Ep 159: The History of Fly Fishing, with Jim Schottenham
Jim Schottenham is a curator at the American Museum of Fly Fishing in Manchester, VT. In this episode, we talk about all sorts of things related to the history of fly fishing, including influential people, the value of historical pieces, the first mentions of the sport, the evolution of rods and reels, notable flies, tenkara, and much more.
Website: AMFF.org
Discovered off the coast of Israel in 1970, this replica of a 6th century plate depicts an angler with a rod, reel, creel and fishing line looped through guides on the rod, the earliest known appearance of a fishing reel. The original plate resides at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Among the earliest documented fishing flies in the museum’s collection, the flies tied by Thomas Cummess included their bill of sale dated 1789.
Patented in 1874, the invention of Charles F. Orvis has influenced fly reel design for more than 150 years. It is considered the “father” of all modern fly reels.
Tied in 1791, this fly has an Indiangrass leader—just imagine a blade of grass as the sole connection between you and your catch!
Patented in 1859, the invention of William Billinghurst was the first fly reel patented in the United States.
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Intro
You’re listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 159 with Jim Schottenham on the history of fly fishing.
Katie
I begin every episode by getting a background on my guests and how they got into the outdoors and into fly fishing specifically. So, how were you first introduced to the world of fly fishing?
Jim
Well, fly fishing in particular, and it was probably back in my teens, was about my first recollection of using a fly rod. I've been fishing since I was about five years old. I was very fortunate that my family actively brought me on some fishing trips out to the ocean. They, at five years old, they wouldn't let me use a rod and reel. They gave me a hand line. I think that's probably what led me to my fascination for fishing tackle. I've My interest spiked probably in my 30s, and I've been very fortunate to have people that have brought me fishing on some of the most amazing and beautiful locations in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, and some of the saltwater areas along Cape Cod and the East Coast. So I've been very fortunate in that I've been able to chase a lot of finned creatures.
Katie
And how did you end up where you are today as the curator of the American Museum of Fly Fishing?
Jim
Well, I started out with, I've always been a collector of things, and it was a discovery of my grandfather's tackle box in my grandmother's basement. When I found the lures and reels that he had down there, being an avid angler, when I saw those things, I was immediately interested and started doing some research into what they were. It opened up a world to me that I was unfamiliar with at the time. And I just kind of immersed myself in the history of the equipment. From that, I began attending some tackle shows around the country. And that led me to an organization called the Old Real Collectors Association. And after a number of years, I was on the board of directors for the organization, ultimately becoming a president of the organization. led me to doing some work for a tackle auction house, describing some of the antique tackle that they had in that auction. I did that for a number of years. That led me to an association with the museum, who of course from time to time would either look to acquire things that had been in the auction, or I would help them out with identification of some of the tackle that they had. And that relationship grew over the years. And in 2022, the opportunity came up to join the museum as a curator. And when I learned that I could do some of the work from home and then travel to Manchester, Vermont, I jumped at the opportunity.
Katie
And what is a typical day of work look like for you?
Jim
Well, there isn't much in the way of typical, I would say. And that's that's probably the best part. answering questions from members and non-members, you really don't know what those questions are going to be or what direction are going to take you. I'll talk to people about potential donations to the museum. Oftentimes I get questions about simply what do I have here. They find something in the house that was given to them by a relative or a friend or something they found at a garage sale and they're just curious about it. So I'll do a fair amount of research for them. We of course have, oh boy, countless items in the museum's holdings. So I'll do research on them. I'll write some articles for the journal. But like I said, it can run the gamut. You never know what you're going to get.
Katie
When someone comes to you with a piece, you know, with the question of what is this, how often is it something that maybe in a day would have been kind of a common run of the mill thing versus something that was maybe more rare or these days is kind of more of a collector's item. Is there a percentage of kind of like run-of-the-mill stuff versus a real treasure?
Jim
Yeah, I think that, well, the internet of course, with the introduction of the internet and internet sites like eBay, it's done quite a bit to bring what was once thought to be rare, people now realize that they're not quite as rare. if you look back at some of the publications from 40 or 50 years ago, when collecting tackle first came around, the authors of those books had very limited resources and they were only able to write about what they were able to find. Over the years, things that were once considered rare, maybe now there's quite a few more that have come out and they're not quite so rare. When I worked at the auction house, I remember very clearly getting a phone call from a gentleman who had been working at a house. He was a contractor. He was taking some walls down and he found two reels behind a plaster and he really didn't know what they were. He couldn't find any information on the internet. And it turns out that those two reels that he had were from 1868 and the other from 1872. Those were pretty rare pieces. So he was very pleased to learn about those things. I often tell people if they find something that they're unaware of, oftentimes the value isn't so much monetary, it's more that it came from a family member or belonged to their father, grandfather, so in a lot of cases, there's going to be much more sentimental value than actual value. So I try to let them down gently if they think they're going to be able to retire. Most people understand, they take it pretty well.
Katie
That kind of maybe answers my next question, which is gonna be like, what are the different routes If someone did find something like that, I assume you could either bring it to a museum, you could try to sell it for money, you could keep it as your own kind of treasure piece. But it sounds like, in your opinion, most of these are going to be better used as kind of a keepsake more than striking it rich on something you find.
Jim
Yeah, the likelihood of finding something that, as I said, you're going to be able to retire on or striking it rich, those are still pretty rare. But one thing that I do is encourage people to hang on to some of those things. Now, as I mentioned early on, I really didn't get into collecting tackle until I was in my 20s. And I'm sure that when I was five or 10 years old, I would have had almost no interest in these things. But as you grow older, you start to appreciate some of the things that came from your family. It may not be in their 20s, it may not be when they're in their 30s, but family members ultimately can find value in things that were used and lovingly used by their family members.
Katie
Sure. That kind of leads into the next thing I want to ask, which is, what's the importance for you of remembering these things and keeping a hold of them? I mean, there might be a lot of people these days that just want to go out and catch fish, and they don't really see a lot of value in learning what used to be around and where everything today came from. What's your spiel on the value of remembering these older pieces and the people who came before us?
