I recently added a couple new items to my product page at MyFlies.com, and I wanted to share these items with my readers. The items are Boxed Collector’s Sets of paired classic wet flies. The first to go up was the Silver Doctor and Golden Doctor, then a couple weeks later, this past weekend actually, the second set was posted – The Parmacheene Belle and the Trout Fin. All four are classic wet flies that were (or could also be) classic Lake Flies. In fact only the Trout Fin is not confirmed by my research as an authentic historic or heritage-style “Lake Fly,” but I believe that pattern, sent to Ray Bergman in the mid-1940′s by Bert Quimby of South Windham, Maine, for inclusion in Ray’s fourth book, With Fly, Plug, and Bait, 1947, is of Maine origin and was probably fished in lakes. So there you go. Classic logical conclusion arrived at by deduction of the facts.

These wet fly sets are actually what got me started on the path to being more or less a professional fly tier. I started selling them back in the mid-nineties when I was doing shows as an exhibitor; selling tying materials, flies, fly selections, hooks, tackle accessories, and – boxed pairs, sets of classic wet flies. Back then they were not even called “classic wet flies” because the term had not yet caught on, and I was about the only tier, or one of the few fly tiers around even tying those old “forgotten” brook trout patterns. It’s like at one time, Classic Rock music was just “rock music.” So these old “classic” wet flies were at one time, just “wet flies.”

I had sent the first set of the “Doctors” to a customer in Canada. Then I got another order just last week for a customer in Australia, which could be another story in and of itself, but suffice it to say that it’s amazing to think there are classic salmon and trout fly tiers in the land Down-Under. Bob Frandsen for one that I can think of; member of http://www.classicflytyingforum.com and TheStreamerList.com. (That reminds me of Men at Work, a favorite classic rock band from Australia. I love The Essential Men at Work, it’s one of my favorite CD’s).

So back to doctors in the house – the Silver Doctor was published in Favorite Flies and Their Histories, 1892, by Mary Orvis Marbury. Not once, not twice, but four times. The first Silver Doctor in Marbury’s book is among the Salmon Flies, then there are three different versions included on the Plates of Lake Flies, the Orvis version, and two more patterns of the Doctor, designed by Henry P. Wells, creator of the Parmacheene Belle, and J. G. Shearer. The Golden Doctor is not as well known as the Silver Doctor, but it is mentioned in Marbury’s book, dating it to the 19th century, certifying its probable use as a fancy Lake Fly pattern.

Here are some photos of the patterns:

Silver Doctor – Don Bastian pattern variation. Dressed on a #4 Mustad 3906 vintage wet fly hook. I added the jungle cock cheek for extra appeal. The basic pattern – tail, tag, tip, body, hackles came from Trout, by Ray Bergman.

This pattern of the Silver Doctor is included in my second DVD, Advanced Classic Wet Flies, though that version has a slightly simpler five-strip wing. I got the idea for these original wing-quill versions of the Silver Doctor by examining commercially-tied Silver Doctor wet flies in The Maine Guide Fly Shop, in Greenville, Maine, about ten years ago. Those patterns were tied with duck wing quills, simply yellow and blue, married together. Up until then I had always tied the Silver Doctor using flank feathers of teal, barred wood duck in some cases, and mottled turkey or bustard, along with goose shoulder for the red, blue, and yellow. Seeing those simple quill-wing versions got me thinking; why not use more durable wing quill slips in place of the harder-to-use – not to mention grading and selecting – and less durable flank feathers? I used plain brown goose for turkey, and guinea fowl for a replacement for the black and white teal feathers. The rest was plain old goose and duck wing quill sections, readily available and easy to marry.

Here is the Golden Doctor:

Golden Doctor – dressed and photographed by Don Bastian. The hook is a Mustad #4 vintage 3906. This pattern recipe is the one taken from Trout, 1938, by Ray Bergman.

Collector’s Set – Silver Doctor and Golden Doctor, card-mounted, boxed and labeled.

Here is the link to this set of wet flies: http://www.myflies.com/Classic-Wet-Fly-Collection-Silver-and-Golden-Doctor-P837.aspx

When I was tying the Silver Doctor for the customer in Australia, I got the inspiration to change the mottled turkey in the wing to light and dark brown mottled peacock wing quill. The mottling of brown is bolder and more contrasting in the peacock feathers, and my reasoning was that it would look better. And I believe it does. All of these flies are tied with the wing tips curving downward, in popular 19th century fashion.

Here is the Silver Doctor, my latest variation:

Silver Doctor – dressed and photographed by Don Bastian. This pattern also differs from the one above in the lack of a tip; both the flat gold tinsel and red floss are part of the tag on this version. Sorry the photo is a little lackluster; I’m still having to shoot on “auto” which severely limits my options for lighting, focus, color, and depth-of-field. I may still decide to change the plain brown-dyed goose to mottled brown turkey for a little more variegation of color.

The Golden Doctor:

Golden Doctor – this version has a full collar hackle applied after the wing was mounted. These wing slips were cut from a matched pair of mallard flank feathers; that is a left and a right, so that the webbed fibers are balanced, left and right. Historically this pattern would have been tied with a pair of whole gray mallard flank feathers for the wing.

Golden Doctor

Thread: Danville Flymaster 6/0 #56 Red

Hook: #2 Mustad 3906, any standard wet fly hook will suffice

Tail: Red, yellow, and green goose or duck quill sections; married

Body: Flat gold tinsel

Hackle: Claret

Wing: Gray mallard with “splits” of narrow married blue and red goose shoulder

Head: Red – Wapsi lacquer was used over the red thread, and finished with a couple coats of clear Grif’s Thick

Below are both flies together on the wood:

Golden Doctor and Silver Doctor – size #2 Mustad wet fly hooks, vintage 3906. Tied and photographed by Don Bastian.

Here are the #2 Doctors, card-mounted, labeled, and ready to be sent off to Australia; thank you Brett!

Silver Doctor and Golden Doctor – Mustad #2 vintage 3906 wet fly hooks. Tied and photographed by Don Bastian.

Silver Doctor

Thread: Danville Flymaster 6/0 #56 Red

Hook: Mustad 3906 wet fly hook, any standard wet fly hook will suffice

Tag: Flat gold tinsel

Tail: Golden pheasant crest and short dash of blue schlappen, or kingfisher

Tip: Red floss (see footnote differentiating tip and tag)

Ribbing: Oval silver tinsel

Body: Flat silver tinsel

Hackle: Blue fronted by guinea fowl

Wing: Brown turkey or mottled peacock, brown goose (or mottled turkey), guinea fowl, red, blue, yellow goose; married

Cheek: Jungle cock

Head: Red – this has a coat of Wapsi red lacquer, with a couple coats of clear Grif’s Thick over

The definition of tag and tip is as follows: A tag is always at the end of the body, but always behind and underneath the tail; whereas a tip is also at the end of the body but always encircles the tail. This definition is clear; taken from J. Edson Leonard’s 1950 book, Flies. However, in his own excellent Fly Nomenclature drawing, he contradicts himself by, according to his written definition, labeling part of the tag as the “tip.” The pattern in his diagram, p. 37, 1988 edition, actually has no tip. I believe my readers will appreciate this clarification.

Here is a photo of the married wings before mounting; I didn’t count barbs, but figured four each was about right. The individual wings may be off a barb here and there. Two contradictory definitions can not both be correct.

Silver Doctor wings – married, prior to mounting on the fly.

Silver Doctor wings set in place with three or four thread wraps.

Macro-image of the wing set. Notice how the quill sections have compressed perfectly, and they are centered on top of the hook shank, with no fluting, pleating, or folds. Something I just learned how to do in March of 2012. Read below for that technique.

I shall endeavor to explain this as succinctly as possible. However, without a photographic step-by-step, or until I can make another video, this is the best I can do. If you don’t quite get it the first time, try reading it slower a second time, and go through the motions with your hands as you read. That should do it.

At the Annual L. L. Bean Spring Fly Fishing Expo in March of 2012, my friend from York, Maine, Dave Lomasney, showed me a “new” method of mounting wet fly wings. I had met Dave just one year earlier. Since he was interested, I spent some time teaching him the basics of tying wet flies and marrying wings. In a few months Dave was turning our great wet flies (see this post in my archives):  http://donbastianwetflies.com/2012/01/02/bee-1900s-orvis-wet-fly-pattern/

In 2012 Dave came up to me as I was tying at Bean’s and announced he had discovered a new way to mount wet fly wings. I did not express too much amazement, because in typical “experienced” fly tier fashion, having tied wet flies for years, I figured there wasn’t much new under the sun. I was about to be enlightened! I’ve learned more than once not to be too stubborn and set in my ways. Most anyone who has tied a few flies can probably teach you something. Dave’s method has actually been around, but to my knowledge and surveys taken since, it was not normally used on feather wing wet flies. It may have been used by salmon fly tiers, but it was primarily developed to tie in bucktail hair wings, a small bunch at a time, the idea being to get a better grip on the hair fibers by tying in smaller bunches in stages. With bucktail, the tying thread is brought completely around the butt ends of hair, then around the hook shank, so two wraps are made over the butts before they are lashed down to the hook. So it is with the feather wing slips on wet flies.

Pinch and hold the wing in the usual position, but elevate it slightly above the hook shank as you make the first wrap, then the second thread wrap is brought underneath the butt ends of the quills, but not around the hook. Two wraps are made over the butt ends of the wing quills before you make the third wrap that takes the thread around the hook shank.

The two wraps over the wing must be made directly above the rear of the head, which is where your tie-in point would and should normally be. They must also be made in place, right on top of each other. Once the two wraps are made over the butt ends of the wing, let go of your bobbin. Then the left hand holds and only holds the wing proper (do NOT make any other motions); while the right hand grasps the butt ends of the wing and makes a slight up and down motion with the exposed butt ends. This action, combined with the gravity weight of the bobbin, relaxes and collapses the thread looped around the wing. Once this is accomplished, 50 to 75% of the wings butt ends will be compressed and collapsed down.

Next stabilize the wing with your left thumb and middle finger, holding the wing vertical, and tight (but not too tight to have the thread cut the fibers of the wing), and maybe even tilted slightly toward you; grasp your bobbin, and tighten the thread slowly, gradually bringing it to up to maximum tension, before making the third wrap. Make two more wraps at max tension, then check your wing attitude.

With practice this method will improve your wing setting by 100%. It may take a few flies and wings and some effort to get it down. And I have learned that it is particularly useful for wider wings on large hook sizes. This technique excels in setting perfect wings on #2 and #4 hooks. I use it all the way down to #8′s; on #10 and smaller it is not necessary. I dare say thank you Dave! I have used this method on virtually every size #8 and larger wet fly wing I have tied in the last year-and-a-half.

One result this method accomplishes is this: It gathers the bottom of the wing quill sections completely together, pulling them in place and centering them top-dead-center on the hook shank. It eliminates any slippage or “creep” of the bottom of the wings down over the sides of the fly body. And it virtually eliminates pleating and folding of the wing. It also ties in the wing at the exact point where the thread initially makes contact on the top of the quill sections, eliminating the forward thread-slippage that almost always occurs when setting wet fly wings with the conventional finger-pinch-wrap method. I still teach the conventional method of setting wings, but in every class I have taught since Dave showed me this trick, I teach this method more than any other. My students unanimously love it better than the old method.

Oh, and yes, I use the same method on the Golden Doctor and other flank-winged wet flies in setting the two opposing sections of gray mallard flank. Works like a charm!

Considering my fly tying and fly fishing roots, in that I was exposed to Trout, 1938, by Ray Bergman at age 12, and also How To Tie Flies, 1940, by E. C. Gregg; these two books had a profound influence on my early interest and education in tying flies. Other than seeing my dad tie three flies, I never saw anyone else tie a fly for ten years, except my brother, Larry, since we shared dad’s tying tools and materials until he went away to college in 1972. Primarily because of those two books you could say I am a classically-trained fly tier. Similar to a musician who was classically-trained, but I have stayed closer to my traditional roots than a classically-trained musician who becomes a performer of rock or jazz. My traditional fly tying roots include stories of how the Fan Wing Royal Coachman was a favorite dry fly pattern of my father, Donald R. Bastian.

Ray Bergman wrote about the Fan Wing Royal Coachman in his books, but it was not until later in my tying career that I obtained a copy of Ray’s first book, Just Fishing, 1932. Bergman’s account in Just Fishing describes his initial revulsion at the mere appearance of the Fan Wing Royal Coachman, and then continues in the text of that book as to how and why the pattern quickly became one of his favorite dry fly patterns.

From the single color plate of dry flies in Just Fishing, painted by artist Dr. Edgar Burke, there is a Fan Wing Pink Lady. I always thought that was a beautiful fly. Over a decade ago, bowing to my classically-trained fly tying roots, I put together a boxed selection of five different Fan Wing dry fly patterns, containing, of course the Royal Coachman, plus a Light Cahill, March Brown, Green Drake, and the Pink Lady. Last season during the shows I sold the last boxed set I had, but I have had a few dozen fan wing flies completed, ready to make up a few more sets, save for tying a couple more of the patterns to complete the selections.

The Pink Lady became a well-known dry fly pattern, thanks to George M. L. LaBranche, who in 1914, authored The Dry Fly and Fast Water. LaBranche is credited for originating the Pink Lady. In the 1920′s when Fan Wing patterns became popular, it was only natural that someone would take the Pink Lady and convert it to a Fan Wing pattern.

