856 | Mary Orvis Marbury, Fly Fishing Treasures, and Preserving Angling History with Steve Woit

Dave (00:02) What drives someone to spend 40 years chasing down antique fly reels, bamboo rods, and forgotten patterns, and then to bring them all back to life in print? Today’s guest has done exactly that, from finding the first David Slater reel at the London market to writing fly fishing treasures and his latest biography, Mary Orvis Marbury, A Life in Flies, our guest has spent decades preserving the stories behind the gear that built our sport. In this episode, you’re going to hear how he tracked down the collectors who kept that history alive, what makes a real truly antique and how Mary Orvis Marbury helped shape the way we name and tie flies even today. This is the Wet Fly Swing podcast where I show you the best places to travel to for fly fishing, how to find the best resources and tools to prepare for that big trip and what you can do to give back to the fish species we all love. Steve Boyd is here to share his story of finding master reel makers, master rod makers and uncovering forgotten archives. and even tracking down the original framed flies that Mary Orvis Marbury tied for the 1893 World’s Fair. This is a great one. We’re going to get into it all today from reels to flies and everything in between. Let’s get into it. Here he is. Steve White. can find him at fly fishing treasures dot com. How you doing, Steve? Great. Yeah, thanks for coming on here today and talking about one of my favorite, actually, I love talking about classic gear. You’ve written a couple of big books out, one about Mary Orvis Marbury, who’s obviously a big famous person in fly fishing history. Also, fly fishing treasures, which is about kind of collecting gear. We’re going to talk about that a little bit and just, I think, high level. everybody out here probably has some old gear. You know, I got a bunch of gear that hasn’t seen the light of day for a while. That’s, you know, some of my dad’s old stuff. And I think maybe just shedding light on why people collect, maybe how to do it. Does that sound good? Yeah, sure. Okay. Well, before we jump into it, maybe take us back on, you know, all of this, where you got into the collecting of gear. Was this like a slow, ⁓ lifelong thing or did you, how did it all happen? ⁓ Steve (02:04) 40 years ago, ⁓ I was at an antique market actually in London and I saw this incredible old reel. It was a center pin reel made by David Slater and I just thought it was a cool looking thing and I bought it. And then I started looking at all the other stuff that this guy had and I just got really intrigued with all the old reels and rods and flies and all the equipment. And so that’s where really when I started was sort of 40 years ago. then I started collecting a little bit of everything. I collected lures, for a while, I started collecting flies sort of from the beginning, because they were beautiful and interesting. And I collected a whole bunch of different reels, mainly fly reels. Everything I kind of collected was mainly around fly fishing, because I had been fly fishing for a long time since the 70s and really enjoyed it and had some nice sort of memories attached to those experiences. And so I kind of found things initially that I just thought were interesting and and valuable and sort of rare looking and old. And then gradually I became part of a community of people who were collecting. And that was at the time when there were a lot of face-to-face shows. So the Langs auction that would happen for the fly fishing gear, antique fly fishing gear, would have like a companion show in New England, in Marlboro, Massachusetts, and Boxborough and places like that. So everybody could kind of get together and you’d have like a hundred tables of just antique tableau. And so there’d be guys who are collecting reels and guys who collecting flies, accessories and rods and gamble rods. And so I just thought it was fascinating. I went from table to table and I got to know all these people and really well. So I did that for about 10 years. And then, you know, with the advent of eBay, a lot of the gear went to eBay to be sold and the shows shut down. and there really weren’t any shows left that were just specific to collecting. There are a few still left, but many of them have gone away. And then people kind of lost track of each other. And many people, I think, also didn’t kind of knew people, but they didn’t really know them particularly well. They knew they were, know, Pogie Carmichael was a bamboo rod maker and he was an expert in hardy reels. But they didn’t know much about him. So that’s where in 2019 I decided to… Right? Fly Fishing Treasures, which is my first book. And that was really 30 different interviews, both here in the US and in the UK with all the sort of meeting collectors and experts on all the different gear and auctioneers and a few museum curators and club curators. And so I kind of went along and asked them about their experiences in collecting and to tell me more about the history of all this stuff. And so It became a way for me to kind of just, very curious about intellectually about a lot of things and love history. And so it was my way to also kind of learn about these things and learn about all the history of how this stuff was made. And it turns out that fishing has the most equipment associated with it of any sport. And so there’s a lot to choose from. And I think people get very attached to things that they collect and very often they’re attached to very specific memories, you whether it’s fishing with their dad or grandfather. other members of their family or others that they knew over the years. And so people get very fond of this stuff. so, you know, if they grow up, they sort of get to the point where they could buy a rod or a reel that their father, you know, the kind that their father owned or their grandfather owned and they get very attached to it. So that’s kind of how I got into it. Dave (05:45) That’s a good story. mean, I think that you mentioned, you know, why people, I think that’s a question I had, why do people get into the collecting? And you said kind of it’s more gear than any sport. I think that’s interesting too, because fly fishing, I guess it is a sport, right? But it’s also kind of a hobby. It’s a little bit, it’s a little bit of both. I, know, but it is unique because you have all this gear, whether it’s fly tying, reels and all that. So the book, talk about the book a little bit. Like you interviewed these 30 people. You you focused on each category of gear and just heard their story. Steve (06:19) Yeah, I tried to have a good selection. So, so Hogy Carmichael, I interviewed him about making bamboo fly rods and his experience with his mentor who is Everett Garrison. And then there’s a gentleman by the name of Jerry Gerard. I interviewed him because he collects both early American rods, has probably the finest collection of early American fly rods. But he’s also an expert in all the catalogs and trade cards and all the written material that he’s collected over the years. The really rare ephemera. you know, that kind of explains a lot about these these things. And then I had a number of real collectors. So Jim Brown, who’s got the best collection of American fly reels and reviewed him. And he actually took his collection and we went through it in detail and he actually used examples from his collection to explain to me the evolution of the American fly reel, sort of all the features and why they were developed and when they were by different makers. was fascinating. So that was Jim. And then we and then I had ⁓ representatives from the big tackle companies. So I interviewed Tom Rosenbauer from Orvis and the guy was running a Farlow’s in the UK and guy was running Hardy in the UK. Also the world’s expert on Hardy reels, John Druitt, was wrote a book. He has about a, it’s about a, it’s a huge book. I mean, it’s the sort of the definitive volume on Hardy reels and he got fascinated with the real makers. So he told all the stories of these. incredibly talented master real makers at Hardy, who he’d gotten to know personally. And he then used that to outline and show every model of the Hardy reel and how it evolved over time. And then I did a few auctioneers, the Ganungs at Langs. I interviewed