Jim
Well, the first thing I'll say is the people that came before us and invented a lot of these things, they would want the artifacts that they've created, they'd want them to be used and fished with. The history behind all this tackle, it's vast. There's a fishing tackle is just an enormous resource for anglers to be able to go in any direction they like. Fly fishing in particular has a very storied history. We'll get into a little bit of that later, I'm sure. So it is important, I think, to understand where things originated and where they came from to help you appreciate some of the things that we have today. The advancements that have been made are just-- it's amazing when you see the transformation. But there's also some things that-- I'll use bamboo rods as an example. A fine bamboo rod 100 years ago is just as fishable as a fine bamboo rod today.
Katie
That's really interesting. I'd be curious what your thoughts are on the things that have progressed the most, I guess. Because that's like bamboos on one end, where the rods back then would be comparable to those today. I'm sure the other end, there's some things where if you went out today and tried to use it, you'd be like, "I can't even use this piece of equipment."
Jim
Yeah, fly reels, I think, are pretty much the same as they have been for all of time. There's not much to a fly reel, aside from maybe a drag and a click that was used mostly just to keep your line from overrunning at your feet. Uh, the major advancements in, in fishing reels, I think would be related to reels that were used for casting lures. Back in the 1800s, there were pretty simple geared machines. And today with, with the magnesium parts and aluminum and CNC machines and digital gearing, uh, anti-backlash mechanisms, the, the advancements are just ridiculous. I mean, you wouldn't recognize an old reel versus a new one. You'd have a hard time making that connection. They're that far advanced. Rods pretty much the same when you start thinking about some of the materials. So there are still bamboo rod makers today. They turn out quality pieces, but they, I think, owe quite a bit to makers from the past. They still look at some of the methods that were used back then, they're still employed today. Some of the documentation is very important to today's rod builders. A lot of the work that went into splitting the bamboo, cutting the tapers or the dimensions or sizes, I think all of those are important to modern makers today. They utilize pretty much the same tooling if you're going to build a bamboo rod by hand. And having the knowledge of what was done before certainly helps them today.
Katie
To get started, before we get into the history itself, kind of starting at the beginning, tell me a little bit about the museum itself. You know, what can someone expect to find if they come visit the museum? What is it like to highlight things like that?
Jim
Certainly. So the museum is located in Manchester, Vermont. It was, it began in 1968. The museum itself has kind of an interesting history. There was a gentleman named Herman Kessler. He was an art director for Field and Stream magazine. He and his wife, who was Helen Shaw in the 1960s, was one of the premier fly tires in this country. Herman and his wife Helen would come to the Manchester area doing research for an article on Old Tackle and they would come to the Orvis store, which was of course was located in Manchester, excuse me, Manchester, Vermont. While they were doing the research in the upstairs area, they found some old panels that had been put together by Mary Orvis Marbury. She was the daughter of Charles F. Orvis, who started his company way back in 1856. And Mr. Kessler thought that those pieces belonged in a museum. So it was at a meeting at the Theodore Gordon Flyfishers Club in New York City, he approached the owner of Orvis at the time, it was a gentleman named Lee Perkins who purchased Orvis in 1965. At that meeting Mr. Kessler floated the idea of a museum to Lee Perkins, Lee Wulff, there were a number of other notable anglers there, and the idea didn't take immediately. It took a couple of months for Lee Perkins to finally decide, you know, that's a good idea and Lee offered up a room in the flagship store in Manchester, which I think was off the women's apparel department. It was just a little one-room museum. They started soliciting for donations. That started I think late in 1967. In 1968, the museum was incorporated and it didn't take them long to do two things. Number one, the first name was the Museum of of American fly fishing, which kind of sounded as if they only were interested in fly fishing in America. The museum, of course, is interested in the entirety of fly fishing history all over the world. The second thing is they realized pretty quickly they needed to find a place outside the Orvis Women's Department. So they purchased a building on Seminary Avenue in Manchester and then I think it was in 2008 they moved to their current location. And Satellite Gallery in Springfield, Missouri in the Wonders of Wildlife Museum, which is right next door to Bass Pro Shops flagship store. So there's two places you can go. There are artifacts from dating back to the earliest times to contemporary pieces and everything in between. We try very hard to keep the exhibits fresh, so we do rotate from time to time. We do keep a lot of the information on updated exhibits on the website, amff.org. And of course, I encourage people to come to either Manchester, Vermont or Springfield, Missouri to check things out.
Katie
I'm glad you clarified the word American in the name because I was wondering if it was kind of focused on the American portion of fly fishing. And it felt like if that were the case, that we'd be missing like the majority of the history of it. So I'm glad you clarified that. What is kind of the earliest reference we have to fly fishing? It might not be as we know it today, because I feel like it's evolved a lot, but what could be considered the first reference to fly fishing?
Jim
Well, the reference to fishing period goes back, I think, a lot earlier than most people realize. There's a piece of art back from 2000 BC from Egypt that shows a number of anglers fishing. And while they don't have a reel, they have rods and certainly a line attached to them, In that image, there's anglers that are using, they have fish attached to the lines that are attached to the rods. So those are probably the earliest depictions of angling, if you will, not necessarily fly fishing, but angling. The first mention that would be considered fly fishing came about 200 AD. And there was a gentleman that wrote about the sport. His name was Aelian. Excuse me, the book was called De Natura. I can never pronounce this word, Animalium. And he described what he saw in terms of fly fishing that they fasten red wool around a hook and fix onto the wool two feathers. So that describes pretty well fly fishing back in 200 AD. That's pretty remarkable. And one of the things that the museum was very fortunate, we received a plate that dates back to 4 to 500 AD. It's a Byzantine era plate. And it's a replica of something that was found off the coast of Egypt in 1970. And it depicts an angler with a rod, a reel, a line running up alongside the rod with guides. You can actually see the line looped in between those guides. The angler is seated, he's unhooking a fish. The original plate is in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. And as I said, we're interested, we're very fortunate we have a replica of that. But that's by far the earliest depiction of a rod in a reel in use. And again, going back to 400, 500 AD, that's pretty remarkable. And the detail in this plate is just amazing.