Here is a Fan Wing Pink Lady that I tied a couple years ago:

Fan Wing Pink Lady – the hook is a size #10 standard fine wire dry fly hook. Tied and photographed by Don Bastian.

Fan Wing Pink Lady

Hook: Standard dry fly hook, size #8 to #12

Thread: Danville Flymaster 6/0 #2 Cream

Wings: White duck breast feathers, see footnote below *

Tag: Narrow flat gold tinsel

Tail: Golden pheasant tippet

Ribbing: Narrow flat gold tinsel

Body: Pink floss, pale in color

Hackle: Light ginger

Head: Cream

* Male wood duck breast feathers can be used for the white wings, though during the Golden Age of Fan Wing Drys in the 1920′s and ’30′s, wood ducks were under the protection of the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. Nearly driven to the brink of extinction by loss of habitat due to intense logging and unrestricted market hunting, the extirpation of the wood duck was a definite possibility, considering the fate of the passenger pigeon. Mandarin duck feathers were used, as were also the breast feathers from small breeds of white domestic ducks. Wood ducks were fully protected starting in 1918, but some states allowed limited hunting of wood ducks to resume in the late 1940′s. ‘Woodies’ were not hunted again nationwide until 1959. Thankfully wood duck populations are presently healthy, the result of intensive duck box nesting programs and sensible hunting practices.

I apologize that I do not have a front view of the fan wings, but you can check my recent post on the Fan Wing Royal Coachman. The wings look the same. Wing sizing should be equal to the length of the entire hook. A heavier tippet, 4x, is best when fishing fan wing drys, and minimizing your false casting also works to your advantage.

I listed the wings as the first ingredient, because when tying these flies, it is advisable to mount the wings first. I believe there is feather mounting information in my Fan Wing Green Drake post. Don’t forget you can use the search key tab at the to right of my home page; just type in a topic you are looking for, and hit ‘enter.’

The Fan Wing Pink Lady is a classic dry fly pattern.

I nearly always listen to music while I am tying flies. This weekend I am continuing the work on an order of twenty-one dozen drys; four dozen each: sulfur duns and PMD duns in four styles; sizes #14, #16, #18; the boxed selections as listed on MyFlies.com: http://www.myflies.com/Sulphur-Mayfly-Duns-Four-pack-Selection-P828.aspx and the remaining twelve-plus dozen is all my Floating Caddis / Mayfly Emerger patterns in standard and custom sizes and colors. I just tied the first two – ever – of my Floating Caddis Emerger in size #20. With the Hi-Vis indicator, and a custom dark dun half-wing, that gives the pattern nine components – yeah – seriously – on a size #20 dry fly hook. They are turning out very well. I like the looks of these “Micro-Emergers” very much! I have every confidence that these little guys possess serious potential to give trout a sore mouth. I’ll do some photos of them before I ship the order; if I can, remember, for those of you following my posts regularly, I have been having camera trouble and can not shoot on Shutter Speed Priority. I’ll have to see what I can do on the still-working automatic setting.

Listening to the Best of the Corrs CD while tying those #20 “Micro-mergers” – there I just thought of a name for them – plus the fact I checked some information this morning in an older post I made last year, that had little to do with fly tying and a lot do do with music, combined with recent renewed interest in my 1970′s vintage Premier drum kit, has prompted this short break from tying to make this post. I did some editing on this archived post post this morning: http://donbastianwetflies.com/2012/08/08/flytying-music-and-singing/

Perhaps if you have time and like music, you may find it interesting. Continuing on with the renewed interest in my drum set; I got them set up properly over a month ago in late July and have been playing them periodically. In the middle of this past week, I started looking on eBay for drum accessories. Amazing volume of stuff there. I thought I would add a couple cymbals to my set. With some really good prices, I could not resist. So far I have bought, used, but in very good condition, a Zildjian A 17″ Medium Thin Crash, and a Zildjian A 15″ Thin Crash. Both cymbals are nearly in new condition, one has a “flea’bite” which is a small nick in the edge, for $140. That will do diddly to negatively effect the playability of the cymbal. The retail price of these two cymbals is nearly $400. I am also “watching” a few 14 Zildjian A 14″ Fast Crash Cymbals, within the week I’ll pick up one of those too. In addition, I also found, rather unbelievably, a 1975 Premier natural birchwood finish 16″ x 16″ floor tom-tom that is a perfect match to my set. I bought that too. Paid more for it alone than I did for my entire set in 1978, $200, bought it used back then from a local drummer who needed the cash. The new floor tom-tom will replace the old Ludwig non-matching white pearl floor tom-tom I used to use.

I also am bidding on some hardware; a Ludwig floor cymbal stand and a Ludwig boom stand. Guess I’ll be needing at least two boom stands when I get this set where I want it. I already have a 16″ Zildjian Medium Thin Crash cymbal that dates from my rocking days in the ’70′s. It’s the one on the high stand to the immediate right of the set. Here’s a photo of my Premier Drum Set:

My drum set – a vintage Premier PD6500 Powerhouse drum set. The hardware is not Premier; that is all Ludwig except the stand on the far right is Rogers. The ride cymbal on the left is a vintage Zildjian from the ’60′s, and I also have a 22″ vintage 1950′s -’60′s Zildjian ride cymbal that needs a stand.

I am going to have to move the entire set out from the corner of the room a bit when I add the second floor tom-tom, and the additional cymbals and stands. I am also giving serious thought to starting a band or perhaps joining a local rock band if one should need a drummer. I haven’t played in a rock band since 1979. I can also substitute a little bit as both lead and back-up singer. Playing in a band won’t curtail my fly fishing-tying circuit that much, and there is always the possibility that due to rising costs of table fees, hotels, gas, meals, and other expenses, I’ll stop eventually doing the major Fly Fishing Shows. Just a possibility, I will have to see what transpires with my band ideas.

I’m going to sell the small 14″ Ludwig Standard cymbal on the right, and then I’ll have four Zildjian crash cymbals in order, 14″, 15″, 16″ and 17″; plus the two ride cymbals and the hi-hat. Sweet! I can’t wait!

Here is a photo of my grandsons, Gabriel and Andrew, banging it up during their visit in July:

My grandson Gabriel rocks on! With some help from little brother Andrew. Are they having fun or what?!

Those boys loved those drums!

I’ll soon be making custom music CD’s loaded with all types of music that In can pipe into my family room and play along anytime I want. Listening to and playing along with my favorite songs, now, that’s great fun, relaxation, stress-relief, and entertainment. In between drumming breaks I’ll be listening to music while tying flies.

This coming Thursday evening, September 12th at 7:30 PM, I am presenting a program at the Hacklebarney Chapter of Trout Unlimited in Whippany, New Jersey. This is the first chapter meeting after summer vacation. I am presenting my program on Fly Fishing the Moosehead Lake Region of Maine. The public is invited. For more information and directions, please check their website: http://www.hacklebarneytu.org/

I’ll have some display flies, featuring Carrie Stevens Rangeley style streamers, some fishing flies for sale, some collectible wet flies available to purchase, along with my DVD’s. Hope to see you there!

The Barnes Special is a classic Maine streamer pattern that was among six featured on my 2007 DVD, Traditional Streamers and Bucktails. http://www.myflies.com/DVD-Traditional-Streamers-and-Bucktails-P622.aspx

I recently got a custom order from MyFlies.com http://www.myflies.com/Don-Bastians-Custom-Fly-Orders-P750.aspx

for a dozen Barnes Special streamers for a fellow heading to Maine later this month. I also tied the Barnes Special for Streamers365.com. There are several archived posts here featuring the Barnes Special, (you can go to the search tab and type the name in, then hit “enter” and locate the older posts), but I thought the new and different twist with this post would be to show the completed order of a dozen streamers. And I also decided to add the photos of the completed bodies, something I generally do when tying streamers of the same pattern, make the bodies ahead of time as part of a separate production run.

Here are the bodies:

A dozen streamer hooks, sizes #4 and #6, “bodied up” and ready for completion of the rest of the pattern. The hooks are 8x long Gaelic Supreme Rangeley style streamers. The tail is two paired jungle cock body feathers, as ore the original recipe by C. Lowell Barnes, a Maine guide in the Sebago Lake region.

The bodies were whip finished and head cemented. Here are the dozen patterns, placed pretty much as I dropped them in preparation for insertion into plastic sleeves.

One dozen Barnes Special streamers, sizes #4 and #6. Tied by Don Bastian.

I have posted the recipe on the archived topics with this pattern, but I have included the recipe here as well.

Barnes Special

Hook: 6x or 8x long streamer hook

Thread: Danville Flymaster 6/0 #56 Red; black or any color may be used for the bodies.

Tail: Two jungle cock body feathers, paired, just a tad over the hook gap in length

Ribbing: Oval silver tinsel

Body: Flat silver tinsel

Underwing: Sparse red bucktail followed by sparse white bucktail, to end of tail or a very short distance past tail

Wing: Two yellow hackles flanked on each side by two grizzly hackles

Hackle: White, tied as a collar

Head: Red

The heads have four coats of clear ProLak cement, though I sometimes use a single coat of Wapsi Red lacquer coated with clear lacquer. The yellow hackles were selected from a saddle and the grizzly hackles came from a cape (or neck). The tinsel body is medium sized Mylar, double-wound by starting at the head, winding back, then forward. This provides better coverage and is more durable. The white collar hackles were made from schlappen feathers, using the tip sections, chosen for proper barb length. Schlappen feathers are great for this because of their very small stem diameter and flexibility, and also the softness and webbing of the barbs. When tying this and other streamer patterns with bucktail bellies or underwings, it’s best to keep the hair sparse. Here is a macro of a single fly:

Barnes Special, size #4 – 8x long. All flies tied by and photographed by Don Bastian.

The Barnes Special is still a very popular streamer pattern in Maine. These are going to a customer in Wisconsin, who is heading to Maine later this month. I wish him luck and success with these streamers!

One final group shot, set up in nice rows:

One dozen Barnes Special streamers – sizes #4 and #6.

Thank you for the order Scott! Tight lines on your trip!

This is a report on a recent stream improvement project from the Spring Creek Chapter of Trout Unlimited, based in Centre County, Pennsylvania. The Chapter recently completed this project on the lower end of Spring Creek, very near its confluence with Bald Eagle Creek at Milesburg.There will also be another project to plant trees, the information is included in this post. I took the information from an e-mail sent by Chapter Vice-president, Robert Vierck. The following is from Bob’s Chapter e-mail notice:

The construction phase of the Lower McCoy Bank Stabilization and Buffer Buddies program was completed on June 25th – on time and within budget.  This is due to all the efforts that our volunteers put into this project - really well done with great cooperation from all. Some information:

1.  We had a total of 18 volunteers on June 24, and 17 volunteers on June 25.

2.  We were able to complete 95% of the construction of the mud-sill on Monday with final rock placement this morning, (on July 3^rd).

3.  We installed 5 multi-log vane deflectors using 25 ‘ logs today, (July 3^rd), before we broke for lunch.

4.  A total of 160 tons of #6 Limestone rock was used to stabilize the stream between the two locations.

4.  We planted grass seed and covered it with straw.

5.  The final seeding was extremely wet as the storms came – but some valiant volunteers finished the seeding.

6.  The deflectors and mud-sill stood up very well in spite of being tested extensively by a major storm on June 27th.

Here are some of the photos from the Chapter e-mail:

Spring Creek, at Milesburg, Pennsylvania – in the project area before work was started.

The project included a hands-on youth session. Here a chapter member looks on as some participants “catch bugs.”

Informal stream side session on aquatic entomology.

Checking out that fly rod grip.

Work progresses for the installation of a log vein. I believe there were also personnel from the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.

This was a very successful project. We were able to construct the longest mud-sill to date on Spring Creek, and install five multi-log vane deflectors in two-and-a-half day’s work. On July 3^rd we actually watched a fly fisherman catch a nice brown trout behind a rock next to the new mud-sill.

Included here are some of the Chapter photos of the project.

More are available on our Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/springcreektu and on the home page of our website - http://springcreektu.org/

Still working on that log vein installation…the large hand-drills are used to drill through the logs for placement of steel re-bars to anchor the logs to the stream bed.

Looking downstream toward part of the project area.

Upstream view at a log vein site. There is a second log vein upstream, just to the left of the utility poles on the right-hand bank, and a third one, submerged between the two.

Area of limestone rock rip-rap, looking upstream from the bridge at the park in Milesburg. The ground has been seeded and mulched with straw. This will help to secure the stream bank and greatly reduce erosion. The submerged rocks also provide cover for trout and habitat for aquatic insects.

Once again, thanks to all of our volunteers.  We are now planning the planting stages….keep tuned.

October 7th & 8th our chapter will need 15 volunteers to assist in the planting of trees and shrubs in Milesburg. The in-stream work is complete. Now we need to do the planting along the bank. We will be obtaining the plants and other materials from the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. At present we are awaiting contract approval from the landowner – FirstEnergy.  The above dates are tentative, pending approval from FirstEnergy.

To volunteer contact Bob Vierck   (vpres@springcreetu.org) or call: 814-360-3702, or e-mail Jim Lanning (jlanning@ncikrg.org)

I’d like to add that this project is great news. it is sure to enhance the fishing in this section of stream. In fact the last several years have seen good developments for Spring Creek and increased and enhanced angling opportunities. In 2007 the old McCoy dam below Bellefonte was removed, and the Spring Creek Trout Unlimited Chapter and PA Fish and Boat Commission work installed log veins and stream improvement devices in that section. The dam removal opened up to fishing a new stretch of about one-quarter mile that was formerly inundated with water. The McCoy dam had been in place since the late 1700′s. The three-mile stretch of Spring Creek between Bellefonte and Milesburg is a great summer fishing location. Even in the hottest weather the water temperature seldom exceeds sixty degrees in this stretch because of the influx of cold water from the big spring in down town Bellefonte.