them and sort of showed some photographs from their archive. And then Neil Freeman, who’s the top auctioneer in England, Angling Auctions. He gave me access to his entire archive of photographs and I interviewed him about how he got into being an auctioneer. And then I went to the museums. I went to the American Museum of Fly Fishing and interviewed the curator there and the director there. And then I went to ⁓ the big museum, the Outdoor Heritage Museum up in Aquasic, which is in the Rangeley Lake region in Maine. That’s a beautiful little museum. interviewed Jim Gilpiers when he was there as the director. And then I also had access to the Fly Fishes Club in London and got access to their entire archive and got some beautiful photographs and a great interview with both their librarian and their curator. Dave (08:59) Right, where do people, know, these days, seems like the shows have changed a little bit. Like, you hear these stories sometimes, the old stories about, you know, finding something in a garage sale, say versus that versus say going to some of these shows. Where are the best places to find gear now if you’re, you know, looking for gear? Maybe if you’re not an expert, don’t have a ton of money, but you’re interested. Steve (09:20) Well, you can find things all over the place. mean, you can find them on eBay. can try, has the biggest selection. ⁓ And you can find them in his extensive collection always on eBay from around the world, both here, the UK, around the world, New Zealand, Australia. They were good selection, usually there. And that’s probably the largest, but then estate sales were great. Sometimes you’ll just find some things there, flea markets, old antique shops, of junk shops. ⁓ I’ve found things all over the place. And after a while you learn of where to find things and you learn, you know, who has what and who can find things. And I kind of have a mental map now of like who’s looking for what. So if I see something that somebody, you know, like from my book or other friends of mine would be looking for, I’ll contact them and say, hey, I just saw this. You want me to buy it for you? Or, you know, here it is on eBay or whatever. And that’s been great fun. And then I’ve learned more about the flies basically from Posh Mukhler and Ingrid Sills. They did this incredible series of books. In the 90s, 1997, they did this two volume set of un-rare and unusual materials for Atlantic salmon flies. So when I see materials and I see flies, I’ll very often talk to Paul about those. And he’s an amazing fly tire himself. He’s a master fly. Dave (10:37) tire. And who is that Steve (10:39) Posh Mokler, yeah, he’s probably the best fly tire in the world. And I really, and wrote these great books about all the materials and all the flies. So I’ve kind of gotten to know a lot of people and they tell me about things and I tell them about stuff. But as we get to know people, they also fill in some of the history for you. People are great about, it’s a great community of people collecting. They share information pretty easily. They’re really proud of like, Dave (10:41) okay. Steve (11:07) what they know and want to pass it along. And they preserve a lot of things that actually some of the stuff ends up in museums. Some of the things are really used by, you know, people who make rods and reels and flies just to learn about the old stuff. To see original versions of antique salmon flies for inches is very valuable to fly tires to see how they were originally done, you know. Dave (11:30) And we’ve heard some of that too, because we had an episode, episode 762 on the feather thief, Kirk Johnson. was really interesting because he went in and told the story. And the story was the person who broke in and stole millions of dollars worth of rare birds. But do you see that out there? Are you seeing some of the, I guess you’re finding rare materials. What’s that look like? Cause I know they talked about eBay. know he talked about the issues with eBay, the fact that they’re not protecting some of these birds, right? And all that. Steve (11:58) Yeah, it’s very controversial. You usually you really shouldn’t be buying materials that you don’t know the provenance for. If they’re antique materials that have been, you know, sold many, many years ago, like in the hundreds of years ago or a hundred years ago, and you know that they come from an old collection, that’s really kind of fine. But if you’re buying something sight unseen, sort of, off of Yban, you don’t know where it came from. It’s very dangerous because there are regulations, the CITES regulations on on birds are pretty intense and people have found many substitutes to use for the older materials as well, original materials. So, you really have to be careful in sort of how you handle those materials and you know… Dave (12:42) What is the antique? Like what makes it antique? Or talk about that at the different areas. And maybe we can go down the roll, the track of reels, like the fly reel, the history of the fly reel. I’m not sure if you want to talk about a certain time, but, and then what makes it an antique, different levels of age. Steve (12:59) Well, basically, you know, there have been fly reels since the 1800s. certainly some of the, they’ve had some great innovation over the years. One of the big innovations from Orvis actually in 1874 with Charles Orvis’s patent reel was that he made a much, you know, narrower spool that was intended to sit underneath the rod. then it He perforated it so you could ventilate it so that the line, which were silk lines at the time, could dry more easily. And then because it was narrower, you could take up more line at a time than the wider spools that had been used. so kind of, fly reels kind of evolved from reels that were used for bait fishing as well. They were, which were wider sort of winches. know, if you’ve ever seen brass winches or, you know, sort of bait casting reels, they’re kind of wider. And they’ve gotten so the fly rod, fly reels kind of got narrower. Some of the original fly reels were side mounted, which means they were mounted on their side, you know, on top of the rod. You’ve probably seen some of those. The Dillinghurst was a very famous one, a beautiful reel. They used to call them, some of them birdcage reels because they had this kind of birdcage like structure made out of brass very often. Dave (14:17) Roy, why were they mounted on the side? Was that after they were mounted on the bottom or before? Steve (14:22) No, they were in the side before they were mounted on the bottom. They were basically down on top on the side. So they were, they were on top of the rod and the, so over time they also, you all kinds of things like new drags and checks and other, you know, devices to help stop the fish and control the movement of a line got introduced by different people. And then there are different materials, you know, some of them initially were made of brass and they started plating the brass with like nickel and somewhere made out of nickel silver and quite beautiful. I mean, it’s a beautiful craft. then on the big salmon reels, they started using hard rubber. You’ve probably seen some of those black side plates on those reels. are typically hard rubber and they had like nickel silver fittings on those and they’re beautiful reels. so they developed those. These larger salmon reels had just much more function. and stopping power because salmon are very powerful fish. they needed a new design. That’s Bomhoff. Dave (15:26) Okay, and then when did the Hardy reels, the Hardy reels start coming into it? Steve (15:30) The party started in 1872 and they started, they’re making the reels in the 1880s and they really started with brass reels and they were sort of more classically large and son of conch, got a little more refined over time. They got very sophisticated in terms of how they did their checks and ten drags in the internals of the reels. put ball bearings in there. So they moved. they work really smoothly, have a beautiful action. So a classic RD, a perfect reel, it’s really highly, you know, most of them are pretty highly collectible. And then the ones that the oldest ones have brass on both sides. So they’re called brass face perfects. And those are quite beautiful. And they have this beautiful kind of patina in them. And some of those