Katie
Now, is it known what would have existed before this? I'm thinking maybe like a cane pole with a line attached just to the end might come before a rod with guides on it and with a reel on it. Is there like a clear transition between, I don't know, people spearing fish and when somebody decides that they can maybe get the fish to come to them? Is there any sort of like that kind of stuff in our history?
Jim
I don't know that you can put a fine date on that. The use of rods, as I said, dates back to 2000 BC. Before the introduction of the reel, primarily rods were used as the only method of delivering a line with a fly or lure attached. And because there weren't widespread use of reels, most anglers, not all, there are a couple of instances in history that show anglers using a reel, not all of them from 400 to 500 AD, but at the time they would use the same amount of line or a length of line equal to the length of the rod. Because there's really nothing to cast from. So they would use methods, something called dapping or skittering. So they would take their fly, attach it to the end of the line. The line would be attached to the end of the rod or stick, whether that were natural cane or just a switch pulled down from a tree. And they would use that to reach out over the water surface and skitter the fly or skitter the lure over the surface of the water.
Katie
That sounds a lot like tenkara.
Jim
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Katie
That was something I was going to get to later, but maybe it makes sense now is, do you know if Tenkara kind of originated on its own or did it, was it a part of the fly fishing evolution? Because I always think of it as kind of being a separate culture versus the one that I think a lot of people think of, like the history of fly fishing in Europe and things like that. Did these two things kind of develop independently of one another? Yeah,
Jim
I think they probably did. Tenkara utilizes a lot of smaller pieces to build a larger rod and to build that rod out to be able to reach greater distances when you're fishing. And as I mentioned, without the use of a reel, you're pretty much limited to the length of the rod. Early anglers, while the rods were kind of long, I remember looking at a pretty detailed carved rod that was made without a reel that had more of a, more of a paddle that would fit under your forearm. It was 16 feet long. So that would allow you to use 16 feet of line, which is longer than most, but it wasn't uncommon back then to find rods that were much longer than what we were used to today. The norm today, of course, you're looking at probably the greatest standard size is a nine foot, five weight fly rod. Back in the day, rods were anywhere from 10 to 20 feet long. Sometimes you would piece them together, but for the most part, the earliest rods were just a single piece.
Katie
And was that because of the lack of reels? So you wanted to have kind of a longer rod with longer line coming at the end so you could reach farther? Or even after the advent of the reel, were the rods still much longer than we have today?
Jim
Yeah, the rods were still much longer. So even when the reels were first introduced, and that goes back again, there's a depiction of a Chinese angler in 1195 AD that shows an angler in a boat with a rod and a reel. The rod's not very long. You can see the line being attached to the reel, but you weren't going to get any great distances and of course, especially when you're fly fishing. For those that are unfamiliar with fly fishing, of course, you're casting the line, not the lure. So by having a rod with just a length of line attached, you were essentially making a fly cast or just reaching out and extending your arm to use as a lever to skitter that fly on the surface.
Katie
I know I've derailed us from our history here, but I have one more tangential question. I think it'd be important here to maybe define what fly fishing is, which sounds really simple for those of us who do it, because it's like you know it when you see it. But you mentioned there that the line pulling the fly is kind of the key aspect. But we also talked about yarn and feathers on a hook as being kind of like a quintessential fly back in the day. For the purposes of the museum and kind of our history here, what is the definition of fly fishing? What makes it fly fishing? Is it the line? Is it the style of delivering the fly? Is it the fly itself?
Jim
I think it's a combination of all of those things. So of the three major types of fishing, There's fly fishing, spin fishing, and casting. And when you're casting, you're using the weight of the lure to pull the line off the reel. And even in the early days, again, when we're talking about just rods and four reels, it really didn't make much difference if you were using a fly or there wasn't much in the way of wooden plugs. The earliest lures were often made out of wood. Metal lures, of course, didn't come along until the mid 1800s. Spinning is pretty much the same thing. You've got a lure that's actually, when you cast, the weight of that lure is pulling the line off of the spool of the spinning reel. Fly fishing, you're not doing that. Fly fishing is using that rod as a lever to deliver the line, which at the end is attached your lure. That could, for the most part, be a hook. The big thing I think with fly fishermen or fly anglers, they're always looking to try and imitate the prey that the fish are chasing. You want to try to, whether it's you're matching their silhouette, the size, the action. Of course, there's a big difference between dry fly fishing and wet fly fishing. Dry fly fishing really didn't come along by definition in literature until probably the 1600s. And some of the earliest flies that the museum has date to the late 1700s. So I think it's a combination of all those things. It's the delivery of the lure or the fly. It's using a rod that does not use the weight of the lure to be able to make a cast.
Katie
Yeah, in some ways, I guess that they would have to kind of co evolve together. Because if you do put yarn and feathers on a hook, it's probably going to be too light to throw out the same way that you'd throw out like a wooden plug. So, um, I could see the hook coming first, but then, you know, immediately after the, the kind of throwing the line is, is, is invented as a way to deliver that fly that wouldn't be able to go out any other way.
Jim
Exactly. And as a result, fly rods are much different in construction, uh, than spinning rods and casting rods, which of course can be a little stiffer. Uh, early fly rods, of course, were, were very, very limber and they had to be in order to be able to get those lines out to the water.
Katie
Was there any reference in that early mention of yarn and feathers on a hook, like what it was trying to imitate, or was it just the reference to the materials used?
Jim
Just a reference to the materials. The reference to specific insects wouldn't be until much, much later. There were some references to feathered hooks back in 1210. There was a German author that talked about using materials affixed to a hook. to attract fish. And that would remain up until about 1600 when they were still referencing those things.
Katie
Okay. We can get back onto our history track now that I've deviated enough. You know, last we talked we were at maybe 500 AD. Where are we going from there?
Jim
Well, I think one of the most important things to come about in the history of fly-fishing goes back to 1496. And I think a lot of people may be familiar with a book called "The Treatise of "Fishing with an Angle." It was published by a nun, Julia Berners. And what's interesting about that, it's one of the earliest attempts to define fishing as a sport. But what's perplexed scholars over the last hundred years or so is did Juliana Berners actually exist? So there's been no record of this person in history, aside from the book. So was it a pen name? Was it an attempt to sell books? No one's quite sure, but everyone is familiar with the name and certainly familiar with the work. But we're still not clear on whether or not she actually existed.