The PA Fish and Boat Commission also opened to wading the upper section of Fisherman’s Paradise, just two years ago. This is above the park area and upper parking lot where the grass in mowed. This section was always difficult to fish because of the trees, brush, and no wading law. Additionally the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institute at Rockview opened up the formerly closed to trespassing “canyon” stretch of Spring Creek between the Paradise and Benner Springs. Finally, a formerly closed-to-fishing section in downtown Bellefonte was also opened to fishing. The new water is between the High Street and Lamb Street bridges, if you don’t mind fishing “in town.” In all, these combined changes have added almost a mile of “new” fishing water to Spring Creek. And the entire section of open, accessible water on Spring Creek is all Catch-and-Release. It is one of the best wild brown trout fisheries in the state of Pennsylvania. Give it a try!

I received a fly order through http://www.myflies.com from a customer in Delaware last month. Our back-and-forth e-mail correspondence eventually turned his initial dozen-and-a-half order for my Floating Caddis / Mayfly Emerger into a very nice order, as he kept adding more patterns until his order reached ten dozen, including some sulfur Comparaduns and Thorax Duns, and a few dozen of a pattern by Jim Slattery, originator of the Stimulator, called the Triple Threat Caddis. Here’s a link to Fly Angler’s On Line with that pattern: http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytying/fotw2/091304fotw.php

The TTC, as I call it, while I’ve never fished it, looks like a great pattern. I’m definitely going to tie some up for my personal fly box. And I had fun tying it. I did them for my customer in tan with orange thread as the FAOL article suggests, a ginger-brown version, and olive. Anyway, to The Liar’s Bench at the Angler’s Nook. My customer in Delaware and I have been in contact and he has sent me some photos. One from earlier this past week caught my attention because of the names painted on the wall. This was all new to me, but I recognized a couple names in the photograph. Investigation that I’ve done led me to this post on Sparse Gray Matter: http://www.sparsegreymatter.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1421

Here is why this simple contact for a fly order morphed and grew into a fascinating bit of fly fishing nostalgia. The photo sent to me by my customer in Delaware is something that I have not been able to find on line, that is, a photograph of The Liar’s Bench at The Angler’s Nook, which was George Schlotter’s fly shop in Shushan, New York. Two names jumped out at me: Lew Oatman, who lived in Shushan, creator of numerous baitfish streamer imitations, including one of my all-time favorite streamer fly patterns – the Brook Trout, sometimes called the Little Brook Trout, and John Atherton. Here is a link to the Brook Trout tied by Chris Del Plato, along with several of Lew Oatman’s other original patterns. https://sites.google.com/site/cdelplato/lewoatmanpatterns

John Atherton, 1900-1952, is the author of The Fly and the Fish, published in 1951. Here is a link to a site with detailed information about John Atherton: http://www.sullivangoss.com/john_Atherton/

Atherton was a very talented artist as well as a fly tier, angler, and author. I encourage you to read the information about his life, it is fascinating. One of his famous award-winning paintings, The Black Horse, hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. John Atherton had more than one-hundred covers published on The Saturday Evening Post.

Here is the photo sent to me by my customer in Delaware. He and his family visited there and he fished the Battenkill River as a young man. The photo was taken in the 1970′s. Don’t forget folks, you can click your mouse on the image to view an enlarged version.

The Battenkill – The Angler’s Nook – Liar’s Bench. Photo courtesy of Richard Gordon. Chris Del Plato informed me that Al Prindle was the Shushan Postmaster, for whom Lew Oatman’s pattern of the same name was created.

The remaining names on the bench did not turn up anything on a google search, but I only checked the first page that came up. I’m sure there are some folks who might be familiar with them. Possibly author Mike Valla, who spent some time in The Angler’s Nook, can shed some light on the remaining names. I am very pleased that my customer gave his permission to post this photo. As I noted, I failed to find a single image of this particular Liar’s Bench. Most of them led to various bars and pubs across the country with this name. Thank you Richard, for sending the photo. This is an incredible bit of fly fishing history for the Vermont – New York area.

An edit with additional information: The comment below posted by Chris Del Plato corrected my original statement (edited above to reflect the correct info) that Lew was the postmaster in Shushan. Chris informed me that Al Prindle was the Shushan Postmaster. If I had looked this up in Joseph Bates Streamer Fly Tying and Fishing, 1950, 1966, 1996, I would have read this: “This bucktail (Shushan Postmaster) was originated by Lew Oatman of Shushan, New York, about 1953 and named for the postmaster of the town (Al Prindle), who was one of Lew’s favorite fishing companions on the Battenkill River, which flows from Vermont into New York state.” Thanks Chris!

Additionally, I found a photo of a Normal Rockwell cover painting from The Saturday Evening Post. Subsequent research that I did, again sparked by information provided by Chris Del Plato, led me to discover that Al Prindle was the subject of at least two Normal Rockwell paintings. This one is titled “Catching the Big One” though I read online that the original title was “Fishing Lesson.” It was the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in on August 3, 1929.

“Catching the Big One” – painting by Norman Rockwell. This was originally titled “Fishing Lesson.” Al Prindle, the postmaster in Shushan, New York, for whom Lew Oatman’s Shushan Postmaster fly was named, was the subject for the painting. This photo came from http://www.rockwellplates.com.

I have been wanting to notify everyone of a situation affecting my blog. I mentioned a while back that I was having some technical, electronic problem with my camera. It was still working, but the selective shutter and exposure options were somehow compromised and worked intermittently at best. I was, at times, stirred up enough to be tempted to perform some percussive maintenance on it, you know, whack it with a hammer to “get it going again.” Sometimes that works, like in The Empire Strikes Back, when Han Solo whams his fist against a bulkhead in the Millenium Falcon, which gets the engines going after a faltering start.

Early last week I completed an order of a half dozen #4 Cheney Bass Flies and a half dozen #6 and #8 Puffer Trout Flies. Both of these flies are historic patterns dating from the 1800′s. The customer happens to own an antique brass-faced Hardy Perfect reel with A. N. Cheney’s name engraved on it, hence his interest in these two particular patterns. The accounts of Cheney’s connections to these flies is recorded in Favorite Flies and Their Histories, 1892, by Mary Orvis Marbury, pp. 349-350, and 402. Eventually I’ll do that post, combining photos of these patterns along with Cheney’s old Hardy reel owned by my customer. In the meantime I’m ordering a new camera.

Here is what happened to throw a wrench in the works: When I was getting ready to photograph the flies, I placed my Canon G9 camera on the edge of a TV tray (that’s my high-tech studio set-up photo image platform), and walked away. THUD! I turned around and the camera was on the hardwood floor. I picked it up and set it back on the TV tray, really thinking nothing of it. I mean, it only fell a little over two feet. Then I went about doing something else for a few minutes. When I turned the camera on, the lens extended, but I had no image on the view screen. Then it beeped like never before, next I got this message on the screen: “Lens error. Restart camera.” Which I did. Multiple times, to no avail. The lens would not retract when I turned it on and off. I took the battery in and out a few times. I even tried a little percussive maintenance to get it going again, to no avail. So apparently my camera is history.

Mustang Sally – a great song written and recorded in 1965 by Mack Rice. Course, we all know Mustang Sally gained greater popularity in 1966 in the single release by Wilson Pickett and on his album, The Wicked Pickett. Besides being a fly tier, I’m also a musician and I’m into music trivia. Here’s more interesting info from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustang_Sally_%28song%29

Here is a great black and white, 1960′s TV video version of Wilson Pickett performing Mustang Sally live:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfuHgzu1Cjg

It’s authentic and live alright, one of the horns is occasionally a tad out of tune, and there’s even a short trumpet mistake note at the end. Why Mustang Sally? Well, I wanted to write something to let everyone know why there has not been any new photo posts here recently, and why there won’t be for a little while longer yet. Though I do have some archived photos. Now I get to the point.

Combining the recent post about my renewed interest in playing and upgrading my drum set; I went to a local bar last Sunday evening, called The Crippled Bear. They have a covered outdoor pavilion and have bands every Sunday night, all summer long, until the end of September. A local classic rock band called Flipside was playing. I had seen them a month ago at the same place and enjoyed them very much. I knew some of the members from local 1960′s bands when I started playing in a band with my brother, Larry, in junior and senior high school. A connection here between fly tying and playing drums is that I started doing both at about the same time in my life, 1964, in the summer after my fifth grade year. I knew the drummer in Flipside, though after not seeing him for thirty-four years I had to tell him who I was after I said, “Hi, Mike,” and after his courteous reply with no reaction to me, I then asked, “You don’t remember me do you?”

“No.” He replied. When I announced my name, it was a typical hearty handshake and greeting that one would expect after years of not seeing one another. At the end of a brief conversation, he asked, “You wanna play?”

I answered, “Yeah, if you don’t mind, that’d be kinda cool!” We made arrangements for me to do Mustang Sally, since he sings the lead on that and could front the band on the vocal. There were a few of my friends there, but I didn’t tell anyone in advance. They called me up in the middle of the third set, at which point in the evening most of the patrons were, shall we say, really enjoying themselves. It was great! The front man counted us off, and Mustang Sally came to life. Took me a verse to get into the groove and settle into a relaxed mode of playing, but it was wonderful to play in front of a crowd again! The acoustic guitarist took me under his wing and cued me to the breaks, they more or less follow The Commitments version on that aspect, which was a good thing since I never performed that song in my life. Though as a drummer, back in the day, all I ever did to learn a song was to keep listening to it. The performance comes when you sit down at the drum set. There were no horns, but the keyboard player used the digitized note settings to fill them in. With double lead guitars, a hot lead guitar solo was inserted in the middle of the song for an entire verse. The dance floor was full, the band was good, and it was really fun! After the break, the keyboard / guitarist / lead vocalist / bandleader told me I did a good job and would be welcome to sit in anytime. Most likely I’ll be looking up their playing schedule and take them up on it.

Yesterday my neighbor, Jim, and I went fishing on Spring Creek, Centre County, Pennsylvania. This was a prearranged trip through a customer who lives near Altoona. His name is Bruce; he’s bought my DVD’s, commented here on the blog, and recently bought a set of seven color variations of samples of my Floating Caddis / Mayfly Emerger, along with the recipes and instructions. Bruce and I have been in e-mail contact for the past seven or eight years. We started planning this trip about three weeks ago.

I have not yet received my new camera, and I could just simply forget about this, but I wanted to write a review of the trip yesterday, so I’ll make an effort to paint pictures with words.

A fourth companion, Ed, who used to own a rod making company in Beech Creek, also joined us. I’ve known Ed since the 1980′s; he used to display and sell at the Susquehanna Chapter Trout Unlimited Annual Outdoor Show. We’ve seen each other on occasion in recent years at the Fly Fishing Show in Somerset, New Jersey. Unfortunately Ed has some health issues that prevent him from fishing, but he wanted to come along and offered to cook lunch for everyone. About that, “Such a deal!” my wife Lou Anne, would always say. We met at the bridge at the park in Milesburg at 9:30.

The Fishing:

There was heavy fog in the area, though I had worn my sunglasses for the drive down. The water flow was low, but the stream is larger in that section, so there was plenty of water. We rigged up and dispersed, staying relatively close together. I wanted to fish the section below the bridge that is normally rough and tumble riffs and white water, and pretty difficult to fish and wade in early season. I had tied a #20 Flashback Pheasant Tail nymph on a twelve or so foot leader, to a 5x tippet, one #4 split shot, and to start, about two feet under an indicator. Second cast, “Fish on!” Fifth cast, after lowering the fly another foot to fish the slightly deeper water beyond where I took the first trout, “Fish on!” With nymphing, most anglers would simply keep casting. I learned and have always believed and taught my students over the years that an indicator should be one that is easily moveable, because a cast with set rigging in one place may not be correctly set up for making another cast even two feet away from the previously fished drift lane. Effective nymph fishing is all about versatility and constant observation, making necessary adjustments to your rig so that your presentation is correct for every location you fish. Rigging adjustments of the indicator placement also includes adding or removing split shot. I constantly make adjustments in my rig, changing patterns far less frequently than making other adjustments of weight and indicator placement.

Jim fished the junction pool with Bald Eagle Creek and took one fish swinging a #16 winged wet fly, not sure of the pattern; it was basically a Ginger Quill, but had a brown hackle and dark quill body. After two trout in the first three minutes, I over-confidently thought I was going to kill ‘em. Wrong. I fished hard, thoroughly working the seams, riffs, and runs all the way to the mouth, for more than an hour, with nary another strike. I motioned to Jim that I was going to head back upstream. I entered and fished first pool below the bridge with the same nymph.

After a little while, Jim came up and I commented that I was starting to see a few small bugs in the air. The number of these insects steadily increased in minutes. I thought they were Tricos, but I couldn’t see the tails. Guess it was just the lighting, or perhaps my need for new glasses. Jim finally caught one and positively identified them as Trico spinners. No trout were rising, and it was about eleven-thirty. I decided since the nymphing had been fruitless, that I would prepare for the hoped-for trico spinner fall and rise of trout. So I added 6x tippet, rummaged through my fly boxes and tied on a #22 Trico Spinner in anticipation of some surface action. That paid off. The heaviest part of the rise probably occurred after we departed for lunch, but I managed to take two trout that I saw rising, stung a third, and had three more rise and miss the fly. When Jim arrived, having hooked a couple fish, we gathered Bruce, who had landed six, from upstream and headed for our lunch rendezvous with Ed at Fisherman’s Paradise.