reels go for, know, tens and 20s of thousands of dollars. They’re extremely rare. Dave (16:24) they do. Some of the oldest heart. And now what is Hardy the history? Cause they, they, there’s these old, definitely the older reels, but are there newer Hardy reels now that are out there that look similar to the old ones? Steve (16:36) Yeah, so they make reels and it’s interesting. I visited their factory a number of times and they’ve actually brought back at one point they outsourced the production of reels to the Far East and to Korea. Dave (16:48) is that what happened? Because I remember Hardy, mean, Hardy obviously started out as this, you know, amazing, right? These amazing reels and they feel like they went through a period where they had a down, a drop, I don’t know if it was in the 80s, but do know that whole history of Hardy? Steve (17:01) Yeah, they had a hard period, also they brought a lot of some of the production offshore. And then they actually did a very interesting thing. They brought the production back and basically went back to more, more heritage ways of, you know, designing the reels and they have a whole series of, of reels now, which I think they call heritage reels, but I’m not, I can’t remember the exact name of the, but those are pretty close in function and the way they look to some of the older reels. They’re beautiful reels. They’re all handmade and they’re factory, but they’ve kind of married just kind of robotic and very, very efficient production with a hand assembled kind of aspect to it, where they still have master real makers who look at this stuff and make sure everything’s designed beautifully. so you can buy beautiful Hardy reels that have this very classic, know, Hardy perfect design. They’re not inexpensive, but they last forever. And, you know, they have, could buy some even with the agate ⁓ line guides on them still and those are beautiful and so they have a whole range of really fine gear. Dave (18:05) Yeah, I see it. And on their website, they have reels. got reels by series 1912, 1921, 1939. They got it looks like they got the whole classic series in here. Steve (18:15) Yeah, they do lots of different reels and you know, there are still beautiful reels. I I still, I have, I fished with a number of hardy reels that I’ve collected over the years. They had something called the featherweight, which is a beautiful sort of light, you know, trout reel. And those are highly collectible. know, I have bought and sold many featherweights over the years, but they still make a new, they need to make a new version of the featherweight as well. And there’s the princess and the marquee and all the kinds of other. Dave (18:39) Yeah, they Fishhound Expeditions offers world-class fly fishing right off Alaska’s incredible road system. From monster rainbow trout to feisty Arctic grayling, you’ll chase big species in the stunning landscape. Whether you’re a seasoned angler or just starting out, their expert guides ensure an unforgettable adventure. Book your trip today before spots fill up and experience Alaska’s diversity like never before. Check them out right now. That’s fishhoundexpeditions.com. Experience the waters of Bristol Bay at Togak River Lodge, where fly fishing meets Alaska’s rugged beauty. This is the place to complete the Alaska Grand Slam with all five salmon species, rainbow trout, arctic char, and more, where each day offers a new Alaskan adventure. You can visit togyaklodge.com right now to start planning your Bristol Bay experience with Togak River Lodge. And then reels, does it really matter how old, like as far as what makes it a classic or an antique? you think about that much on the age? Steve (19:43) Yeah, typically in terms of rarity, the oldest reels are the rarest and most sought after, but they have to be in decent condition. So condition is quite important. And many reel collectors are very sensitive to condition. And so if it’s missing a screw or has a chip in it or, you know, the best collectors, I think, really kind of know not only how to find old reels, but also how to repair them, you know, back to the original condition and see very often or how to clean them up. that they look kind of like their original. And so, but to answer your question, the some of the rarest reels are the ones that were made in the smallest quantities. So one thing so the know, Hardy Cascopedia original one, that’s a salmon reel. That’s about a $10,000 reel, if you can find one, the original ones, there was some beautiful Philbrook and Payne reels that were made that were kind of made from a kind of a mud ceramic, the side plates are this beautiful kind of beautiful brown and black and of ceramic and those are very collectible as well. That was Filbert campaign. were made up in Maine. So there’s a lot to collect, a lot of different kinds to collect. And it’s fun to learn about these few of the different companies and even the history of different reelmakers. So with the Hardy reels, when you open them up, sometimes you’ll see the initials of the reelmaker. for instance, JS, they’ll see JS. Jimmy Smith was a very prolific. Dave (21:09) no, can I hear there being ingrained a name or initials in there? Steve (21:12) Right in the, yeah, right in there. So I interviewed a master real maker from my first book, Raymond Humble. And he was in his 90s at the time. And he described to me how they did all their reels. And he started as an apprentice when he was 17, the company, and retired in his 80s. mean, so he was really just incredible at what he had done. He had built a lot of the equipment on the floor in the factory. And he’s a self-taught guy. during the war, they were making parts for Rolls Royce. And he said, well, yeah, they used to send us engineering drawings and then make the part for them. Dave (21:51) But in the world war one or two. Steve (21:54) World War II. so they were, and so they, he said, well, it occurred to me that we would need, you know, we really, we really should have proper engineering guards for all of our reels. And so I did all of those. And I said, well, how did you learn drafting? said, well, I taught myself drafting and, know, but this, these people, they’re, I just have tremendous respect for people who that kind of knowledge of craft and all self-taught. Dave (22:18) Wow, that’s amazing. And so you mentioned the interviews. Did you record those like with audio or how’d you do those interviews? Steve (22:26) Yeah, so what I did is I typically would bring my recorder and I would have the interview and then record it and then I would transcribe it and edit it after the fact and ask them more questions. But I really I was very interested in capturing kind of the tone of some of these people and sort of their background. And so very often the chapters read slightly differently because they’re all sort of in largely in people’s words, although they’re not verbatim. I use a lot of their expressions and And I think that gives it a nice kind of personal touch to really understand these people as people and things that are important to them and the way they express themselves because they’re the stories that they told were unbelievable. I just all the collectors have incredible stories about how they found something, how they got involved in it, things that were particularly rare or how they figured out a particular aspect of the history of something and before anybody else. And so they’re fun stories and it’s a fun way to kind of learn about this. Dave (23:26) Yes, like just reels like we’re talking. It’s interesting. I didn’t know that about the 1974 or this and then. Or sorry, yeah, 1874 and then there are other big changes. What do think was the next big thing after that orvis came out with the breathable the narrower fly real? What was the next thing in history that maybe was as big as that? Steve (23:46) I mean, probably the development of the more sophisticated sort of gearing and, you know, drag systems. so when one thinks of vom hoff or some of the other real, you know, real makers who were doing much more sophisticated tooling and making these things so that you could fish for salmon and other, you know, could fish in saltwater as well, where things needed to be a little, you know, little more durable. So that’s probably the next big thing. Dave (24:16) Right on, yeah. We had an