Katie
Do we know whether there was a culture of fishing amongst nuns? Would it be feasible that there was this fishing nun who wanted to turn fly fishing into a sport? Does that make logical sense, I guess, back in the historical record?
Jim
Not really. I wouldn't think so. I don't think it was-- again, there's not a lot of history that points to-- points to a track record of seminary anglers. I don't find that.
Katie
OK, yeah, I was curious if that was something that the ladies would, at the end of the day, go down and all fish together. We just couldn't find a record of this one specific nun? Or if fishing nuns in general were being called into question.
Jim
No, I think in this particular case it's just it's just Julianna Berners. Okay. So it's called into question.
Katie
And where do we go from there?
Jim
Well we talked a little bit about the real of course and I think one of the neatest pieces of literature was written by a gentleman named Thomas Barker and in 1651 is the first reference in Western literature that mentions the use of a real. And in his book he actually provided a a line drawing. Of course, there's no photographs in books at that age, but he provided a line drawing and it was the first depiction of a reel in Western Anglic. And it was an interesting looking reel. The museum actually has a contemporary example that was built based on those original drawings from 1651. It's kind of a interesting piece in that it has a spring metal clamp would have grabbed the rod near where you have the handle. And it was a very simple rod or rather simple reel with a thin arbor. And you would use your finger to turn the handle that was on the outside just to gather up your line. And at the time, of course, it was simply something to store your extra line. You would still strip the line out like you do today and still wind the line back on when you were finished.
Katie
But it sounds like you wouldn't use the reel to fight the fish, which I know, you know, you don't always use the reel to fight the fish these days, but you can, you know, and in some situations you might end up doing that, you know, against your will. But it sounds like this was more of just a storage, like you wouldn't, you wouldn't get a fish on the reel and, and use that to kind of fight it.
Jim
No, I don't think so. I think the goal at the time, as I said, was just more or less to, to have that extra line line at the ready. So that of course you have to consider when we talked about the early rods with just a simple line attached to the end, if you've got a good sized fish and he's strong enough, there's no give. You're either going to break your line, you're going to lose the fish, you're going to break your rod. At least if you had a little extra line, you could let that fish run and play a little bit and then slowly gather the line back up at the end of the fight.
Katie
So with that in mind, I would assume that this reel didn't have any sort of true drag system, but did it have any mechanism of not letting the line just unspool while you're fishing? If it's super loose, I could see it just slowly unraveling. Was there any way to keep resistance on it so it only spools when you're telling it to?
Jim
That's a great question, and the answer was yes. They did take that into consideration. So the housing for this reel, we're not quite sure if it was constructed out of wood, if it were constructed out of metal, but the reel did have a very small aperture in the side and the resistance was provided by a little piece of leather. So yes, there was some resistance so that the line wouldn't just bellow out of the sides of the spool. And that's a problem that I think most fly reels in particular addressed. I'm going to skip forward a little bit and talk about one of my favorite subjects, and those are early fly reels. So the first fly reel that was patented in the United States was in 1859, and it was done by a gunsmith from Rochester, New York, his name was William Billinghurst. And the Billinghurst reel was very different from contemporary reels that had been imported from England. When you purchased a reel back in the 1800s, mid-1800s, it was a simple, the fly reels were simple single action reels. There was no ventilation inside. And you have to consider that lines back then were made out of horsehair, silk, cotton, all of those things, of course, absorbed water. At the end of the day, it's fishing. If you didn't pull your line off your reel and it was on there for a couple of days, wet, those lines would rot. Lines were expensive. People didn't want to have to exchange lines every time they went fishing. So the Billinghurst reel was different in that it had a caged spool. And for your listeners, I think I provided a photograph, hopefully they'll be able to see, to what I'm describing as a bird cage reel. So it had open rings that allowed air to get to the line and let it dry. But it also had, to your point, a ring around the outer part of the spool to prevent the line from just billowing out. And that's something that I think fly anglers and fly inventors, fly reel inventors, understood and did what they could to prevent that.
Katie
Yeah, it seems like a lot of the evolution is caused by things that you'd go out once or twice, and there would be a very obvious problem that you need to fix. If you go out and you take one cast, hook a fish, and now your line is everywhere because your reel was out of control, before you go out again, you're going to have to find a solution to that problem. And if your line starts to rot, you're a solution to that problem. So I bet those evolutions kind of happened quickly after people discovered what was going on with them.
Jim
They did. The Billinghurst reel in particular spawned a number of imitations for the next several decades. William Billinghurst, his reel was copied up until, geez, I think the last birdcage reel was patented in 1934, of Druggist in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. And the The Billinghurst reel mounted on its side, which is something that all automatic reels for the most part have in common. And you mentioned the kind of necessity of gathering up your line. That's one of the things that the automatic reel, which I think kind of gets a bad rap in history. The automatic reel was designed primarily just to gather the line up at your feet so you didn't step on it, so that it didn't get tangled up in your hands, your handle, the rod guides, branches, what have you. The automatic reel was never intended to bring a fish to hand. It was just a tool to be able to manage your fishing line.
Katie
Interesting. And describe a little more like what the automatic reel was like and how did it work?
Jim
Well, we believe the first automatic reel was invented in England, but the first reel that was patented in the United States was in 1880, a gentleman from Syracuse, New York named Francis Loomis. And it was a spring loaded reel. So of course, as you were pulling your line off of the reel, it would wind up a spring that was housed inside two side plates. That also originally did not have a mechanism to keep line from kind of billowing off, but there was enough tension on that spring. The spring was kept in check by a little lever that you would use your pinky. And if you pulled up on that lever, which provided friction on the spool, it would release the tension and the spring would pull that line in. The early automatic reels didn't have much in the way of a governor. So when you pulled that trigger, that line was coming on pretty quickly.
Katie
Yeah, make sure it's not wrapped around your leg or something.
Jim
That's exactly right. And I think that's why they, I think that they got a bad rap that, and there were a couple of angling historians back in the 1800s that kind of frowned on them again. They looked at it as being unethical and not fair to the fish. I think that's where that bad rap originated. But automatic reels, as I said, they're a tool just for kind of line management more so than fighting a fish.