Lunch:

When we pulled in, Ed had the grill smoking. Nice! This was indeed, such a deal! Ed had thick, juicy elk burgers sizzling away, with the addition of hickory chips to the fire. Added to this were sliced whole wheat buns, a jar of Ed’s home-canned hot peppers, sliced, garden-fresh tomatoes, big, but nice and thin, sweet onion slices, a bag of chips that Bruce brought, plus a batch of home-made potato salad from yours truly. I included the recipe at the end of this post, for anyone interested. It’s pretty good.

Our picnic table was right beside the stream. As we enjoyed our lunch, we saw a mature bald eagle soaring high overhead. We also saw a huge congregation of Trico spinners in the air, thirty to forty feet above the water. I started watching for rises as we concluded our meal. When we were done eating, we put a few things away, and then I saw it: a rise! When I saw another, I said, “I’m gonna make a few casts; heck I still have that Trico spinner on my leader.” This particular Trico Spinner pattern is simple:

Trico Spinner

Hook: Straight-eye dry, #20 – #24.

Tail: Three fibers of light dun Microfibetts, divided with thread

Abdomen: White Uni-thread 8/0, started at thorax, wound back, divide the tail, then forward so the body is two layers

Wing: Sparse white E. P. Fibers

Thorax: Black Rabbit dubbing

Retrieving my rod from the car, which by the way, was a nine-foot, five-weight with a six weight line – way too heavy for low-water fall fishing in most people’s minds – more on that later; I walked over, stood at the water’s edge, since wading is prohibited in this area, and started casting and observing. I had a small audience by now, another fellow had joined Ed, Jim, and Bruce. Working the first trout I saw rising, he came up with a nice swirl, but missed the fly. A minute or so later, I hooked the first one. I landed and released that one, and I rose and stung a second trout in short order. Even though there really was not a major rise in process, Jim commented, “These fish must be looking for those spinners.” Surely, Jim was correct; the trout have had Trico spinners on the daily menu for a few weeks already. Trico hatch number two in the fall begins fifty-nine days following the emergence and mating of the first Tricos in July.

A few minutes after my first trout, I hooked and landed another. I rose two more, then Bruce asked, “Where are we gonna fish this afternoon?”

“We can go below Bellefonte if you want to,” I replied. We made arrangements to go downstream, below town, just below the entry of a small tributary named Buffalo Run.

The Afternoon Fishing:

We parked our vehicles and got out. I spent the first half-hour sitting and talking with Ed on a convenient stream-side bench, catching up on things, watching the water for rises. Saw none. Bruce hooked a couple trout on nymphs at the head of the pool. After a while, I started fishing with that Trico spinner anyway, thinking I might interest a fish or two. I know, using a Trico as an attractor or search pattern isn’t high on most angler’s list of regular tactics, but that’s what I did. To no avail. Jim hooked a trout or two on nymphs.

After about an hour, Ed departed and the three of us walked downstream to the old bridge abutment near the sewage treatment plant. By then I figured if I was going to catch any more fish, I better rig up with nymphs again. So I did. I tried a pink San Juan Worm, but in a few minutes lost the whole rig on brush that hung out from the bridge abutment. When I re-rigged, I put the same fly on, but in wine color. Hooked a nice, acrobatic rainbow about thirteen inches in length, who stayed on long enough to give me some action, complete with a couple jumps. Then he got off, saving me the trouble of getting my hands wet. About 4:40 PM Jim and I decided to head upstream, to catch up with Bruce who had started fishing his way upstream a half-hour or so earlier. He had not done a thing. The three of us were ready to call it a day.

The Finale:

When we got below the long, flat pool above an island, we saw rises. Quite a few of them, stretched out over a couple hundred feet of the length of the pool. Bruce asked, “What do you think they’re takin’?”

“My best guess is blue-wing olives,” I replied. “The light is less intense, we’ve had a bit of cloud cover this afternoon, and they’re the bug in season,” I added. We decided we could not walk away from this potentially entertaining opportunity. We went along the railroad tracks some distance, to a spot just below the middle of the pool, and I sat down to detach my nymph rig. Removing shot, indicator, and nymph, I tied on a section of 6x tippet, and then knotted a dark-bodied BWO Thorax Dun pattern, #20 to the tippet. The wing was gray E. P Fibers with a dark dun hackle, clipped on the bottom.

Bruce entered the water below some rising fish. I chose to stay on the bank, kneeling or sitting as I targeted some rising trout close to shore. After some futile attempts at these fish, which were in very shallow water, I decided to move upstream, above Bruce, where the water was deeper, hoping for better luck. Here’s where my nine-foot, five-weight rod with six-weight line came in handy again. Some of the trout were rising against the far side. The railroad tracks were behind us, so there was unlimited back casting room. Unlike Jim and Bruce, I stayed on the bank. Working a few trout, soon I hooked and landed one in the middle of the stream. Eventually I was targeting the trout rising along the far side. The nice thing about the heavier rod and line: I could pick up the entire line, make one back cast, and one stroke forward – and be right back on target. No stripping, no unnecessary false casting, no having to reset my accuracy and distance to the target. This tactic makes for more effective and more efficient fishing, simply because your fly spends more time on the water and less time in the air. And this was possible with the heavier rod and line, despite the fact that I was making fifty-to-sixty foot casts. I learned that earlier last year one day on Spring Creek in the Paradise, when the wind was gusty and brisk. My companions (all using three and four weights) wondered how I could cast so easily in the wind, even to rising trout against the opposite bank. Remember too, that with the addition of a couple feet of 6x tippet, my leader was probably fourteen feet long. I hooked and landed two fish, lost another one, and had four more miss the fly. Bruce and Jim each took fish as well, we were all using various BWO dry patterns. What a great way to close the day of a fine fishing trip!

When we returned to our cars, as we were taking our boots and waders off, Bruce got a cellphone call from Ed. He had gone to Fly Fisher’s Paradise Fly Shop in State College. The fishing report from every angler coming into the shop was: everyone was skunked. And Bruce questioned again Ed to make sure, there were no reports of other anglers taking any trout that day. That made us all feel even better. It’s especially rewarding to be able to catch trout under adverse conditions and circumstances. The best part of the day was not the fishing, it was the camaraderie, the great lunch, and the promise among us all to do it again.

Potato Salad Recipe:

My wife, Lou Anne, made potato salad from a recipe. And it was really good, heavily spiced with crushed dill. But I seldom use a recipe for most of my cooking, unless I’m preparing a dish where exacting recipe components and quantities are necessary. When I make potato salad, macaroni salad, pasta salad, etc., depending on how much I make, I always estimate or “eyeball” the amount of the spices, seasonings, and dressing.

This can be made in as small or as large of a batch as you desire, from a few servings, or perhaps where some leftovers are desired, to a large casserole dish for a family or church picnic.

Use any kind of potato. It’s even OK to mix varieties, a few red skinned taters add color. Three to ten potatoes will make a small to a large batch, depending on the size of your taters. Wash them of course, but I do not peel them. Dice into bite-size pieces. Cook 10 to 11 minutes. You can taste if you like. They’ve got to be done, but not Al dente, nor do you want them mushy. Drain. Use two to four hard-boiled eggs.

1/2 to a whole white or sweet onion (more for a larger batch), diced, red onion may also be used

Two to three stalks celery (more for a larger batch), diced

I like to saute` my onions and celery in butter or light olive oil until they begin to caramelize. These are added to the cooked potatoes. If you want to skip this step, simply pour the hot potatoes on top of the diced celery and onion in a dish and leave at room temperature. The heat from the potatoes will soften the onions and celery somewhat, but I prefer the added flavor from the caramelized vegetables.

Seasonings to taste:

Primarily you’ll need mayonnaise, 1/2 to 1-1/2 cups, depending on the size of your batch. It’s best to add some gradually and mix it in, then you can usually see if more is needed. I don’t like soppy potato salad.

Additionally you’ll need: Salt, pepper, crushed dill, garlic powder (not garlic salt which is mostly salt!), or garlic and rosemary ground mix, and paprika. A little rosemary by itself is also good. I also add one to three tablespoons of vinegar, sometimes adding and mixing it to a small bit of Italian dressing, like when the bottle is about empty. Pout the whole blend over the salad, I generally do this before adding the mayo. Also, a little mustard can be added, either yellow, Djion, spicy brown, or a horseradish mustard. Another nice variation is to add some blue cheese crumbles to the potato salad. I dice my eggs and mix them throughout, but one could also slice them and arrange them on top. Paprika sprinkled on the finished salad is a nice touch. The same basic recipe can be used for macaroni salad. You can eat it fresh made, but it’s always better after it has had time to steep in the fridge. Enjoy!

Fall fishing is a time of year when aquatic insect activity is minimal compared to the spring hatches. Therefore any hatch activity at all is usually met with anticipation and eagerness by the trout. Oftentimes windy weather and or rain will dislodge terrestrials from trees and bank-side vegetation; these include inchworms, ants, beetles, crickets, grasshoppers, bees, caterpillars, and spiders. This activity can be sporadic, heavier at some times than others from resulting conditions; consequently autumn dry fly fishing with terrestrial patterns can be effective. Beetles, ants, and my original Floating Inchworm pattern are my fall favorite terrestrial patterns. Among the buffet of terrestrial activity, there are still a few aquatic insect fall hatches that we anglers can take advantage of. One of my favorite mayflies in the spring, the Slate Drake, or Isonychia bicolor, also begins to emerge in the fall as the second brood of this species begins to hatch in mid-to-late September. Common in the Eastern United States on freestone waters, Slate Drakes can run almost to the end of October, often providing a near-exclusive aquatic insect match-the-hatch, dry fly fishing opportunity.

Floating Inchworm – extended body designed and tied by Don Bastian. The hook is a #16 Tiemco 2488, short shank, wide gape. This is a great fall terrestrial searching pattern.

The first hatches of Isonychia bicolor in spring begin as early as mid-may and continue through July, sometimes sporadically, but there can be periods when these large, dark, slate-and-brown colored mayflies emerge in fairly heavy numbers, inciting trout to feed vigorously on the emergers and duns. The Slate Drake Spinner is also a significant element of this hatch and should not be overlooked. Typically these nymphs migrate to the shallows, but the nymphs living in large streams and rivers far from shore simply emerge from the water when their hatch time is ready.

A Slate Drake dry fly pattern in various styles is a good dry fly searching pattern whenever they are in season, but they are especially good in the fall when competition from other hatches is not as intense as the spring and early summer. Some traditional Slate Drake dun patterns include the White-gloved Howdy and Dun Variant. I like my BXB (Bastian Extended Body) Slate Drake Thorax Dun, Parachute, and Spinner patterns better than any other pattern style for this hatch. I’ve been fishing these patterns for nine years with wonderful success. Below is a photo of my BXB Slate Drake Thorax Dun pattern, still wet after it was removed from the jaw of an eighteen-inch brown that confidently took it on Big Pine Creek in May of 2012.

BXB Slate Drake Thorax Dun pattern. The hook is a size #14 but the fly is actually what would normally be considered a #8 or #10. The length of the pattern not including the tails is a good 3/4″ to 7/8″ in length. This fly was knotted to 4x tippet because I was fishing a fairly heavy riffle section, and I expected to encounter big trout. I did!

And here is a photo of that trout:

18-inch brown trout taken on my Extended Body Slate Drake Thorax Dun pattern, Big Pine Creek, May 2012.

Here is a nineteen-inch brown I took fifteen minutes after the fish shown above:

19-inch brown taken on Big Pine Creek, May 2012, on my BXB Slate Drake Thorax Dun pattern.

This article started off with the intention that it would be only about Slate Drake nymphs, but it obviously morphed into a work to also include dry fly patterns. These insects are large, often requiring size #8 hooks. That size may sound too large to some anglers, but if you consider the actual body length of a Slate Drake dun and compare it to the shank length of a standard dry fly hook, that’s what you would need to use. Too many fly anglers dislike large drys; they don’t know what they are missing by not using them. Large imitative or attractor dry fly patterns like the Fan Wing Royal Coachman or Royal Wulff can really stir up some excitement on the water. I’ve read the words of some writers who say that the fall Slate Drakes are as small as a size #14, but I personally have never seen a Slate Drake that small in my life. I would not tie this pattern smaller than a size #12 standard hook length for fall fishing, and I have full confidence fishing my large extended body patterns that imitate the spring hatches of the Slate Drake. Though I generally dress them on a #14 Tiemco 2488 hook, these flies are the equivalent size compared to a standard dry fly pattern in a size #8 or #10. Some of the same line of thinking by other fly tiers and anglers expresses surprise at my devotion to size #14 Sulfur patterns for Spring Creek, when most other anglers fish #16’s. Heck, I’m just imitating the actual size of the bugs I see on the water. And it’s not that #16 Sulfur dry flies don’t take trout, but a larger fly is easier to see under most conditions, and floats better. Most importantly, it works!

Here are two similar Slate Drake nymph patterns; the first one was tied by my friend Bill Shuck, of Jarretsville, Maryland. Below that are photos of the same pattern that I tied. Bill made a couple modifications because he did not possess all the same materials that my recipe calls for.