episode, this is a while back, episode 146, actually this was, yeah, in 2020, Jen Ripple was on. Oh, she’s great. Yeah, and she was on a little history kick and she kinda did a little history of women in fly fishing, which was great, and she talked about Mary Orvis Marbury. Talk about that, because you wrote an entire book about her. Maybe remind us again the importance of Mary, who she was, and then what got you into writing this book. Steve (24:43) Well, yeah, Mary was a very important person in the history of fly timing and really underappreciated. There wasn’t a lot known about her, but she was the one who really wrote the definitive book on fly patterns. And that was called Favorite Flies, and that was written in 1893. And that was for the first time an attempt to of chronicle all the different patterns. They actually did a survey of their customers with her father. She sent out letter letters to their customers from all over the country. asking them about their favorite fly. So what’s your favorite fly? You know, how is it made? Which flies do you have that are most effective? And they had this incredible number of people sort of respond on the order of three or 400 people. So they call them their correspondence and they kind of, you know, gave them a tremendous amount of information. But before that, the vendors very often had instead of naming the flies by pattern, they actually had numbers. So there was no sort of similarity or way to classify things across vendor. Everybody had different numbers and they kind of liked it that way because it was proprietary to them. But they opened up with the Orvis naming of the patterns with Mary’s book really opened up a whole incredible world. Dave (25:59) ⁓ so what was the numbering thing again? Steve (26:01) Well, they were so very often the vendors initially would just put a number on a fly. Well, that’s a number three or number four. Dave (26:06) And a vendor would be like a, like somebody who, who would the vendor be back then. Steve (26:10) Well, vendors, know, even, you know, some of the earlier vendors where they were having flies sourced in America, would source flies from the UK sometimes. vendors like, you know, Conroy and there was one called John P. Moore’s Sons and Sons, know, some of the earlier, or Shipley in Philadelphia. so they were, but they started, some of the times they, sometimes they, you know, they kind of were tying their own flies or had them tied here and they just had some pull. numbers on them. And then once things got to the point where they were selling them on catalogs, then they went to more naming the patterns. Because people kind of knew they wanted a, you know, a royal coachman or they wanted a quill. Dave (26:47) ⁓ I see. Right. No, anything, any fly a stimulator, something like it. So basically in 1893, there were no Mary’s the one that put the naming system kind of in started that kind of. Steve (27:04) You started that, then they started, people have started naming flies before that, but he’s the one who kind of classified them all in one. Over 500 patterns in that book. Dave (27:10) classified it. Right. Wow. 500 patterns. Steve (27:16) The beautiful thing about that book is she also tied flies with her fly tires in frames and then those frames were used to make beautiful prints. probably, people have probably seen those prints from the book. They’re very famous and those prints were done by Milton Bradley and they were one of the first examples of very high quality color lithography in this country. And so they’re just spectacularly beautiful. People cut them out and put them in frames. I mean, they’re quite collectible themselves. But she had been tight. started the, what’s, what’s exceptional about her is that, you know, she was born the year that her father founded her company. And by the time she got out, she got out of high school in 1872, graduated from Byrne Burton, which was a very fine school, private school and in Manchester, Vermont. And then she started the entire fly tying operation for Orvis and so in her twenties. And so her father hired a gentleman by the name of John Haley. It was a Stouts man from New York city to come up and teach them, meaning the whole family had a tie flocks. So her father learned with her, she learned, and then she ultimately got other women to tie. And between, and for about 30 years, she had about 68 women who tied with her and her tie in their fly time shop. And they tied hundreds and hundreds of patterns. I mean, tied thousands and thousands of flies. Dave (28:38) wow. That’s amazing. Steve (28:44) was one of the most profitable operations that Orvis ever had. Oh, it Because people, well, people would buy, you know, 30, 40 flies at a time and they were all sold on mail order because her father Charles Orvis was actually a very interesting man. He was extremely entrepreneurial, had been making rods since the 1860s and introduced his reel in 1874. And he was very adept at getting things done. And so he became the postmaster in Manchester and was the postmaster for eight years, the two different administrations, Grover Cleveland administration. So it was a political appointee. He was a Democrat and everyone else in town was a Republican. And he was a very much against the grain kind of go your own way kind of person, very forceful and entrepreneurial. And so he figured out a way to sell these flies through catalogs in the mail. And he scaled business all over the country. So it went from being sort of a cottage industry where Marion retires to being really a national business. ⁓ there were a number of women who at that time started these cottage industries and those became the first significant fly tying operations in the country. Dave (30:02) That’s really cool. that’s so that’s the big impact of Mary as she started. Really, this is a big part of the book. Well, tell me this on the fly. So I’m sure you know some of these. What do you think are when you look at her 500 flies are there, say, could you narrow those down to the top 10, something like that most sent in fly or something, you know, from that book? Steve (30:22) Well, it’s hard to say exactly, but there’s, mean, the book itself has, we have photographs of many different kind of frames of flies that were used both in her book and her father also did a book called Fishing with a Fly in 1883. And we also have 40 panels of flies that she did for a fly display for the first World’s Fair in 1893. And that was the World’s Fair in Chicago is called the World’s Columbian Exposition. And that was, ⁓ it was a huge event. And so these 40 panels are in the American Museum of Fly Fishing. And Jim Schottenham, the curator up there gave me access to these panels to photograph them. there, so she put together these huge panels and they have flies in them and they have photographs in them. And the flies were tied by her fly tires and the photographs were taken by famous outdoor photographers at the time. And they’re beautiful. So And then in the process of doing the book, I had seen one frame of flies where all the patterns started with the letter B and somebody had posted it on Instagram. Actually, Jim Hardman has posted years ago on Instagram and he said, well, this is from an exhibit that was done at the museum on Mary. And I just was puzzled by this frame of flies because it didn’t look like anything that came out of any of the books that they had done or anything out of the panels from the expo. And what I found was In the end, we found that it was one of 29 frames, alphabetical frames, where I was an entire collection of all the flies that Mary and her tires tied and that they used in the shop. So this was actually samples for every fly that they tied. And they had little notes on each one, where did it come from. They very often had taken patterns from other vendors, like Thomas Chubb was a big vendor at the time, Conroy, John P. Moore’s sons. They were always collecting and looking at patterns from other vendors. But to answer your question, probably the most, I mean, the most well-known pattern is probably the royal coachman. And I would say that’s, and there’s a very interesting story attached to that pattern is that John Haley had actually sent some flies up to her family for them to look at. And there was a very famous ⁓ fly called the coachman in England