Katie
And what comes next in the world of rods and reels? It sounds like we're mostly focusing on reels right now.
Jim
Yeah, so we'll talk about the rods. And of course, almost everyone that I talk to about rods is very interested in the history of bamboo. And for the purposes of this discussion, the bamboo rods, We don't know exactly when the first use of bamboo was, but we do know that the first bamboo rod that was split and glued, at least in this country, has been credited to a gentleman named Samuel Philippe. He was a Pennsylvania person. That dates back to the 1840s, 1860s era. The first person that we know of that built a bamboo rod completely from split cane, and Of course, that Calcutta bamboo comes in columns and the builders would have to split those and keep splitting them into finer pieces. They would shape them, glue them together, wrap them, put guides on them. That's a lot of work. The first person to do that from head to toe, if you will, is a gentleman named Charles Murphy. The first person to do that commercially is someone that a lot of people are familiar with in the fly fishing community, Hiram Leonard. Hiram Leonard built the first factory for producing split cane bamboo rods. So the history of bamboo goes back again, a lot further than a lot of people give credit. Before that, rods are made out of, oh, lancewood, snakewood, and of course, just raw bamboo, as we talked about some of the sticks that didn't have any joints. just a long piece of wood. So yeah, bamboo rods date back to, in this country anyway, date back to the mid-1800s.
Katie
And what's next? I'll let you decide whether we want to kind of get reels up to modern day or if we want to kind of keep the rods at pace with them and talk about what comes next for rods.
Jim
Well rods pretty much remain the same. Some of the rod builders were experimenting with using six strip, eight strip. They were starting to refine their use a little bit more. So you would have rods for smaller water, rods for bigger water. There really wasn't much in the way of saltwater fly rods back in the 1800s. I think reels probably surpassed the evolution process. things like clicks and drags were invented more readily for the reel. So I think they I think they advanced more quickly than the rods. Bamboo rods were in favor until geez metal was introduced. I do get a lot of questions about metal rods. They do date back to the 1800s. There's still a lot of those metal rods around because quite frankly the material it didn't decay. So there's a lot of them out there. People don't really look for them. So when they find one, they think they've got themselves a great find, but I think they're just a victim of their own success. There's a lot of them around. They're kind of heavy, but believe it or not, they actually cast fairly well. They were pretty effective. To get up to speed with rods, you've you've got to go jump up to like the 1940s, gentleman named Dr. Howald invented the use of fiberglass for rods. That was a big deal. Shakespeare Corporation took that over and developed those rods. There's not many people that aren't familiar with the Wonder Rod, the Shakespeare Wonder Rod. Dr. Howald was the gentleman that's responsible for the origins of that. And then of course you get into more modern graphites and different components and rods like G Loomis and Sage and Orvis and all the materials they're using now, they're lighter, they're stronger, they're more dependable. It's just an amazing, amazing evolution.
Katie
And then how about reels? I think last we touched on reels, we were in the early 1900s or so, what new innovations have come around since then?
Jim
Oh boy, well, the use of a click. And of course the click was mostly just, not necessarily as an alarm, but the click was also useful in keeping the line on the reel so that it didn't just kind of bellow off. So you could keep that line from just kind of falling off of the reel. Drag systems came into play when lines started to develop and you could use lighter leaders. You wanted to use a drag that you could set appropriately so that you didn't lose those fish. Again, if you've got a reel that doesn't have a drag and you would just simply use your hand kind of restrict the flow of line. Um, you could apply too much pressure if you've got a late leader and you've got a good size fish. Unfortunately, I don't think there's an angler alive today that hasn't felt what felt that pop or has broken a big fish off. So those drags are really important. And today, geez, with, with the composites and the materials that they're using, uh, it, it's quite a bit different than the old cork drags, uh, from the 1920s and There's a lot of advanced systems in use today. And it's, I hate to say it, but it's, when you're using modern equipment, it's mostly the angler's error, not necessarily the equipment that'll cause you to lose fish.
Katie
I don't know if you'll be qualified to answer this and it's totally fine if not, but do you think we're still making big strides in the world of fly fishing gear? Or do you think we've kind of reached a point where big jumps forward are kind of done and we're just fine tuning little things here and there that make rods and reels just a little bit lighter, just a little bit more efficient with their drag or things like that?
Jim
It's just my opinion that there's not a lot new under the sun when it comes to these things. Yes, the materials are getting lighter and stronger, but when you think about those tools, the tools are only as good as the person that's wielding them. And I think it's more important to apply proper mechanics when you're fly casting and to spend more time learning about the sport, learning about the flies or studying entomology, or there's a number of historic anglers that didn't place a lot of importance on matching the hatch. They were more interested in providing the proper silhouette or the proper presentation. The bottom line is it comes down to the skill level of the angler. You don't wanna splash around in the water. You don't wanna make too many false casts. So I think the advancements are going to come with education. There's very, there's not a lot more they can do. I mean, I don't know how much later they can make an Orvis helios rod. Those things weigh nothing. I marvel, I mean, I think about anglers in the past and using a big Lancewood or walnut rod that's 16 feet long and using an oversized wooden reel with cotton line that's soaked that weighs just an untold number of pounds versus using a Loomis GLX rod with a modern hatch reel that the whole outfit weighs about six to seven ounces before you put your line on. Those guys back then were tough. If you fished all day, you felt it. You really felt it. Today, that's still, it's kind of enjoyable. It's not a lot to it.
Katie
So it sounds like today maybe we're just like angler limited. even if they were to improve something, you know, unless your skill improved at the same rate, you know, you're not going to necessarily be able to reap that many benefits without really focusing on yourself first.