This is essentially the Slate Drake nymph pattern conceived by my friend Dave Rothrock, but I made a few modifications to it in the interest of making it tie easier and faster.

Slate Drake Nymph – tied and photographed by Bill Shuck.

Here’s a side view:

Side-view – note the bulge of the wing case profile. This is Dave Rothrock’s pattern design, with some tying modifications, but the use of poly yarn for the wing case is Dave’s accurate material usage to simulate the natural high wing-case profile of the Isonychia nymphs. This imitative design is a “strike-trigger” to the trout. Tied and photographed by Bill Shuck.

Isonychia / Slate Drake Nymph – Bill Shuck version

Here is Bill’s list of materials in order of tie-in::

Hook: Daiichi 1760, Size #10

Thread: Uni-Thread 6/0, black

Tail: Three natural grey ostrich herl strands, trimmed short

Rib: Pearsall's Gossamer silk thread, brown, doubled and twisted

Median stripe: Uni-Thread 6/0, white, doubled and twisted

Over Back: Medallion sheeting, dark dun

Abdomen: Blend of hare's fur, 50% claret/25% brown/25% black

Wing case: Black poly yarn, two strands

Thorax: Same dubbing as abdomen
Legs: Badger hen cape feather barbs

Bill wrote me in his e-mail with the recipe: “All typed out like that it seems like too much stuff to
bother with, eh?”
To which I replied, “Not when you consider how well this pattern works. The extra tying time 
pays off."

Today, Monday morning, two days after I initially published this article, Bill sent me another 
Isonychia nymph pattern, this is the same fly with the addition of a single strand of natural ostrich
herl wound as a rib. 

Isonychia nymph variation – dressed with natural gray ostrich herl gills. Tied and photographed by Bill Shuck.

Slate Drake Nymph – tied and photographed by Don Bastian.

Slate Drake Nymph #10 – 2x long – top view. Tied and photographed by Don Bastian.

Isonychia / Slate Drake Nymph – Don Bastian version

Hook: #10 - 2x long nymph hook, or 3x long TMC 200R or Dai-Riki 270

Thread: Danville Flymaster 6/0 #100 Black, or #73 Dark Brown

Tail: Three fibers of natural ostrich herl

Median Stripe: Danville Flymaster 6/0 #1 White

Ribbing: One strand of Uni-thread 6/0 Dark Brown

Overback: Black scud back 1/8”

Abdomen: Haretron Dubbing #16 Dark Brown

Gills: Abdominal dubbing picked out and trimmed parallel to body.

Wingcase: Black polypropylene yarn, two strands

Thorax: Haretron #16 Dark Brown

Legs: Natural mottled hen back, short and sparse
Head: Black
The main design of this pattern goes to my friend, Dave Rothrock, guide, and fly tier, from Jersey 
Shore, Pennsylvania. He uses a stripped cream hackle feather for the median stripe; the use of
thread is obviously a huge time-saver. I also use ostrich herl strands from anywhere along the 
stem, Dave uses only the tips, which are limited in number on any feather or bundle of ostrich
herl. I can make several sets of tails from just three strands of ostrich. I cut the tips at an angle with
my scissors, trimming only the outside edge of the barbs.

I also chose to change the dubbing to Haretron; my reason is that the increased density of fine fibers – 
under fur and the Antron – makes it easier to pick out the gills. Dave’s use of poly yarn for the wing 
case is a stroke of genius in imitative pattern design. Its bulk simulates the natural profile of the live
nymphs. This is a trigger-point for the trout and significantly contributes to the inducement of strikes,
if not being the primary reason that trout take this pattern with voracity.
Below is a photo of my Slate Drake Parachute Dun:

Don Bastian’s BXB Slate Drake Parachute Dun.

Any of these pattern can be ordered by visiting my product pages at MyFlies.com: http://www.myflies.com/BXB-Slate-Drake-Set-P741.aspx

or the Slate Drake Nymphs may be ordered by visiting my Custom Order page: http://www.myflies.com/Don-Bastians-Custom-Fly-Orders-P750.aspx

If you get a chance to venture out for some fall fishing, most streams in the Eastern United States have Isonychia populations – be prepared, and have some of these patterns to fish with.

I meant to include these photos yesterday when I wrote this post…the wordpress format was having “issues,” giving me technical difficulties, and I forgot. Here is a soft-hackle Slate Drake Flymph tied and photographed by Bill Shuck:

Isonychia Flymph – tied and photographed by Bill Shuck.

Here is the recipe for this pattern:

Isonychia / Slate Drake Flymph

From Bill: “This was a pattern that I posted on the Flymphforum in April 2012. The vintage hook is one given to me be a friend in Virginia, and the European hare dubbing was dyed by another friend who lives in Holland, the same guy I hosted for two weeks this past spring and who gave me an excellent 5 wt. bamboo rod he made himself.

Hook: Vintage Mustad 3913B. Size #12

Thread: Pearsall’s Gossamer silk thread, #14 claret

Hackle: Medium dun hen saddle

Tail: Three moose body hairs

Body: European hare dyed claret, spun in a dubbing brush with claret silk thread

Nice that you got a bamboo rod for hosting your friend! Such a deal!

I close this with image of a half-dozen Slate Drake Nymphs:

Slate Drake Nymphs, tied and photographed by Don Bastian.

And one final shot, lined up in a row:

#10 – 3x long Isonychia – Slate Drake Nymphs. Tied and photographed by Don Bastian. These are dressed on Montana Fly Company Curved shank straight eye nymph hooks, #7002 Stimulator Hook.

Despite the less than favorable weather patterns lately, specifically referring to a general lack of rainfall and low water conditions, I thought I would present some information that might just spark your interest enough to plan a fall fishin’ trip.

Most streams in this part of Pennsylvania are experiencing low water levels, however there are a couple exceptions. The two locations I want to point out are Big Pine Creek in Lycoming County, and Penn’s Creek. Back over Labor Day weekend, there was some heavy thunderstorm activity in the Tioga County and northwestern Lycoming County regions that sent Big Pine Creek’s flow from a little over 100 cfs to more than 1200 cfs. Since then, Pine has been running well above its median daily statistic from data of 94 years. Today, after a spike to 350cfs on October 8th, Pine is flowing (at the Cedar Run gauge) at 209 cfs.

Penn’s Creek at the Penn’s Creek USGS gauge also spiked yesterday to 150 cfs and is presently spot on for its median flow at 89 cfs, with 83 years of data. Water temperatures in both streams are in the mid-fifties.

The fishing report for Penn’s Creek has Slate Drakes hatching most days from about ten AM until 2 PM, and there is also activity of October Caddis, Blue-wing Olives, and Crane Flies. Nymphs of these species would also take fish, along with some attractor drys, terrestrials, and streamers.

Following up on my fishing trip (article posted here on October 4th) to Spring Creek on October 3rd, the lower three miles of Spring Creek also has adequate flows to permit fishing, where you’re not having to worry so much about spooking the trout. There are no Slate Drakes on Spring Creek, but there are sporadic hatches of caddis, tricos, fairly regular but spotty, around mid-day, and #18 BWO’s in late afternoon. The flow at Milesburg spiked at 260 cfs on October 7th, and has leveled off at 139 cfs, right on the median flow.

For more information contact these fly shops:

Penn’s Creek Angler – Bruce Fisher, (570) 922-1053

McConnell’s Country Store and Fly Shop – (570) 753-8241

Slate Run Tackle Shop – (570) 753-8551

There are direct website links to all three fly shops on my links listed on the right. Get out there and wet a line. I’d be going out myself this weekend, but I have plans to work at the cabin with my huntin’ buddies in preparation for deer camp. Tight lines everyone!

PS: Oh, I have to add this, the band Flipside, with whom I sat in on drums a couple weeks ago on Mustang Sally; they are playing this Sunday from 5 – 8 PM at the Trout Run Hotel. It’s an odd time, but in between “games.” I saw the keyboard player / guitarist / band leader at another bar this past Monday. We enjoyed the cheese steak special and a few beers at The Crippled Bear. We already worked it out for me to sit in again on Sunday. Ride, Sally, Ride! I’d have someone video it, but my camera is broken and I have not yet replaced it.

I would like to announce for anyone that lives within reasonable driving distance of the south-central Pennsylvania area, specifically the state capital of Harrisburg, that I am presenting the program this Tuesday evening, October 22, at the monthly meeting of the Doc Fritchey Chapter of Trout Unlimited.

My program topic is Wyoming’s Miracle Mile. This presentation details a fishing trip I made some years ago to the Miracle Mile section of the North Platte River. My slides include photographs of beautiful rugged Wyoming scenery, plus images of the river and the areas we fished. Fly patterns, tactics, water conditions, tackle, and playing and photographing fish will be included in the presentation.

The meeting program starts at 7:30 PM and will be held in the Hunt Club room on the second floor of the Bass Pro Shop in the Harrisburg East Mall on Paxton Street in Harrisburg. This is right off I-83. The meeting is open to the public. Come and bring a friend!

I would like to remind my readers and their friends that this coming weekend, the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum will hold its annual Arts of the Angler Show at the Ethan Allen Inn, in Danbury, Connecticut. The Ethan Allen Inn is located off I-84 at Exit 4, Lake Avenue. The Arts of the Angler Show is a full feature fly fishing show in an elegant atmosphere.

Saturday hours are from 8:30 AM until 5:00 PM. Sunday hours are from 9:00 AM until 3:30 PM. Admission is $12 per day or $20 for both days. Saturday evening will feature a price-fixed dinner for $23, including tax, gratuity, and a complimentary glass of wine. A live auction is scheduled to start at 7:00 PM. Dinner reservations must be made at the front desk by 2:00 PM Saturday.

The Fly Tying Studio kicks off Saturday morning at 11:00 AM. The first session features yours truly, tying the White Ghost streamer. I will be demonstrating this Carrie Stevens pattern using her authentic and original Rangeley-style of streamer construction, with a few personal modifications such as the type of cement I use to fasten the wing assembly. Also, my use of rayon floss and mylar tinsel does not inherently alter the characteristic of her flies. Oh, and I tie my streamers with a vise. She tied without a vise, and I tried a few of her patterns that way. Honestly, I don’t know how she pulled that off, some of her pattens, yeah, but the more complex ones, you got me. But that’s one reason why Carrie Stevens is one of the greatest female fly tiers who ever lived. My procedure for tying and teaching her streamer patterns and methods is the result of years of experience, but more specifically, from the study of personal photos that are copies of Austin Hogan’s notes on Carrie’s tying methods, which were created by his deconstruction of her patterns. I also incorporate a few techniques adapted from one of the best streamer tiers in the country, Mike Martinek, Jr. Mike was with Austin Hogan in the late 1960′s on one occasion when they disassembled four of Mrs. Stevens’ flies, so he has an inside view and experience and level of knowledge that no other living streamer tier possesses. Thanks Mike, for sharing your knowledge!

Other fly tiers featured in the Fly Tying Studio on the hour are Safet Nickocevic, Peggy Brenner, “Fishy”Fullum, and John Likakis. More than thirty-five fly tiers are scheduled to participate in this event.

Here is a link to the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum site on the show, this includes photos and descriptions of the Live Auction items. http://www.catskillflyfishing.org/programs-events/art-of-the-angler-show/

For more information, call the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum: 845-439-4810. Please come and support the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum.

To whet your appetite, and to give you something to look at, here is a photo of a White Ghost streamer:

White Ghost streamer – a Carrie Stevens pattern tied and photographed by Don Bastian. The hook is a size #1 – 8x long Gaelic Supreme Martinek / Stevens Rangeley Style Streamer.

A couple months ago I received an e-mail message from a potential customer. He had been searching online for information about fly patterns connected to Albert Nelson Cheney. This is the same A. N. Cheney who co-authored Fishing With the Fly in 1883 with Charles F. Orvis. Cheney is also referred to quite frequently in Mary Orvis Marbury’s 1892 book, Favorite Flies and Their Histories. My customer, Howard Weinberg, reached out to me “because my name kept coming up” during his internet quest for information. It’s good that my name came up in association with historic and classic fishing fly patterns, rather than say, any number of other topics I might be connected to if circumstances were different. During a brief exchange of e-mail messages, Howard and I agreed that I would tie a half-dozen each of the Puffer, a 19th century Adirondack trout fly that was used and probably named by Mr. Cheney, and the Cheney, a Bass Fly pattern that was published in Marbury’s Favorite Flies.

Of the Puffer, Cheney had one in his possession, that he described to “A little brown-eyed maiden, once, looking into my fly book, asked why I had the old, frayed flies tied up in separate papers, and marked, while the nice new flies did not show this care. Had she been of maturer years, I might have quoted Alonzo of Aragon’s commendation of old friends; but, instead, I merely said: ‘The nice new flies I can easily buy, but no one sells such old flies; therefore I take the greater care of them because of their rarity.’ ” Favorite Flies, p. 349.