that had been around for a long time. And Dave (32:28) is the Royal Coachman. Steve (32:48) they were sitting around and looking at this new fly that Haley had sent them and her uncle sort of remarked, that looks sort of like a coachman, but it had this red silk in the middle of it. And Haley had been asked by his customers up in the Catskills to create a fly that was more indestructible with the brook trout. And because that the classic coachman had been done with peacock pearl on the body and that would get, you know, just mangled by these eager brook trout. So he said, well, what I’ll do is I’ll put some silk, I’ll put some floss in the middle. And he chose red. And that’s how the coachman was. Dave (33:26) The Royal Couchmen, that’s how started. Steve (33:28) And so here her uncle remarked, well, this is a coachman, but you know, when we’re naming flies, this looks to me more like a royal coachman. And so that’s how actually was that’s how actually was named. Dave (33:41) That’s amazing. And then there’s of course the Royal Wolf, which is a similar pattern. Could you give us maybe your thoughts on what you think are some of the other top patterns from Mary’s book that you think would be up there with the Royal Coachman? Steve (33:52) Yeah, I guess in terms of how you would rate them, I mean, I have in the book, I have a list of the ones that were deemed most popular at the time. like that, they were a combination of actually American patterns that were developed in the US and those from the UK. you know, the coachman would definitely always be there. But there were other patterns that are, whether it’s a March Brown or earlier, they had they had many slides that were kind of attractor patterns, you know, that really were just flashy and, you know, kind of attractive and they would use, you know, very, you know, bright feathers and whether it was a scarlet ibis, which is very I put one of those on the front of my cover of my book because that’s a beautiful red fly made out of scarlet ibis feathers. they had, but they had just many different, it’s hard to even narrow down to a small list, you know, there were, but they all had their own patterns that were favorites. And then many of them were named after famous people. So there’s a Cheney fly because of Albert Nelson Cheney, was a fishery commissioner who was very close to their family. There were Cleveland flies. There were Henshaw flies. He had a number of patterns, whether it was the Oriole or other patterns. And there’s one called the Henshaw because James Alexander Henshaw was actually in charge of the angling exhibit at the World’s Fair. So he’s the one who got them involved in doing the display. The Orvises were very, very good at networking. at a high level with very important fishermen and wealthy people who fished. And so they, all the main writers, all of the main well-known fishermen from either New York or New York state or Pennsylvania or all through New England and out into the West, they all knew them. And so they used a lot of their connections to kind of promote their business and they were very clever at that. So naming a fly out of someone after someone kind of ensured that you’d sell a certain number because they were selling them to their friends. the Allerton, this was named after me. Dave (36:03) You know, gotcha. Yeah. It’s interesting. Cause I, and this is the good test. You probably see some of this, but the, AI tests, right? You put chat, GPT and what it would say for the top 10 flies, you know, for Mary’s book. And I’ll just run through this just to see how close it is. So it’s got one through 10. It’s got the parmichi bell, which we’ve heard John Shewy talk about. John Shewy has talked about, he said that’s one actually John Shewy did a whole year just fishing that fly. We’ve got the silver doctor. We got the Montreal, the professor. Steve (36:34) that’s in English. The silver doctor is in English. Dave (36:36) Yeah, the professor the royal coachman the queen of waters the grizzly king the scarred ibis the yellow sally and the Abbey are all those pretty Do know all those flies? ⁓ Steve (36:45) Yeah, those were popular at the time. Some of those are no longer popular. I think some of the real attractor patterns people don’t use as much anymore. Like today, yes, strangely, the royal coachman has actually stood the test of time. You know, it doesn’t really imitate a specific insect, but it’s very effective. And I think it’s because my own opinion is I think it’s because of the red on it. The red on the body just kind of cracks them. Dave (36:54) You mean anymore like today? Yeah, it’s the red, yeah. Yeah, I feel like the old flies, you know, like all those I just mentioned, I mean, really, none of them are really used, maybe the silver doctor, but there’s almost none of the old flies. And we kind of get in that, we’ve heard that a lot on the podcast where you got all these old flies, whether it’s a Griffith’s gnat from the whatever, or like, we just have new flies now, you know, the Euro nymphs. It feels like we’ve kind that’s why I love doing these episodes, because we kind of make a connection for those people that don’t know about, and they probably, all those flies would still work fine, I’m sure. Steve (37:38) Yeah, I think they’re particularly the attractive patterns, you they they work, but they’re I think the whole evolution to more imitative patterns really became, you know, got a lot of traction in the 1890s and into the 1900s. And she started writing about this actually very early in her book. That was an early mention of a lot of this more imitative patterns from England for Halford and from others. And she was quite interested in how, you know, imitating flies, you know, and specific insects. was evolving and she had done some reading about mayflies and the life cycle of the mayfly. And she also benefited from some writing then clearly benefit from some writing that a woman by the name of Sarah McBride had done. And Sarah McBride was probably the most unheralded early woman fly tire in the country. She tied flies with her father up in upstate New York near Mumford in Caledonia in that area. and they had their own fly shop. were selling lots of flies. Sarah had her own fly tying business. She did a display for the Centennial Exposition in 1876 in Philadelphia that was beautiful evidently, trout, salmon flies, bass flies, lake flies. So she was a very early one and she started writing. She wrote actually two articles about entomology and matching the hatch on the rivers in upstate New York. in the 1870s and 80s. mean, 1880s, I think they came out. So that was very early. So, but there was a conflict always between those who thought, well, the attractor patterns are fine. And those who really want to match the hatch. And that was very, you know, big debate. Dave (39:23) You know, it’s interesting about it. We, think we always go in cycles, but you know, you had that where, okay, attractor patterns. And then there was this match the hatch with Sarah McBride and others who, know, and then actually now, you know, you get to, like, if you take your own NIMPS, I mean, that’s the opposite really. That’s the tractor again. It’s not really matching the hatch necessarily. So we’re kind of going back to that a little bit. Steve (39:43) Yeah, and she has a lot in her book in favorite flies about color, right? And so color theory and so there’s a whole long thing about the golden pheasant crest on salmon flies. And someone actually did all these studies in these tanks, these large tanks to see how the golden pheasant crest material looked in the water. So I think people have always been fascinated, I think, with how to see color, what makes them react, particularly salmon or Atlantic salmon. classically are not feeding when they’re hitting these flies. So everyone’s been trying to figure out, why do they actually, you know, hit these flies and, but they’re beautiful and they’re highly collectible. mean, I find the Atlantic salmon flies are one of my favorite things to collect and both from the UK and from Ireland and from Scotland. But I got very interested in the early American flies, which in some ways are even rarer. And so Orvis, for instance, they would tie these flies and they would, they were tied to gut and then they were put on little cards, beautiful cards