Jim
Yeah, I think so. And now that's not necessarily true going in the other direction. So I've seen quite a few people that are very skilled with a fly rod, a graphite fly rod, but when you put bamboo in their hands, they struggle a bit. They struggle a bit. It is a little bit of a learning curve, but if you started out fishing bamboo, I think you realize that, like anything else, it's a tool and you have to let that tool, or in this case the bamboo rod, do the work it's intended to do. Modern anglers are so used to these really fast tapers and rocket taper lines and everything is just, the delivery systems are unbelievable. But when you put a bamboo rod in their hands and the rod loads much slower, I think there's course, being a historian and a lover of antique tackle, I think there's a tremendous feeling of satisfaction when you use an old bamboo rod to go out on the water and catch fish. People have asked me a number of times, I have a number of Billinghurst reels myself, and they asked if I've ever used them to fish with, and of course I have. And it's a lot of fun. It's just a tremendous amount of fun. Like fishing is with modern gear, but using the old stuff is a lot of fun.
Katie
You've mentioned lines a handful of times, and you mentioned things like horsehair back in the day. What's in the evolution of lines throughout history? I assume it's going to be a little more abbreviated than rods and reels, but we had to get from horsehair to what we have today somehow.
Jim
Yeah, so back in the mid-1700s is about the time that silkworm gut started replacing some horsehair lines and some of the flies in the museum's collection that date back to the 1700s, or some of the oldest flies in our collection, they're actually connected to the fly with India grass. Yes, grass. I can't imagine hooking a fish, having a fish on that fly and expecting to land it knowing that you're using a piece of grass as a connection between your line and the fish. So yeah, that's a, again, that's pretty remarkable. So yeah, the lions back then were, they didn't really have standardization of sizes. They were, you could wax your line. Again, you really had to maintain them in order to use them for any length of time. And of course, modern lions now, geez, with the tapers they have, with rocket tapers and double tapers and Wulff tapers. The Wulff taper, I think, is an interesting one that was invented by Lee Wulff, one of the most famous anglers in American history, at least in the last 100 years or so. He was a big proponent of that, but he invented those rocket tapers. So yeah, lines have come a long, long way, long, long way.
Katie
And then how about flies? I'm curious. And this, I feel like, might also kind of include something else I want to talk about, which is kind of the different cultures around the world and around the country. I know New England has a rich culture of fly fishing that's kind of different than maybe the out West culture or the European culture. And I feel like the flies have kind of done a good job of displaying the different cultures, more so than maybe the rods and the reels. I could totally be wrong about that. But I think of each of these kind of segments of the fly fishing world kind of having a group of flies that they're kind of known for. So I'll let you kind of expand on that as you see fit. But I'm curious about both the flies and kind of the different regions of fly fishing that they correspond to or represent.
Jim
Yeah, and I think that's a great subject too. In this country, there was a gentleman named Thad Norris that wrote a book in the 1860s, and he talked about using dry flies. Dry flies were attributed to an English gentleman named Mr. Alford, who introduced the dry fly to Theodore Gordon. Mr. Gordon was of course a Catskill Mountains angler and expanded on the use of the dry fly. and is considered the quote unquote father of dry fly fishing in this country and use them quite a bit of course in the Catskill region. So yes, there are regional patterns. The Quill Gordon is perhaps the most famous of the dry flies in that region. There was a gentleman in England, Mr. Skews, who opposed the opinions of Halford. He was a big proponent of using wet flies and thought that using things like nymphs and underwater flies was the way to go. Of course, you hear a lot today about Euro-nymphing. And again, that's an underwater presentation. So the dry flies, the wet flies, and then of course you have people in angling history that, as I mentioned earlier, weren't so much interested in the fly itself, but the presentation. So when you talk about someone like Mr. Hewitt, who was an avid angler, Mr. Hewitt was the inventor of the bivisible fly. That was something that was visible to both the fly and the angler. He was more interested in presentation and silhouette. He was of the belief that the fly, or the trout rather, weren't focused so much on the exact color and the number of veins and the wings and all of that. He thought that the silhouette of the fly should be appropriate for the area. And that was more important. We've got Preston Jennings in 1935 wrote a book about the importance of entomology and fly patterns in fly design. And that's a study unto itself. And of course, a lot of anglers will find themselves before they ever pick up their fly rod, they'll go to the water's edge, they'll study the water, they'll see if the fish are rising, and more importantly, what the fish are feeding on. Anglers will use nets, they'll skim the surface of the water to see what's coming up and try to match that hatch. And there was an angler in the last 100 years, Ernie Schwiebert, wrote "Matching the Hatch." And of course, that's a culture unto itself. There's people that pride themselves on tying up imitations of the bugs that are absolutely exact. And then of course, there's Western anglers. There was a gentleman named Charles Brooks who pioneered a number of patterns based on fishing in the Yellowstone area. So yes, there are anglers and patterns that are very specific to certain areas of the country. But then you also have anglers, as I mentioned earlier, that don't really care so much about what the fly looks like as long as the presentation's good. And I had this conversation with someone just, I think it was last week. I truly believe, and this is just my belief, if you're confident in what you're throwing and what you're casting, I think you're gonna be much more successful than if your neighbor said, oh, you should have been at the Esopus last weekend, The mayflies were just crazy. Use a number 12 mayfly and you're going to meet with success. Well, if you've never cast a mayfly or never cast a dry fly and you're out there fishing for an hour or two hours and you haven't caught a thing, your confidence starts to wane, you're not going to be very successful. Conversely, if you watch someone do that and you've got all the confidence in the world that, yep, this is going to work, you're going to fish a little differently and I think you're going to meet with success.
Katie
I agree. I think there's a big thing to confidence flies and sometimes it's just picking one in the box that inspires you the most that day is the right fly to choose, even if it's not the perfect hatch matcher.
Jim
Yep. And the other thing I'll say, and I encourage people to do this, get yourself a book on fly tying or talk to someone, reach out to your local Trout Unlimited chapter or the local fly shop in your area. And even if you only learn to tie one fly, ask what's successful in that area. There is nothing greater than the feeling of catching a fish on a fly that you've tied yourself. It's a great feeling.
Katie
You know, when you bring up that matching the hatch is kind of a newer concept, I guess, and really getting flies that match like your local bugs, I'm thinking of some of the more traditional flies. What come to mind for me are like the salmon flies that people care so much about, like the perfect recipe and they have to be tied with this or that. If those weren't being tied to match a very specific thing, I'm curious why the focus on needing to be tied with this exact material and in this exact way and this many thread wraps, you know, if you're not trying to mimic something in its exactness, why the focus on following the recipe to a T or it's not, it's not quote unquote correct?