“On another page we find him looking over these same old flies, and he says; ‘Take for instance this one, with the legend written on its wrapper: Puffer Pond, June, 1867 -thirty-five pounds of trout in two hours. The last of the gentlemen that did the deed.’ This to me, tells the very pleasant story of a week spent in the Adirondacks. I remember, as I hold the ragged, faded fly in my hand, and see that it still retains something of the dark blue of its mohair body and the sheen of its cock-feather wings, that it was one of six flies I had in my fly book that day in June that stands out from other June days, in my memory, like a Titan amongst pygmies. That fly had no name, but the trout liked it for all that, and rose to it with as much avidity as though they had been properly introduced to some real bug, of which this was an excellent counterfeit. That glorious two hours’ time, with its excitement of catching and landing without a net some of the most beautiful and gamy fish that ever moved fin, comes back to me as vividly as though at this moment the four walls of my room were the forest-circled shores of that far-away pond, and I stand in that leaky boat, almost ankle-deep in the water that Frank, the guide, had no time to bail, occupied as he is in watching my casts, and admiring my whip-like rod during the play of the fish or fishes, and in turning the boat’s gunwale to the water’s edge to let my trout in when they are exhausted. It is sharp, quick work, and the blue-bodied fly is always first of all the flies composing the cast to get a rise, until I take off all but the one kind, and then, one after another, I see them torn, mutilated, and destroyed. Later, they will be put away as old warriors gone to rest, and their epitaph written on their wrappings; ‘Thy work was well done; they rest well-earned.’ ” Favorite Flies, pp. 349-50.

“The fly without a name, that awakens memories of ‘that June day that stands out from other June days’ is now called the Puffer.” Favorite Flies, p. 350.

Cheney was instrumental in the creation of the bass fly pattern that bears the heritage of his name. In the 1880′s, Mr. Cheney was visiting the Orvis fly tying room in Manchester, Vermont, seeking to develop a new bass fly pattern. According to the account in Marbury’s book, p. 402: “One summer when Mr. Cheney was staying at Schroon Lake, a few flies, all of them new combinations, were sent to him to try. Among them was a fly like that of the present Cheney fly, but with a black wing. Later in the season Mr. Cheney visited Manchester, when he said, “If that fly had a different wing, it would be just about my idea of a perfect fly for black bass.” Feathers were therefore inspected to find a more suitable wing, and finally those of the mallard with a black bar decided upon. The fly was then made, under Mr. Cheney’s supervision. When finished to his satisfaction he named it the Cheney, and his success with the fly in many different waters has proved the correctness of his theories and conclusions drawn from previous experiments.”

I tied the Puffer fly for Adirondack trout, in sizes #6 and #8, and the Cheney Bass Flies in #2 and #4. Then I went about and prepared to photograph those flies for a blog post in conjunction with the bonus photographs that are included here, before I mailed them to my customer. That’s the day my camera fell from the TV tray and landed on the hardwood floor. This fall rendered the camera a total wreck and useless for anything except a paperweight or perhaps a shooting practice target item from that day forward. Which I felt like doing, but in actuality I think I can still get a trade-in allowance for it in the purchase of a new / used camera. I intended to replace it last month, but Abigail, my Cocker Spaniel, (see the topic “Boat Dog” from June 2013), required urgent surgery for a tumor on her spleen. That set me back almost $1100, so the camera allowance was eaten up by the life-saving operation on the dog. Abigail is doing great, so all is well!

Hence, my original plan to post photos of the Puffer and Cheney flies and photos of an antique Hardy brass-faced reel that was owned by and is engraved with the owner’s name, A. N Cheney, has still come to fruition, though not entirely as originally intended. My deepest thanks go to my customer, Howard Weinberg, for taking these photos of his valuable, collectible Hardy Perfect brass-face reel and the Cheney Bass Flies.

Antique brass-faced Hardy Perfect Reel, once owned by Albert Nelson Cheney, co-author with Charles F. Orvis of their 1883 book, Fishing With the Fly. Photo by Howard Weinberg. Forster Hardy was first granted a full patent for the Perfect reel design in 1889.

A. N. Cheney’s Hardy Perfect Reel, with two #2 Cheney Bass Flies, tied by Don Bastian. Photo by Howard Weinberg. The flies are dressed on vintage Mustad 3906 wet fly hooks.

Hardy Perfect Reel that belonged to A. N. Cheney of Glens Falls, New York; Cheney was the editor of the fishing department of Shooting and Fishing. Photo by Howard Weinberg.

Cheney’s Hardy perfect reel with Cheney Bass Fly tied by Don Bastian. Photo by Howard Weinberg.

I think it is amazing to think that Cheney possibly used this reel to fish his Cheney Bass Fly, or that he fished the Puffer in a wet fly cast for trout. Here is the recipe for the Cheney:

Cheney

Tag: Flat silver tinsel

Tail: Green parrot (or goose shoulder) and barred wood duck

Ribbing: Oval silver tinsel over the rear half of the body

Body: Rear half white floss; front half red chenille

Hackle: Yellow collar

Wing: White-tipped black-barred mallard wing coverts, paired as a spoon wing

Head: Light olive with red band at rear of head

My rendition of the head on this fly was taken from one of my photographs of the actual Plate Fly for the Cheney; it is finished with a light olive thread with a red band, fairly well-done in comparison to most of the flies that sport the rather unkempt look of the reverse-winged head used on most of the patterns back then. I also used Elmer’s Rubber Cement to glue the wing feathers together prior to mounting them to the hook, a technique I borrowed from my assembly of streamer wing hackles – shoulders – cheeks for Carrie Stevens’ fly patterns. This works great for winging some of these large-spoon winged flies that may present problematic feathers or mounting when tied in. The cement is applied just along the stem, for a half an inch or so, then pressed and held together for ten to fifteen seconds. Sometimes I lay the cemented wing down and place an object like an extra pair of scissors on the wing; the weight helps to hold them together while the cement sets.

Below is a photo of the Puffer from the 1893 Orvis Display at the American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, Vermont.

The Puffer wet fly, an Adirondack trout fly pattern. This fly is labeled in Mary Orvis Marbury’s handwriting, from the 1893 Orvis Fly Display, presently held at the American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, Vermont. Photo by Don Bastian.

Puffer

Tag:                 Fine flat gold tinsel

Tail:                 Red duck or goose quill

Ribbing:          Fine flat or oval gold tinsel

Body:               Dark blue mohair dubbing

Hackle:            English grouse, or dark brown mottled hen

Wing:              Iridescent blue rooster or mallard wing  sections

Head:              Black thread

This dressing for the Puffer is correct according to study of this photo and the information presented in the text of Marbury’s book. I hope you have enjoyed this trip back in time!

OK folks, I thought I would share an update on the use of Rubber Cement, Elmer’s specifically, for use on cementing streamer wing components together as pioneered by Carrie Stevens in the late 1920′s or early 1930′s. Carrie was a milliner by trade, and she began tying flies in 1920, after being gifted with some long shank hooks, bucktails, and feathers by Charles E. “Shang” Wheeler, a family friend and fishing guide client of her husband, Wallace. Shang gave Carrie the materials and encouraged her, probably saying something like, “Why don’t you give this a shot?” The rest is history. Carrie’s Gray Ghost streamer, nearly eighty years after its creation, remains as the pinnacle streamer fly above all others created before or since. It is still sold in fly shops and fishing stores across the state of Maine and New England, because it catches fish. The Gray Ghost is likely to remain where it is, in its proper place of unchallenged prominence as the most famous streamer fly ever created.

Gray Ghost Streamer from Streamers365.com, 2012. Photographed by Darren MacEachern, site originator and owner of Streamers365.com. Interesting to note, the head on this fly was painted, as opposed to my proprietary method later developed to band the heads solely with actual thread colors. I say proprietary because I do this differently than Carrie Stevens did. The wing color on this fly is very similar to some of the bronze-colored hackle feather examples of Mrs. Stevens own Gray Ghosts that are photographed in the book, Carrie Stevens: Maker of Rangeley Favorite Trout and Salmon Flies, 2000, Stackpole Press, by Graydon and Leslie Hilyard.

Carrie cemented her wing components together; wing hackles, shoulders of various feathers, and jungle cock cheeks, using a type of cement or thick varnish. Mike Martinek, Jr., of Stoneham, Massachusetts, was probably the first modern streamer tier to implement cemented wing components into his replications of Carrie Stevens streamer patterns. Mike was mentored by Austin S. Hogan when he was a young man. Austin was the first curator of the American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, Vermont, besides being a noted fly tier and angling historian. On one occasion, Mike and Austin deconstructed four of Carrie Stevens’ flies. A complete set of Austin’s notes on Mrs. Stevens’ fly tying and assembly methods, consisting of typed text, along with pencil drawings and notations, was included as part of the museum display in Manchester, titled, “A Graceful Rise” which featured fifty women prominent in the history of fly tying and fly fishing. I noticed the notes during a visit to the museum and took photographs of them in June of 2012.

Colonel Bates, from Streamers365.com, 2012. Photo by Darren MacEachern. This fly also has a lacquered head. I prefer using only thread now to accomplish this.

Studying these notes has been enlightening, and has been instrumental in my personal progression of replicating Carrie Stevens streamer patterns. My years of fly tying experience, combined with the information from the Darrel Martin / Mike Martinek Carrie Stevens 2001 article in Fly Rod and Reel, and bits of information I gleaned from Mike Martinek over the years has contributed to my present state of finally being satisfied that I am no longer leaving out any details when replicating Carrie Stevens streamer patterns. I tied my very first Gray Ghost when I was in high school, about 1968 or ’69. Some tiers are not as detail-oriented as I am, or as interested in being historically accurate when replicating other fly tiers patterns, but I choose to replicate Carrie Stevens’ patterns as close to her design as I can; I wind the ribbing counter-clockwise as she did – most photos I’ve seen of Carrie Stevens originals with clockwise ribbing were reversed images, besides it makes no sense to think she was not consistent with this component. I also replicate her elongated, banded heads; I believe the head shape and banding is a tribute to her pattern design, especially since she used a selection of thread colors for the bands, and they were clearly a color-coordinated component of her patterns. I first banded the heads on some of her patterns in the 1980′s, then after a time discontinued it. Furthermore, when Wendell Folkins bought her business in 1953, she wanted him to replicate the head bands to designate the patterns he was tying as hers. I have also gotten very careful about making sure all the components; underbelly and under wings – peacock herl, silver and golden pheasant crest, and bucktail, are all equally as long as the wing of the fly. That is an often overlooked aspect of Carrie’s tying standards.

Jungle Queen, from Streamers365.com, 2012. This pattern is identical to Carrie’s Yellow Witch. Note the head on this fly is not banded. Photo by Darren MacEachern.

Prior to 2011, I tied all my streamer patterns in typical ‘Eastern fashion.’ I had never cemented streamer wings until the early summer of 2011. Another tier I was friends with at the time suggested it, and with some reluctance I tried it. The initial result was satisfying, particularly on the rather unruly golden pheasant tippet shoulders, since I was tying my first Big Ben streamer. Once I found out how easy it was to mount previously assembled wings, I kept right at it. I would have used Flexament for this but my bottle was thick to the point of being totally unusable. My hometown has no fly shops anymore, so at the local hardware store, I saw and decided to try Elmer’s Rubber Cement. It was only three bucks, so I figured I had nothing to lose.

Herb Welch originated the Black Ghost, but Carrie tied other popular patterns originated by other tiers of her time; she added her unique method of construction and banded heads to all these flies as well. I want to start replicating some of these patterns as she did, in her style, down to the last detail. Carrie and Herb were practically neighbors, he sold her flies in his shop at Haines Landing. The Black Ghost pre-dates Carrie’s Gray Ghost; according to Hilyard’s book, by about six or seven years. The first mention of the Gray Ghost is on one of Carrie’s invoices in 1933 or 1934.

To overcome criticism I got when I announced that I was going to use rubber cement for cementing streamer wings, I soaked a completed wing assembly in water for thirty-six hours, then shook it hard – three-hundred, wrist-numbing shakes. It held together. Elmer’s is great for this because:

1) It does not bleed through the feathers. I invite anyone to inspect any of my cemented-wing streamer flies and find evidence of bleed-through cement. It ain’t there!

2) It sets up fairly fast, but it can be ‘worked’ – in other words, the cement remains soft enough to position, reposition, and align, if necessary; the neck hackles, shoulders, and cheeks.

3) The fly / wings does not come apart, even when soaked in water and shook violently, as my personal test proved, to simulate casting and fishing.

4) It is inexpensive.

5) It is readily and widely available, Walmart, CVS, Jo Ann’s Fabrics, your local hardware store, etc.

6) It has no obnoxious odor.

7) If need be, components can be disassembled and reassembled without problems (like when I accidentally get the order of wing hackles wrong, oops).

The Supervisor, originated by Warden Joseph Stickney, from Streamers365.com, 2012. This is another popular pattern tied and sold by Carrie Stevens. Mr. Stickney was not a fly tier, but had other tiers bring his creations to life for him. Photo by Darren MacEachern.

Last weekend at the Arts of the Angler Show in Danbury, Connecticut, I had the pleasure of tying beside fellow tier, Peggy Brenner, from New Hampshire. Peggy was featured in the Graceful Rise exhibition, and she has taken lessons from Mike Martinek. She’s a good fly tier, tying streamers and Atlantic salmon flies, and she also has a business of selling her flies.

This is where the point of this article, the rubber cement bombshell finally hits the target. This is great news, and validates more what I have been saying about the use of rubber cement for cementing streamer wings. Last weekend Peggy told me that her husband bought her a water tank with a pump to create current, so she could “test” flies for action, performance, etc. Peggy informed me that she inserted into her tank, on a section of leader, a Carrie Stevens streamer pattern, that had wings she cemented with Elmer’s Rubber Cement. Not over night. Not for a couple days. But for three weeks! Peggy said whenever she checked on the fly, it was just swimming and fluttering merrily along. When she finally took the fly out, it was fine and in perfect condition, the cement held. Three weeks of total immersion in a water tank; twenty-four seven, that is a total of five-hundred four hours. Do you know how many fishing hours that translates into? Given the fact that most of us fish a fly for no more than an hour or so at a time, and maybe only a few times per year, if not lost to a big fish, a submerged log or rock, or an errant back cast, and provided the hook did not rust, said rubber cemented streamer fly could be passed along from generation to generation to generation and still have fishing life left. But by then, the thread might rot, or some other component would fail. My point is that rubber cement is a great and durable cement for cementing streamer wings.