with their logo on them. And I started collecting these and they were very hard to find. And I ended up with a very large collection of these early flies. I just thought they were amazing looking. Dave (40:50) Right. And I think my dad, I think he has some of these in his collection is, yeah, you have these cars with one fly with some, that’s like ready to go. You could just fish it. Steve (41:01) Yeah, well, they usually put eight or eight flies, four or eight or six, four, six or eight flies on a card. that’s how they retail them. Sometimes they would put the retailer’s name on the card because they had some distribution with retailers. But the other thing that happened when I was doing the book is I got interested in how they were marketing and selling their flies. I’d always been, I’d seen a couple ads from the 1880s that mentioned in early 1890s that mentioned, one of them mentioned a color catalog and I had never seen a color catalog from Orvis. so long story short, I think what happened was that he had actually done some work trying to figure out how to do a color catalog and it just was too expensive. And he decided to do his book instead called Fishing with a Fly and that became a big catalog for his flies. And then the ultimate catalog for all flies that they were selling was Favorite Flies. because everyone could see every fly they sold and then they were paying them for the book. Really clever. Yeah. He really clever. He was really clever marketer, just an amazing marketer. And then along the way I found in a really obscure library in New Hampshire, University of New Hampshire mill collection, special election. They saw a listing on Google for it said Orvis manuscript. I looked at the date and I said, you know, that’s really early. I wonder what that is. So I drove up there. Dave (42:02) That’s amazing. ⁓ Steve (42:26) And it turns out it’s a beautiful little manuscript of watercolors, 24 watercolors of flies that are very accurately depicted. it’s watercolors with pen and ink and they’re spectacular. And I think my theory, there’s also an Orvis trade card in there that’s four color, it’s very rare. And my theory is that he was actually going to use these in a catalog and reproduce them at a catalog. That’s why he had them made by an artist, but they never used them. It’s sort of the lost, the long lost kind of watercolors, but they’re quite beautiful. Dave (43:02) Pescador on the fly offers a full spectrum of fly fishing gear for any angler at any budget. By bringing high performance rods directly to the angler, they eliminate the middleman markup, saving you time and money. The top tiered L-Ray series is designed for serious anglers with the L-Ray G6 being the most packable high performance rod on the market. And most anglers who try the G6 can’t believe it is a six piece rod. It performs just like a four piece. There’s no difference in performance. Whether you’re fishing local streams or embarking on your next adventure across the world, the G6 delivers precision and power wherever you go. You can get 10 % off your next order right now if you use the code WETFLYSWING at checkout. That’s pescadornetfly.com. Use the code WETFLYSWING for 10 % off. Never fly without your G6. Discover the L-Race series and more at pescadornetfly.com. What’s the history, do you know the history of fly shops in the country or in really the world? Because you had Orvis, which really wasn’t a fly shop or was it? And then when did the specialty shops come to be? Steve (44:06) Well, in the UK, there had been a lot of specialty shops. In fact, there’s a great passage in one of the things that Charles Dickens wrote about walking around a tackle shop in London at the time. And that was in the 1800s and early, I mean, really kind of mid 1800s. so I think to answer your question, they started in the US. I mean, certainly the end of the century, turn of the century, the first flights places started, they started selling rods and guns. So many you’ll find that in the history of fly rod making, many of your initial fly rod makers also made guns and sort of make sense is that, you, you’re a gun maker and you knew how to work wood and metal and to find, you know, manufacturing and you, then people were asking you for other kinds of outdoor gear and you start getting into fly rods, whether it’s wood rods of various kinds and then bamboo fly rods. And so I think clearly, you know, the, the shops sort of started selling gear and in fact, Orvis sold some gear through almost like a hardware store, pharmacy, drugstore that he ran very early in the 1860s in Manchester. And before he even made rods, he was selling some other stuff, clearly in his store. And so it started kind of in the 1870s, 1880s, as early as that. And then in the big cities, you know, the Conroy’s and their other big brands, you know, had some shops and I even found a catalog from a outfit called Charles Plath from the 1880s. And he was even selling fly tying materials, which is what I thought was really interesting. But the fly shops, I think grew as the popularity of the sport grew and people wanted more and more of the local flies. So I think the whole phenomenon of local tires tying local flies that were then using local rivers was a big big push. And so now to this day, I mean, I when I go, you know, just somewhere, I usually go into fly shop and buy a bunch of flies and buy too many flies. But I just get fascinated with all these little local patterns. this guy only ties these and you know, he just developed it like last week. And you know, it’s kind of amazing. 1000s and 1000s of patterns, everybody’s got a theory about how they work and why they’re using unusual local materials sometimes. It’s really pretty fascinating. It’s like, because America, I think fly tying has become really one of the great American crafts and it has not been recognized the way it really should be historically. The English kind of started at all and they had hundreds of women tying flies in England for many, many years before the US did. I think the innovation that went into it, just like with bamboo fly rods, I think the bamboo fly rod is one of the really truly American innovations. mean, it started in England really, but then to make a fully bamboo strip, bamboo fly rod in this country, became this craft industry where then you had hundreds of makers. And eventually with, know, Ogey Carmichael made this more popular with his book about Everett Garrison and thousands of people started making rots. Dave (47:15) Is that when it happened? Was that the big change? Yeah. Steve (47:17) I think Hogy’s book, you know, and really got a lot of people turned on about making their own fly rod, their own baby fly rod. And he sold, you know, tens of thousands of books. know, he, think his initial print run was 11,000 books. I think it was in the seventies. I’d have to check seventies or eighties, think probably the seventies. Dave (47:32) Wow, what year was that? in the 1870s or the 1970s. Steve (47:41) 1970s. So Hogan Carmichael made about 100 rods himself using the of Everett Garrison kind of tapers and his own adaptation of that. And then he wrote this incredible book with Everett Garrison about how to all the steps in making a bamboo fly rod. Dave (48:00) and that was in the 70s and then after that you had a big boom. So what was going on before if you take back to Orvis 1870, talk about what were the big rod breakthroughs over history there? Steve (48:11) Well, they started out in England, they were making wood rods. So they were making and also Wurvis initially made many wood rods and they would make them out of green art or out of ash, lots of other types of wood materials. And they were typically, you know, very long, you know, rods, some of those rods were 11, 12 feet long, very heavy. And then over time they became finer and finer and they used more and more adaptable dynamic materials. And so The big breakthrough was that somebody started making rods. Like in England, there were actually some early rods with bamboo tips on them. So then they realized, the action kind of the bamboo tip is kind of nice. And they started splitting bamboo and then joining these, you know, split bamboo sections into rod pieces. And then in the U.S., the U.S. gets the credit for doing the first really kind of complete end-to-end split bamboo