the Quill Gordon dry fly, and then, in 1915, Roy Steenrod of New York changed the body from a stripped peacock herl quill to dubbed fox-belly fur and named it the Hendrickson, after his buddy, A.E. Hendrickson. Then in 1933, Art Flick of New York changed the fur-dubbed body to a stripped red game-cock quill and named the dry fly a Red Quill.

Except for the bodies, all three flies have the exact same dressing. Despite the incredible similarities, I have never heard anyone say, “Steenrod copied Teddy’s fly,” or “Flick copied Roy’s fly.”

In the last 20 years, tiers in the West have dominated U.S. fly tying, which brings up a point about the more modern patterns. Besides the tiers being well known and living in a famous fishing region, Western tiers are coming up with flies that imitate specific insects and bait fish.

Once, Eastern tiers had a corner on this match-the-hatch concept, and names such as Flick, Jennings, Schwiebert, Marinaro, Swisher, Richards, Caucci and Nastasi pop to mind.

Copying natural forage appeals to 21st-century minds because many serious fly fishers live and breathe scientific approaches. Matching the hatch rules now, so innovative tiers lean toward that approach.

It’s no longer good enough to come up with a pretty feather combination that creates a fly that looks like nothing under the sun. Successful tiers create an impressionistic imitation of a natural food.

Exceptions exist, but don’t they always.

Ken Allen of Belgrade Lakes is a writer, editor and photographer. He can be contacted at:

KAllyn800@yahoo.com

 

Copy the Story Link