I found this especially enlightening and gratifying since the grapevine told me that another fly tying instructor was pooh-poohing my use of rubber cement for streamer wings in his / her classes. Imagine that. Don’t want to point fingers by being gender specific, but it looks like the rubber cement “discussion” is over.

BYR Smelt, from Streamers365.com, 2012. Photo by Darren MacEachern. The BYR (pronounced by-er) in the pattern name is an acronym for Blue-Yellow-Red in the wing. This is one of my original streamer patterns, but it is totally assembled with Carrie Stevens cemented wing component methods and her style of layering the throat in a process toward the head.

When I get a new camera I’ll be busily filling in the gaps of blog posts that I’ve missed. I’ll have to think about doing a step-by-step of the cementing process, even a video.

I had a comment from a reader that prompted an explanation of my cementing techniques; I decided to add this information to the article to help folks understand my methods and personal tricks of cementing streamer wing assemblies.

For now, and my method is a little different than Leslie Hilyard’s; he cements the jungle cock nail to the shoulder feather, then cements this completed section to the cemented-together hackles. I generally start with the inside feather; some of Carrie’s patterns contain six hackles in the wing; three on a side. I put the lesser quality (if any difference) of the feathers on the inside, that is when they are the same color as on the Gray Ghost, Canary, etc. I dip my bodkin in the rubber cement about 5/8″ to 3/4″ for larger size streamers. Smaller hooks would require less. I probably cement 25% to 30% of the front of the wing, just a bit less than the total length of the shoulder, which Carrie Stevens determined to be 1/3 of the wing length.
Sometimes I swirl the bodkin tip a bit in the bottle to make sure I get enough cement on it. I apply the cement on the top side of the feather along the stem line, holding my bodkin parallel to the stem, and then slowly draw the bodkin off the butt end, while rotating it in my thumb and finger. This rolling action makes the cement slide off the bodkin to lay evenly along the stem. Then I pick up the next feather and align that evenly and press it into place, making sure the tip ends are even, and the stems are perfectly aligned at the shoulder joint. Same process is repeated for a third wing hackle, as on the Firefly, Jitterbug, General MacArthur, etc.
The same tier who gave me grief about using the rubber cement in the first place also tried to tell me I put too much cement on, that is, along too much of the feather length. However, Carrie Stevens didn’t just put a dab on near the ends of the feathers, she cemented a significant portion of the feather length; and she also cemented the (inside of the) wings to the body at the front of the hook shank, cementing both sides together. My method cements the feathers similar to hers and creates the “tight, bulky front end” of the fly that was part of Carrie Stevens’ bait fish design. Though I don’t cement the wings together unless one or both are unruly.
I apply cement to the top of the second (or third) wing hackle as before, then press the shoulder in place. I generally use my Tweezerman non-serrated tweezers to do this, as this allows a more precise handling, positioning, and final placement of the feather. Same with the jungle cock, though I generally demonstrate multiple handling methods to my students and observers. A light touch after each feather is added secures the feathers in place. I have also laid a pair of scissors or hackle pliers on top of the just-cemented wing assembly to add a bit of weight to make it set.
Contrary again to Hilyard and some others, I prefer to trim my butt ends fairly close, not clipping them after the wings are tied to the hook. And like I advocated in my 2004 wet fly DVD, I trim the butt ends at a sharp angle, not a straight cross-cut. This tapers the end lengths of the individual feather stems so you can wrap over them and smoothly bind them to the hook and make a smooth thread base for the head. See also:

http://donbastianwetflies.com/2013/01/13/carrie-stevens-and-rangeley-style-streamers/

I’m happy to say I’m feeling great, healthy, and not even on any medications; a far cry from a year ago. Barring some unforeseen or unexpected circumstance, I will be at the International Fly Tying Symposium in Somerset, New Jersey on November 23 and 24. I’ll be happy to demonstrate and try to answer your questions about tying classic wet flies, historic 19th century trout, lake, and bass flies on snelled or gut-loop eye blind-eye hooks, or Carrie Stevens streamer patterns or her methods.

Thanks to Darren MacEachern for the use of his photos of my flies. I decided to use them since he does great work. And maybe you’re tired of seeing my pictures. Tight threads everyone!

In response to a good question on the comment thread to yesterday’s post on streamer wing cementing methods by one of my subscribers, I answered his questions with a lengthy explanation on my cementing methods. I decided to add that to the tail end of yesterday’s post. I thought the information was significant and possibly helpful enough to add it to that post. And I also included a link to an older post some of you may not have seen; it explains Carrie Stevens’ layering method of stacking or “shingling” the throat hackle fibers, as my friend Mike Martinek, Jr., calls it, and also my (and other fly tiers) method of tapering the butt ends of the feathers in the wing assembly, something that I borrowed from my early years of wet fly tying, tapering the butt ends of the wing quill with your scissors so you can make a nice, evenly tapered head.

The International Fly Tying Symposium will be held this weekend in Somerset, New Jersey, at the Garden State Exhibit Center. The show hotel is the nearby Doubletree.

Here is a link containing information to the Fly Tying Symposium: http://www.internationalflytyingsymposium.com/

I am displaying and demonstrating at the Symposium this weekend, concentrating on the tying and teaching of Rangeley style streamers, featuring some patterns of Carrie Stevens; classic wet flies, both 19th and 20th century versions – four styles of mounting wet fly wings, and also some blind-eye 19th century patterns, particularly a few of the large fancy Lake and Bass flies. I’ve been tying primarily at shows lately on Mustad #4 and #2 wet fly hooks. Be sure to ask about my “new,” to me, and you too, probably, and greatly improved over all others, wet fly wing mounting method, thanks to my friend Dave Lomasney of York, Maine. I also promised to my readers to demo my method for mounting duck breast feathers for fan wing dry fly patterns. If anyone is interested I can tie a Fan Wing Royal Coachman start to finish.

I’m excited to present (for me anyway, and probably other tiers too), for the first time in public, the historically correct pattern version, every component correct according to originator Henry Wells, of the Parmacheene Belle, famous Maine Lake Fly dating to the year of its origin, approximately 1876. The complete accurate recipe for this fly was recorded in Wells’ chapter titled Fly Fishing the Rangeley Lakes Region in C. F. Orvis and A. N. Cheney’s 1883 book, Fishing With the Fly. Maybe it’s not significant to some, but I finally got hold of some yellow mohair dubbing, which is the original body material, and the color closely matches my photos of one-hundred-twenty year old Parmacheene Belles taken from the Orvis collection at the American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, Vermont. I have a #1/0 bronze hook Parmacheene Belle tied on a gut snell with a bite guard. Stop by and check it out! It is interesting that the Orvis version of Wells’ famous pattern was created with a married half-red, half-white wing, not the original white-with-red-stripe married wing. Perhaps they developed an easier-to-tie commercial version.

Another author got Well’s mohair body incorrect in a 1950 book by calling for a yellow palmered hackle on a yellow wool or floss body. He likely relied on the painted image in Marbury’s book for his interpretation, because the original mounted fly patterns from her book were not discovered until the 1970′s in the old Orvis fly tying barn in Manchester, Vermont. The fish more likely than not probably don’t care, but I believe strongly in ascertaining historic fly pattern ingredient correctness, whenever possible. My photo of the original Plate Fly of No. 60, the Parmacheene Belle from Favorite Flies and Their Histories, 1892, by Mary Orvis Marbury, will be available on my table through the wonders of a lap-top computer, which will be running an on-going slide show of more than two hundred images of the actual plate flies from Marbury’s book.

Parmacheene Belle, Lake Fly from the 1893 Orvis Display at the American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, Vermont. I have posted this image previously, but I felt its inclusion here would enhance this post. Note the red and white wing, not Well’s original white wing with red stripe.

Below is an image of the cousin to the Parmacheene Belle, the Parmacheene Beau, which according to Marbury, Henry Wells had nothing to do with. It is surprising that the Parmacheene Beau is included on the Orvis Display, considering her rather derogatory remarks about “the Beau” in her book.

Parmacheene Beau, Lake Fly, from the 1893 Orvis Display. Note the scarlet “split” or stripe. The mohair body is more noticeable here, and the tinsel tag is visible; it is there on the Parmacheene Belle, but not visible due to poor lighting. Both these hooks are large, No. 1, 1/0, possibly 2/0.

I’m also on the Saturday evening banquet program, for a short, humorous, musical presentation. Hope to see new and old friends this weekend! Tight threads everyone!

Fly tying classes have been around for some time, but not for a long time. If you have more than a couple decades or half-a-lifetime or most of your life, of fly tying experience, then perhaps you’ve heard stories how fly tying used to be, back in the old days, somewhat of a closely guarded profession, secrets were kept, even though there were a few books written on the subject. Back in the early 1930′s Walt and Winnie Dette, famous Catskill fly tying husband and wife team, asked Ruben Cross, author of Tying American Trout Lures, 1936, to teach them how to tie flies. They offered Rube the tidy sum of $50 in return for lessons, which at that time, considering it was the Great Depression, was more than pocket change. Their request  was met with Rube’s terse reply, “Go to hell.” Undaunted, the Dette’s bought some of Rube’s flies, carefully took them apart, made notes, and taught themselves how to tie flies. The rest of that chapter is history.

Back in 1964 when I started tying flies, my dad showed my brother and I how to get started; a short lesson consisting of dad tying three flies, then giving all his tying tools and materials to Larry and I. We progressed for several years tying and trying, using the instructions in Ray Bergman’s Trout and the brief chapter titled, On Tying Flies, and How to Tie Flies, by E. C. Gregg, 1940. Fly tying lessons were slow to catch on in the late 1960′s and through the ’70′s. Nowadays, many fly shops have in-house demos and lessons and there is a plethora of fly tying videos on the market. And then there is the internet; forums, online how-to articles, and you tube videos of tying hundreds of fly patterns. There are many fly tying “arm-chair experts” out there, some qualified, some, well… Considering the wealth of available fly tying information, still, the best learning source is to take a class with an experienced, professional, accomplished fly tier who knows their work and also has an ability to teach and has appropriate organizational and instructional skills to lead a class.

DVD’s are great, but when I started teaching fly tying lessons twenty-eight years ago, I learned that even “professional” fly tying instructors are not always the best teachers. How did I learn this? I learned it over time from my students, and also from people that stopped by my tables at fly tying shows, where I have presented and demonstrated for over twenty years. Repeated questions on a number of tying topics convinced me that many fly tying instructors take too much for granted in their students, they assume knowledge and / or a level experience that may not be what they believe. My definition of a professional fly tier is one who has several notches in their gun belt. More on those “notches” in a few moments.

Whether one should take a fly tying class or not is a question that perhaps you have pondered. I started tying in 1964, and never actually took a fly tying class until I was working for Cathy and Barry Beck. Barry suggested I sit in on a class being taught by the late, great Jack Gartside.The next step for me was to serve as assistant instructor in a class taught by Barry Beck. Prior to these early 1990′s class sessions with the Beck’s, in 1985 I organized a new format for a beginner’s fly tying class for my local Trout Unlimited Chapter in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. I found out the chapter formerly conducted fly tying classes, but they had not been held after I joined in 1974. I served as class coordinator for these classes, and several chapter members who were also experienced fly tiers participated as teachers and assistants. Extra help can be a good thing and is generally beneficial, but oftentimes, there are some personal preferences and variations in individual fly tying habits that can be passed to the students by well-meaning assistants. Favorite methods of one person are not necessarily those of another. This can also be a good thing, I’m all for presenting multiple methods of skinning the cat, but there is also the possibility that the assistants can inadvertently contradict what the head instructor is teaching, and in the end, this can be confusing to the students. Good organization is key.

I heard a piece of fly tying class news over the past weekend at the International Fly Tying Symposium, which is not uncommon, but what I heard from a former student in a particular fly tying instructor’s recent class made me think that perhaps a bit of advice from a veteran fly tying instructor might be a good thing to pass along, especially if you or anyone you know is considering taking a fly tying class. The particular class report I heard was that in a three-hour session, the students did not even complete one fly. Aside from being a little bit dumbfounded, all I will say about that is: “Something’s wrong with this picture.” I was informed about this because by comparison, last winter I taught a streamer class to that same group, we completed six patterns in seven hours, including a break for lunch. We also dressed two Carrie Stevens streamer patterns using her unique Rangeley style material placements and her methods of streamer fly tying / wing assembly. I held that same class twice with the same rate of progress, twenty students in all. I know for a fact, based on my twenty-eight years of fly tying instruction experience, that I could easily finish two or three streamers with six to twelve students in three hours. So…if one is considering taking a fly tying class, here are my recommendations; referencing the aforementioned “notches” in a potential fly tying instructor’s gun belt:

1) Fly Tying Experience – the more the better. A qualified instructor has more than a few years, I’m talking decades of fly tying experience. If taking advanced classes, one ought not be able to count the potential tying instructor’s years of experience on the fingers of one hand. Intermediate tiers can teach others the basics of beginning and intermediate fly tying. Regardless of that, the best fly tying instructors have twenty, thirty, forty or more years of experience in fly tying no matter what the subject matter.