rod. And initially, know, there’s sometimes they were done in four sections, segments of bamboo, sometimes in six, sometimes in eight. but Philippe was sort of given the credit as Dunhead being one of the first rod makers out of Easton, Pennsylvania. And that was the 1870s, I believe. And he was very early, maybe 1860s. I think maybe even 1860s. I can’t remember now the exact dates. Dave (49:34) So right when Orvis was getting his pharmacy shop going, he was getting into split bamboo probably eventually. Steve (49:39) And he just he started making his rods. There’s a little bit of controversy about the exact thing by which he started making rods, but he certainly made a small number of rods in the 1860s in the mid 1860s, right after the Civil War. And then he got into more, you know, wider manufacturing in the 1870s. And he there was a gentleman by the name of George Swift. then and and Hiram Megleston, they joined him. and they added huge amounts of value in terms of how to make things. They had started making their own rods before he did, because we know that because they were listing the rods for sale in the local newspaper, in the Manchester Journal, a few years before Orvis started advertising his own rods. ⁓ they were, ⁓ George Swift had actually been the town dentist, just as ⁓ Charles Orvis was briefly. He was sort of a jack of all trades. Yeah, and then Egleston, had been a builder and he’d been made a lot of things and he knew how to, you know, use steam to make machines. And so he added that knowledge to the operation. He also designed the Egleston reel seat, which was a patented reel seat. So it’s kind of like had like a little spring mechanism only that you could put the reel in and then Orvis bought that patent from Egleston. So they were, but they were, he was definitely making rods in the 1870s, which is very early. Dave (51:03) Yeah, that was, and then what was, you go into the 1900s, when is the next breakthrough on raw? What is the next big breakthrough? ⁓ Steve (51:11) Well, lots of different tapers, different sort of size rods, some of the smaller rods, some of the rods with much better action for dry fly or other finer fishing. Also the revolution in guides. So guides were initially like these little rings that were kind of just tied onto the rod. And then you got more guides that were tied on more securely and bigger where the line would suit through the guides more easily. And that was a big innovation. And then ferrules, know, the joining parts of the rod where you join them together. was a whole evolution of ferrules and how, you you produced a ferrule that would help the energy that went through the rod to go through the ferrule as it got cast, right, more smoothly. So it wasn’t as, you know, as chunky in terms of the actions. got a much smoother action. And then tips, you know, They were designed different kinds of tips, different kinds of reel seats. But generally, think making lighter rods became more the focus. How can I make a really beautifully strong rod with a great action, but that’s not too heavy? Dave (52:24) Right. And it’s still durable and all that, which there’s bamboo. That’s amazing about bamboo, right? Is that it’s super durable, probably more durable than any other rod still to this day. Steve (52:34) Yeah, they can be. I mean, the smaller ones can be very quite fragile. You have to be careful because they taper down to these, you know, tiny tolerances, you know, at the tip. But but they have a beautiful action. I mean, I still I still fish with my original, you know, Orvis Madison rod that I got in the 1870s. wow. And it’s a beautiful bamboo fly rod. I’ve had it since then. And I’ve had it repaired once by Orvis at the factory. Dave (53:00) And what year was this rod made? Steve (53:02) That one I in 1870s, so 1875. Still works great. Dave (53:07) Yeah, so it’s an 1875 rod they built. Steve (53:09) the Dave (53:11) that all. Gotcha. I was gonna say yeah 1970. Steve (53:14) That’s when I first started fly fishing. Dave (53:17) Sister, Orvis has been, yeah, I mean, they’ve been making bamboo rods, you know, since 1870, essentially. They haven’t, they still make them. Steve (53:23) the 1870s, you know, and it’s possible they were making them in 1860s. Dave (53:27) Orvis is the brand, mean, Hardy’s another one of those brands, right, that’s been out there a while. Are there any other brands that are still going that are, you can go back to that same era in the 1870s, like Hardy and Orvis? Steve (53:37) Orvis is the oldest American brand that’s still continuous. In England, there’s a ⁓ brand called Farlow. Yeah, and Farlow is actually older than all three of them and the other two. So, Farlow started before Orvis, normally before Orvis and before Hardy. So, they’re pretty old. And that’s also they’ve done some beautiful stuff. They’ve done some beautiful things. They’ve had beautiful reels and rods and Dave (53:44) Yeah, far low. Yeah, far low. Okay. Steve (54:04) flies over the years. There’s a whole collection of pharoah flies that were discovered by ⁓ Martin Lenigan O’Keeffe. And he wrote a beautiful book about them with all the patterns, incredible work. So that’s that was sort of, think, the in the Mary Arvis Marbury book. The big thing for me was I teamed up with Lee Schechter, who was a master fly tire of these patterns. And he uses all, Lee uses all the traditional materials and techniques. And he created a step by step sort of instruction guide for tying one of the patterns. We have about 40 pages in our book about that. And he added to, and I actually met him at a show. I swapped some old hooks on gut that I’d found in an old wallet, the original to that period, the 1880s, and for some flies. He tied me a few flies and that’s how I originally met him. And that was probably 20 years ago. And so. When I went to do the book, said, well, Lee, have to have somebody who kind of knows how to these things and show people how to tie these things. Because I think it gives you a better appreciation of the craft involved. This is sourcing the materials, really getting the right proportions in the fly. It’s a real art, and there’s a lot to be learned. And there are a number of great tires who tie these flies. Since the book came out, the tires in that space are very excited. because they’ve seen flies in the book that they didn’t even know existed. And because of those sample frames that we found and the panels from the expo. so great tires that John Barthesara and Matt Bagshaw and others. they really got excited. Tony Smith invited Bagshaw over to our house to tie flies. Matt ties them in the hand as in use of ice. Dave (55:52) Yeah, we’ve talked about that. Yeah, there’s definitely the in the hand tires, is a whole nother level of, yeah, something I haven’t done yet, but. ⁓ Steve (56:00) Well that’s how they were tied, that’s how Mary tied, you know, and her, by and large, her tires were tying in the hand. Dave (56:05) she did. She tied mostly in hand. Steve (56:08) and then later I think they were using visons but initially all in the end. Dave (56:11) Why was that in hand? Because they didn’t have vices? Steve (56:14) I think they just didn’t use vices at their vices certainly available at the time later. It’s just a style. Dave (56:20) ⁓ Who would you look at right now out there who might have a video online who’s tying in hand that could tie it in hand just like Mary did with the same flies? Steve (56:28) You know, I don’t know. I know Matt Dagsha has got a number of videos on Instagram. Not sure that he did them in hand. maybe using a vice. I don’t know. That’s a good question. Dave (56:39) Yeah, I know there’s some, we have some people that tie steelhead flies that we’ve talked to. Steve (56:45) Yeah, I’m sure there is somebody who’s done a video. It’s a little complicated to do one. I love tying in the hand, but I think it’s easier with a vice, but I’m sure someone has done one. It’s kind of amazing to see. Dave (56:55) Yeah, definitely, definitely it is. Nice, well, and we mentioned a few, you’ve mentioned a lot of famous people. One person that I’ve been reading a book about the Woolridge’s, Glenn Woolridge, who was a guy, Woolridge boats out in on ⁓ the Rogue River. And so in the early 1900s, right, you had some people that came out there, it got famous and Zane Gray was one of those guys. Did