Jim
Well, that's also an interesting question. And I think I'm going to kind of back up to a book that was written by Mary Orvis Marbury in Favorite Flies. To your point about using the right materials and the right threads and the methods and all. When Charles Orvis was in business in the mid to late 1800s, his business was all about getting customers to buy from him, of course. He was outsourcing the flies that he was getting. So he would get orders from, say, Colorado, and somebody wanted a red ibis. And Orvis would send him a bunch of red ibis. Now, the customer wanted more, so he'd contact Orvis again. If Charles Orvis couldn't get the same fly from the same distributor, he'd have to reach out to others. Oftentimes he would get a different coloration, different fly, things were different. So what he did, and I think this was genius, in his orders he included a questionnaire and he asked the anglers, what are you using in your waters? What's the pattern? What are you having the most success on? And tell me where you're fishing. When he received those responses back, his daughter Mary Orvis Marbury compiled all that information. And in 1891 she started working on this book, Favorite Flies. She compiled all of that information. When she published her book in 1892, that was the first standardization of fly patterns in this country. So that when you ordered something from a fly shop in Colorado, following the recipes and following that book, you would get the same pattern all across the country. You could expect the same fly if you ordered it in Colorado as you did in Vermont. Prior to that, things were kind of all over the place. And in terms of anglers or fly tires being fastidious about doing exactly what their predecessors did, I think a lot of that goes right back to the confidence factor. If you've got more confidence in something that's been tied and proven, you're going to want to try to exact that. Anglers like Lee Wulff invented the Royal Wulff fly. And Mr. Wulff in a lot of his books openly encouraged anglers to modify that pattern to suit their needs. Whether it was size, materials, coloration, the gray Wulff, the white Wulff, any of those things, he encouraged people to experiment and try something different. I think the group of anglers that's most concerned with matching patterns are probably the salmon anglers. And salmon, I think, can be a bit particular with color. So in some cases, yes, it is important. And I'm not going to lie, there are instances where if you're not matching the hatch, you're probably not going to catch fish, whether you've got all the confidence in the world or not. If you're throwing a Quill Gordon and the fish are eating Hendrickson's, you may not be successful. So there's something to using those methods and using an exact recipe. Some of the materials that were available for the anglers back in the late 1800s, early 1900s, are no longer available today. But doing such a remarkable job with synthetics, I don't think the fish can really tell the difference.
Katie
What is the current state of the salmon fly folks, I guess? Because I think you're right that there's a big push today to modify flies as you see fit. Every fly time book will say, here's the recipe, but you could substitute this for that. You could change the color to match your local area. But the one group that still comes to mind for me is the salmon anglers and their kind of tried and true rules that they follow. Is there a reason for that? Or I don't know a lot about it. So I'm just curious what you know about kind of salmon fly world.
Jim
Well, what I know of a few salmon fly tires, I think they're very keen on keeping to the history and their traditions of the sport. So as a result, yes, they are, there's a number of them out there that are very interested in keeping that history intact. They're not in favor of doing a lot of modifications. Modern anglers, I think, are a little more lax in terms of some of the materials and some of the patterns, but there's a contingent of salmon anglers that, yes, they're very much, they're staunch advocates of using exact materials, exact methods of tying, but I think those numbers are starting to diminish bit.
Katie
Would you say the majority of those people are more into the tying of the flies and the collecting of the flies than they are into actually taking those flies out and catching fish with them? Is that kind of the divide? Like they're more interested in the history, whereas the typical modern angler is a lot more interested in what catches fish?
Jim
Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, I think a lot of people may find it interesting that Megan Boyd, who is perhaps the most famous salmon fly tier of all time, she was not an angler. She didn't go fishing. Her flies are coveted by collectors. They're just beautiful works of art, but she never fished a day in her life.
Katie
I feel like they're missing one of the best parts.
Jim
I would agree, of course.
Katie
What about a couple other things, I guess I'll call them accessories. We've talked about the meat and potatoes, the rods, the reels, the lines, the flies. And maybe there won't be a lot of history on some of this stuff, which is totally fine as well. But I'm thinking of all the other stuff we bring with us these days. We've got a pack full of fly boxes and nippers and forceps and every tool you can imagine. And I'm sure a lot of this stuff is modern only. But are there any other notable things that you'd want to mention that have been used throughout history as a common occurrence in the fly fishing world?
Jim
Yeah. One of the things that I found most interesting when I started doing the research behind this involves the fly vise. So of course, we're talking about all these people tying flies. The use of the fly tying vise didn't really become accepted until after 1900. Prior to that, all of these anglers and all of these fly tires were just using their bare hands. And all of the women that worked with Mary Orvis Marbury in Manchester, they were all from the millinery trades. And Mary handpicked these women to tie all the flies for Orvis. They never used vices. In fact, Lee Wulff, when he was, I think, 80, just before he passed away, he would go down to the ponds where they were teaching people how to fly cast. And with his bare hands, he would tie a number 28 size midge without the use of a vice. Now, for those that are unfamiliar, a number 28 size midge, I would need a magnifying glass just to thread the leader through the hook eye. And he was doing that with his bare hands. So the English, the fly tires at Hardy in England did not use a vice. So the vice came out in the late 1800s, people thumbed their nose at it. I thought it was just a waste of time. And nowadays, of course, it's a big business. I think it certainly makes it a lot more enjoyable to be able to tie a fly using a vice as opposed to your hands. But that's just because if I tried to tie a fly using my bare hands, I don't think I'd catch a thing. It goes back to that confidence thing. There's not a fish in the world that would wanna chase that.
Katie
I can't imagine tying the thread off at the end of that. Like I can't even picture how that would happen.