2) Fly Tying Teaching Experience – like number one, the more the better. A good instructor for teaching advanced fly tying patterns and methods should be one who has taught classes for at least ten years. That said, there are a few fly tiers who have excelled in a particular style of tying in a relatively short period of time. Pat Cohen of New York, a deer hair master with only about five years of tying experience, comes to mind. A good instructor can plan the class itinerary, stick to it, proceed at a comfortable pace, and get the lessons across without leaving any student lingering for lack of understanding the material and methods being presented. The instructor should also be skilled enough to plan for contingency variations, often tailoring specific tying procedures to the students needs or requests.

3) Teaching Ability – differs from teaching experience. Tenure does not necessarily translate to good instruction. A good fly tying instructor knows threads, deniers, and applications, and also should know, for example, the reason and explanation why left-handed fly tiers often have trouble with fraying threads. A good class instructor will be able to have his students learn in a relaxed atmosphere, and be able to answer their questions and help them trouble-shoot any problems they may be having. A good instructor can present each pattern and material usage and tying method and application in a manner that is easily understood by all the students, without skimming over or skipping significant details. This is more common that you might think; much of my personal teaching methods and instruction style is very detail-oriented; the result of fielding questions from fly tiers who have taken other classes and came away, shall we say, less than completely satisfied.

4) Versatility – a good fly tying instructor for advanced classes is one who has pretty much achieved a personal level of mastery of a particular group or groups of fly patterns and tying styles. Catskill Drys for example. If one ties and fishes only drys, then there’s not much point learning how to tie saltwater flies. But the more accomplished a fly tying instructor is, the better teacher they can be. Even though as an instructor I admit willingly to still being on the learning curve, as we all are. A good fly tying instructor knows wet flies, streamers, bucktails, dry flies, saltwater flies, and possibly hairwing salmon flies; these are basically bucktails and wet flies combined; a smidgin of bass bug information and maybe a little deer-hair spinning, and one or more sub-categories within each group. Full-dress salmon flies are a nice notch to have in one’s gun belt, but are not essential to being a good qualified fly tying instructor.

5) Knowledge and Ability – a good fly tying instructor knows how and why things work the way they do, and knows how to explain and teach methods that enable students to learn “how and why,” so the students can progress, learn, and make things work as they should.

6) References – last but not least, a good fly tying instructor will provide references of their past teaching experiences from a number of sources; venues, shops, and locations. References from former students and fly tying clubs should also be readily available. And it goes without saying, these should be good references.

Watch this blog for upcoming class schedules. I’ll be at a location in Massachusetts in February, and Maine in March. Possibly a few more locations. Details to be announced!

Hi everyone! Following a very successful class in March of 2013 at Eldredge Brothers Fly Shop in Cape Neddick, Maine, that filled to capacity a couple weeks after being announced, shop manager, Jim Bernstein has invited me back again this year. Two class dates are set:

Saturday, March 15, 2014 and

Sunday March 16, 2014.

The Saturday class topic is classic wet flies and will feature the heritage patterns of 19th century Maine Lake Flies, such as the Belgrade, Rangeley, Richardson, Cupsuptic, Parmacheene Belle, etc. The class will include tying patterns on eyed hooks, which became popular in the mid-1890′s, as well as dressing a fly or two on a classic blind-eye hook using both a gut snood and a snell.

Sunday’s class will focus on classic Maine feather-wing streamers and will include traditional Eastern styles of tying, with a special feature of two Carrie Stevens streamer patterns, presenting her unique Rangeley method of streamer construction. Full details of her methods using information from classic streamer guru, Mike Martinek, Jr., and Austin Hogan’s  notes on his deconstruction of Carrie’s flies will be included.

Here is a link to the class information on the Eldredge Brothers Fly Shop site:

http://eldredgeflyshop.com/seminars

For additional information feel free to contact the shop or me directly at: dwbastian@chilitech.net

I wanted to post some news to let my readers know that I am back to normal, if such a thing is possible. Actually, folks that knew I was seriously ill a year ago have been asking about my health. I am pleased to report that I am nearly “normal” in that regard, my strength and stamina have returned, I’ve gained weight (too much!), I feel great, and presently I am not even on any medications. To quote Larry the Cable Guy, “That’s funny right there!” I joked about that at the International Fly Tying Symposium, saying that perhaps some people might think I need to be on medication. Hey, I made it this far without it.

I have not written anything here for a few weeks, but it has been due to my busy schedule, and also the result of being away from home for two weeks for the Pennsylvania deer season. The Bastian family cabin is only twenty-miles from my home, and I came here a few times to get mail, look things over, and check my e-mail. I had a few neighbors watching the place as well. Deer season was a bust as far as getting venison in the freezer, but we had a great time.

Being away from home for two weeks starting the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the main reason that blog activity has been absent. Being home again after deer season and two weekend shows in November, and then traveling to Connecticut to visit my daughter and her family, and see my new granddaughter over Thanksgiving is the second part of being back to normal.

I have news on several topics that I would like to share. First, my camera has been replaced, the original Canon G9 Powershot was toast in September after hitting my hardwood floor, having fallen just a couple feet from a TV tray. The “new” camera is a “used” and reconditioned Canon G9 Powershot. I figured that was the best way to go at the present time, mainly for cost: about $200, compared to $600 when I bought it new in 2008. Secondly and importantly, there is no learning curve. I have a number of flies and fly tying / pattern projects that I will be working on. I also have some articles in the works and will be using the camera for that as well. Another bonus with the new camera is that it came with a charger and new battery, so I now have spares on those items. And this “used” camera is actually in better condition than my old one.

The other thing that I am really excited about – and readers who have been with me for a while are aware of this, but I play the drums, or at least I used to. And after a long absence, I am playing again. From ninth grade in 1967 until 1979 I played in rock and roll bands that played various styles of music. The very first song I recall learning was Little Bit O’ Soul by The Music Explosion. My brother Larry played lead guitar in the first three or four bands. During the following years most of the music we played was Top Forty, but in the late 1960′s and early ’70′s, we also explored music from bands that only received FM radio play in the days before classic rock stations existed. Songs in our playlist included: Louie Louie, Green Tambourine by the Lemon Pipers; I Can’t Get No Satisfaction, As Tears Go By, and Jumpin’ Jack Flash - The Rolling Stones; Hold On I’m Comin’ by Sam and Dave; Knock on Wood – Eddie Floyd; Sock It To Me Baby – Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels; Happy Together – Turtles;  All Day and All Night and You Really Got Me – The Kinks; Sweet Soul Music – Arthur Conley; and Live For Today – The Grassroots. My sister bought me two LP’s for Christmas when I was in ninth grade – The Moody Blues Days of Future Passed, and Procol Harum Shine on Brightly. Those two records started me on the path of becoming a convicted audiophile. MY LP vinyl collection now is nearly three-hundred records, and I have as many CD’s as well. I have a vintagemid-70′s Marantz four-channel stereo system that can rattle the windows in this place.

Not long after our first band formed we were introduced to the harder-edged music of Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Deep Purple, Steppenwolf, and even the great old Super Session album with Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, and Stephen Stills. We used to play, You Don’t Love Me Baby. Great song! Other tunes in our late 1960′s repertoire were And The Address and Hush – Deep Purple, Fire, Foxy Lady, Purple Haze, and Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix; Born to Be Wild and Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf; Sunshine of Your Love and Tales of Brave Ulysses by Cream; and of course In A Gadda Da Vida by Iron Butterfly. And I just now learned when checking the spelling of that tune, that the translation is: In the Garden of Eden. I can’t forget that our early 1970′s band also played some Black Sabbath. Yes it’s true, this fly tier is an old hard-rocker. War Pigs, Ironman, The Wizard, and a few other songs were on the playlist. We used to hate playing “old” songs back then, but in contrast, it is interesting to note that any of these songs could be on the playlist of a working band today and still be popular.

Before digressing too much more, it should be noted that subsequent bands included multiple personnel changes, horn sections, a female lead singer, then finally in 1977 taking the form of a five-piece, two guitar band, one of whom doubled on piano and synthesizer, plus a bass player, with a big PA system and sound man. We broke up in 1979, but in the years prior, our song list read like a playlist of today’s classic rock radio stations. Aerosmith, Steely Dan, Deep Purple, The Cars, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Foghat, The Eagles, Little River Band, Doobie Brothers, Bad Company, Boston, Foreigner, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, Emerson Lake and Palmer; our cover music of these bands, powered by double lead guitars, a big PA system and lighting rocked out many bars and clubs in the Williamsport, Pennsylvania, region in the late 1970′s. There were other good bands in the area as well, but we had a good following. It was a great time.

Last August, on a Sunday evening at the outdoor venue of The Crippled Bear bar with a live band in nearby Williamsport, Bert Smeal, the bass player from my old band and I met accidentally. I had not seen him for years. We caught up on things, and he put me in touch with one of the guitarists, and said there had been some talk about the old band getting back together. Most of us were married, raised children, and are now grandfathers. One guitarist never married, and our former lead singer passed away in the late 1990′s. The discussion of a reunion has been going on for a few months – but this Thursday, the two guitarists and me are meeting for dinner and a few beers at The Stable Bar and Grille in Cogan Station, Pennsylvania. This newly renovated bar just opened in November, it is just two miles over the hill from my house. They have the largest dance floor and stage in the area. I have not seen guitarist Don Cunningham for thirty-five years, since the band broke up. The other guitarist friend, Rob Foust, and I went to The Beach Boys in concert this past September. I have seen him a few times over the past decades. Both Bert and Rob attended my wife’s funeral service in March of 2007. And I have not seen either of them until recently. We are talking of learning a half-dozen songs to participate in Open Mic Night at The Stable, and possibly sit in when another area band is on break at a local gig.

Since I am a baritone, I cannot sing the high stuff; Zeppelin, Foreigner, Aerosmith, Boston, Deep Purple, AC / DC; that’s out of my league ( I wish it wasn’t but you can’t have everything you want), but I have been singing for years since the band broke up. My late wife and I sang for twenty-seven years in a gospel quartet, we did a few theater musicals, and I’ve been singing along to my stereo at home and in my car since forever. I sang The Scotsman at the Saturday evening banquet at the recent International Fly Tying Symposium in New Jersey, and it went perfectly except for one little goof I made in the lyrics near the end of the song. Dang! Should have had the lyrics. I also have been singing at Karaoke bars lately, and have worked up a list of more than thirty songs, including the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dire Straits, Toby Keith, Trace Adkins, Brooks and Dunn, Muddy Waters, ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Billy Joel, Huey Lewis and The News, Confederate Railroad – Trashy Women, oh yeah! Roy Orbison, Georgia Satellites, and I’m working on Keith Anderson’s XXL. I’ve also got George Thorogood’s I Drink Alone and Bad to the Bone under my belt. That’s a blast, and I’ve met some nice people that have become new friends. The reason I included this information is that, since our lead singer has passed on, I could fill that spot if need be. I’ve developed a potential playlist of almost sixty songs so far, all having lead vocals in my range.

Another factor feeding my interest in playing again was the opportunity to sit in numerous times with the Flipside Band at local venues. So far with them I’ve played Mustang Sally, Green River, and Born on the Bayou.

The exciting news is that I am getting back into playing formally on New Year’s Eve. I have been asked to fill in for the drummer of a good local classic rock band who can’t make that gig, and my friend Bert, their usual fill-in drummer also cannot do it because of a prior commitment. So I was asked, and I’m very excited about it. I cleaned my drum set up some time ago and have added new hardware and some new-to-me, used Zildjian cymbals – eBay is a great source for good prices on that stuff. It’s been great fun playing my expanded vintage 1975 natural Wood Finish Premier Powerhouse set, which now has a hi-hat, a twenty-inch ride cymbal, and six splash / thin crash / medium thin crash cymbals ranging in size from ten inches to seventeen inches, all Zildjian brand. The oldest and best! The band I am playing with is Pepper Street. We’ve had two practice sessions, and they play a great collection of oldies and classic rock dance-music of the ’60′s, 70′s, and 80′s, with a handful of newer tunes thrown in. The musicians are really talented, they all play multiple instruments; guitar, bass, and keyboards, and they are all good vocalists as well. Me, I play drums and sing, that’s it. I would sit in with Pepper Street, but their drummer is left-handed and everything is backwards for me.

I was a little unprepared for the practice session a week ago because of short notice about it, being away at the cabin for deer camp, and then I had just a half day to review a playlist of nearly sixty songs, some that I did not know at all. Practice went well anyway, and the nice thing was that the band practices in a home studio of sorts and there is a drum set already there, so all I had to do was show up with a pair of sticks. Another plus is that their song list is a great mix of tunes including many that will be fun to play, Bang the Drum All Day – Todd Rundgren; Money For Nothin’ – Dire Straits; Just What I Needed – The Cars; White Wedding – Billy Idol; Rock and Roll All Night – Kiss, China Grove – Doobie Brothers, Born on the Bayou – CCR, and American Band – Grand Funk. Plus I sing the lead vocals on 867-5309 – Jenny, Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl, and the Jimmy Buffet classic, Margaritaville. Here is a link to the band website and their playlist:

http://www.pepperstreetband.com/song_list%20II.html

Between now and New Year’s Eve, I’ll be tying flies and listening to that playlist, because I need to familiarize myself more in depth with those songs. I also have orders for some framed flies that I am still working on. Now that things are back to normal, I’ll be working diligently to finish my loose ends on my open orders. I have generally played music more often than not while tying flies; been that way for years. Music is good for you. Playing or singing music is even better!