Jim
Yeah, they were very skilled. And just the dexterity is off the charts. There's no way I could do that. No way I could do that. So those fly vices, and they did develop quite a bit. The engineering went into those, the engineering, and you don't really give it much thought, but I was fortunate to have had a gentleman named John Larrabee, who owns the HMH Vice Company, join me for a webinar on old vices. And in talking with him and learning about the mechanics that go into being able to hold a hook while you're tying a fly and being able to put a little bit of torque on there when, and so the hook doesn't move and any introduction of rotary vices. It's just an amazing, amazing thing. Some of the most interesting vices that the museum has, you talk about inventions. Lefty Cray, I think a lot of anglers have heard about Lefty. Lefty had access to the finest vices in the world. He was gifted with a Renzetti vice, 24 karat gold. They made three of these special vices for anglers. Lefty was one of them. Came in this beautiful presentation box. And Lefty was very grateful for the gift. And I'm sure he probably used it once or twice. But in his house, and Lefty passed, Lefty had vice grips soldered to a steel rod, soldered to a steel base. He used a pair of, and yes, vice grips, the things you find in your father's toolbox, vice grips. That's what he used for his vice.
Katie
Wow. I can't imagine, but I guess when you've got your thing that you know how to use, it's hard to pull yourself away from what feels like home.
Jim
That's right. That's right.
Katie
Two final topics I want to cover. One is fly shops and kind of the evolution of how we got from, you know, I assume people were making their own things back in the day to kind of becoming a more commercialized thing where you can go to the fly shop, satisfy all your needs there, get your flies. What have fly shops looked like throughout the ages?
Jim
Fly shops have always been, and I think always will be, a wonderful place to not only socialize, but a good place to learn. And I think that's been true all through time. Back when Orvis first started his business, it wasn't strictly a fly shop. In 1856, he started his store. He was selling tools and golf equipment and lawn tennis equipment and all of that. But From the start, all of these fly shops were interested in promoting the sport, which I think is still the case. There are very few fly shop owners that aren't interested in talking with other anglers to both learn, to teach. And I don't think that's changed at all. I think even if you were to go to some of the larger stores, maybe a chain store, By and large, the people that are there appreciate the sport and want to see it progress, want to see anglers progress. We want to see them enjoy the sport so that we can carry it forward. I think that still holds true today. So the fly shops from the past are not much different, except that maybe the gear they sell is updated.
Katie
Gotcha. Last thing I want to ask you about, which I know could probably be a whole episode in itself, so I'm sure we'll need to abbreviate it here, is some of the most pivotal people that you think have been in the history of fly fishing. I know you've named a lot already, so we don't need to go into great detail on all those, but if you just had to name kind of the top, I don't know, maybe five or six people that you think have really made an impact on the sport and maybe changed the course of fly fishing history, who would you put on that list?
Jim
Wow, there's actually quite a few. I think I'll go back to Lefty Cray. Lefty Cray was an amazing teacher who was able to teach people a lot of cast. He injected humor into his teachings. He was a prolific writer. One of the most influential people that I think had the greatest impact on the sport of fly fishing for women is someone that I look up to and that's Joan Wulff. Joan just turned 98 this past October. For those that are unfamiliar with Joan, she is a 21-time casting champion. She was able to illustrate and write methods for teaching people to cast, fly cast, as opposed to requiring a physical presence. Joan has just, watching her cast, her skill level, it's just amazing to watch. And I think she's done more to influence women and bring women into the sport of fly fishing than anyone else ever. One of the funniest things that Joan will be quick to tell you is that at her school, which she started with her husband Lee in New York, after the release of A River Runs Through It, the number of women that joined their fly fishing school outnumbered the men by a wide margin.
Katie
Really? Yeah.
Jim
Oh, absolutely.
Katie
I would not have guessed that.
Jim
No, the number of women that came to the school to learn how to fly fish after watching that movie was remarkable. And Joan would later quip that up until that movie came out, she used to have all the men to herself, but after that movie, no. So Joan, I think, again, with her skill, her ability to teach, is absolutely one of the most influential anglers. Jeez, I could, we talked a little bit about Edward Hewitt, Ernie Schwebert. And then of course, some more contemporary people. I think we had an exhibit at the museum talking about a saltwater fly fisherman, Jose Webe. Jose hosted a show on ESPN2. It was one of the first fly fishing shows on ESPN. Jose introduced the sport of fly fishing to an entirely new audience. Was very influential. One of his good friends, in fact a good friend of both Lefty and Jose, Flip Pallet. Flip is another very influential angler that's still teaching people today. So yeah, there's a number of people that are still very, very important in the sport of fly fishing.
Katie
Well, just to wrap up, you know, if people want to either learn more about the museum, come visit the museum, or if you have any resources that you'd want to point people toward just if they're interested in learning more about the history of fly fishing, where would you point them?
Jim
Well, I would strongly encourage people to visit our website, amff.org. Take a look at some of the programs that we have. One of the benefits of membership is that we have a journal that's published four times a year. And I think that that's, that alone is worth the cost of membership. The articles in there are all about the history of fly fishing. A lot of the things that I've touched on have been covered in past issues. You're free to go and peruse a lot of the journals from the past. We offer a lot of programs, webinars in Manchester during the month of July. We have children's programs. We teach them how to cast. We talked about entomology, we introduced art. So yeah, I encourage people to come to the museum. There's a lot to see there and a lot to do.
Katie
Awesome. Well, I will post those pictures that you sent me online. I might follow up with you to get kind of a label for each one of these so I can maybe put a little explanation with them. But some of the things you've talked about today will be shown on the website if anyone wants to take a look at that. But Jim, I just appreciate you doing this. I know it's after hours for you on the East Coast, so I just am thankful to have you here and walking me through a history that I think we could all benefit from learning a little bit more about.
Jim
Kate, it's been a pleasure. And quite honestly, it was sleeting outside before I came down here to start this interview, so I'm just as happy to be inside where it's warm and dry.
Katie
Well, we've got you on the weather out here then. We're in the 70s and sunny today, so I don't envy you, but I'm sure it'll clear up soon. Summer's on the way, and I hope you find some time to get out on the water soon.
Jim
I hope so too. Thank you, Kate.
Katie
Alright, that's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. If you want to find all the other episodes as well as show notes, you can find those on fishuntamed.com. You'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram @fishuntamed. If you want to support the show, you can give it a follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. And if you'd like to leave a review, it would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thank you all again for listening. I'll be back here in in two weeks with another episode. Take care, everybody.
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