you do a little research on Zane and kind of some of the people down in that Rogue area and that part of the? Steve (57:23) I have not. have not. No, that’s been in fact, there are orifice had a little bit of an, a pretty good following in the West. But finding early, you know, Western flies is actually quite challenging. There was a ⁓ fly shop, big fly and tackle shop in San Francisco called Goucher early. And I have a couple Goucher, I have some Goucher flies. And from that, I found a whole collection from Colorado, actually, there were flies that done in the 1920s. Wet Flies and they had some great Western names like the Dead Chicken and the California Coachman and the Colorado Coachman. Yeah, and so they had a lot of local patterns that they had done. That was from the Otis McIntyre shop in Colorado Springs. And he was the was the fish commissioner, fishing game commissioner for Colorado. That was from the 1920s. But I didn’t. Yeah, I haven’t included anything on Zane Gray. Dave (58:02) Right, right, the coach. Yeah, there’s some interesting classics. seems like, you definitely you’re off, you’re in the East coast, right? you’re still- More New England. Yeah, I mean, when you look at it, you know, 19, same time period, really, 1800s, 1910s, had, you know, Zane Gray, had Roderick Haig Brown, and really steelhead fishing. That was one of the big things that got going in California in that era, right? Like there were no steelhead fishermen, and these people came out from the East coast, probably for the gold rush and other reasons, out to San Francisco and- Steve (58:27) more in England. Dave (58:50) And they’re like, wow, what are these giant rainbow trout? And so they started writing. So I think Zane Gray definitely wrote more about the rogue because he took a lot of famous people to the rogue. then Hague Brown, up north, ⁓ he did a number of great books too. So yeah, I think that’s interesting. think it’s amazing because it’s a big, you’ve got a big country and being able to document everything is probably pretty hard to do. But what’s next on you? So you’ve got this big book that you did on Mary Orvis that went out here this year. Do you have another book you’re already working on looking ahead? Steve (59:21) I do, and I’m being a little secretive about it just because it’s early stages, but I have another idea and I like the idea of doing sort of focused titles, not only. I did this big book on, know, the hat, was all about every kind of thing, Rod’s Reels wise, whatever, and flash treasures. And then now this one was focused on, you know, Mary. And then I have another sort of more focused idea, but it’s a little broader than Mary. It’s broader than just, you know, one person and the history of one person or one company or. So it’s a, and it involves, I guess the clue would be it involves the UK as well and, ⁓ Scotland. And ⁓ so I’ve, I know that, you know, the one of the things that I’ve always been fascinated with was the spay flies, you know, in the relationship between the spay flies and the steelhead, you know, fly tires in the U S and I know John Shuey just had this, just wrote this incredible book on spay flies. And he included actually about half a dozen patterns from my, or examples from my collection. you didn’t there. Yeah. I have a large collection of antique sandwich flies. It’s probably my largest collection. Dave (1:00:27) of the Atlantic Samovles. Steve (1:00:28) Yeah, I’ve been collecting them for almost 40 years. Dave (1:00:31) Like the really beautiful, highly, with all the materials and the amazing. Steve (1:00:35) The big, you know, full dress classic feather wing flies with gut eyes, with the, you know, the gut eyes, silk gut eyes. I, and just, I find them really beautiful and rare on and Paul Schmuckler, you know, got me really interested in those as well, because he’s got a large collection as well of those, those things. Dave (1:00:56) Do you think most of those flies, it’s interesting because I’ve been a big steelhead angler for most of my life and I’m going to fish for Atlantic salmon in Newfoundland for the first time and it’ll be my first chance to, and I’m thinking out there, I’m thinking all the cool things that, know, but one of them is like those Atlantic salmon flies, those fully dressed. What’s the history on that? Were those ever really meant for fishing or has it always been more a style thing? Steve (1:01:17) They were meant for fishing. absolutely. They were definitely fished and the spade flies were fished. And yeah, I mean, the larger examples were some of the ones that I’ve collected are quite large, like eight O’s, nine O’s, ten O’s. Dave (1:01:28) And where were those first because you have some of the flies. Steve (1:01:31) Well, they were fish in high water. They were were fish. Those the bigger ones were fish in high water, but also some of them were harled, know, Arling, which is now basically a method of trolling. And some of them were used for that. really not. Dave (1:01:44) And this is a trolling in like Atlantic salmon, but all over the world, right? Wherever Eastern Canada, because now when we’re going up there, we’re fishing little tiny wet flies like you’d fish for summer steelhead, you know. Steve (1:01:55) Yeah, different flies are used now. Not as many of the classic patterns. But some people still use some of the classic flies. But very often they’re newer flies that are a little sparser. If you’ve seen Topher Brown’s books on Levitic Sanifishing, he is really wonderfully talented. He’s both a researcher but writer. gave me lot of great advice for my first book. I’ve talked him a lot about Atlantic salmon flies and Atlantic salmon fly fishing. He could probably give you the best advice of anyone to where to fish at any given time for Atlantic salmon. He’s been everywhere. And then he teaches, he teaches spay casting as well. Dave (1:02:36) Yeah, he’s been awesome. We’ve had him on I think a couple times on the podcast he was on last in Actually 24 May. I think we’re probably gonna be talking to him. Yeah, he’s he’s a wonderful guy He’s a wealth of knowledge episode 608 with Topher Brown. So we’ll put a link in the show notes to that Steve (1:02:52) Yeah, and the advice he gave me on the first book, was really incredibly valuable, was, you know, Steve, the most important thing in your book is the structure. You know, think about how you want to structure. And that’s how I came up with the structure of rods and reels and flies. right. Museums and clubs. then I matched the people with those particular categories. And that made all the difference. Dave (1:03:13) So you thought about the structure first. Steve (1:03:15) Yeah, that made all the difference. He’s a really, you know, deep thinker on a lot of things. Dave (1:03:20) I love that the structure I think is a great point. I think with the podcast, it’s different. I always compare things to the podcast because we’ve done over 900 interviews now. it’s like, I always come into it and I think, okay, I’m going to have a kind of arc or structure of the podcast. And, sometimes it goes out the door. Like today, it’s pretty amazing. Cause this is what I love is that the, podcast is great because it’s a conversation, the casual conversation and it can take tangents and you’re such a wealth of knowledge that I’ve got all these questions. And originally I was coming into it thinking I was going to be like, all right, for the collector, how to become a collector, right? That was my initial thought. Like how do you, some tips on that? We really haven’t got into that too much today, which has been great because I think there’s so much here. So yeah, I wanted to ask, you know, we’ve talked about a ton here. First off, anything we’re missing, you know, with what you have going, you mentioned your book that just came out, which is pretty amazing. Where can people, first off, where can they pick that book up? Where’s the best place? Steve (1:04:12) We sell the book online on our website, is flyfishingtreasures.com. And the book is called Mary Orvis Marbury, A Life in Flies. It’s about a 250 page book and has just 7 800 illustrations and photos in it. And it’s just about every Orvis fly I could find. For all the museums and everything. Dave (1:04:32) Okay. Good. And we’ll have a link in the show notes to that so people can check it out. Steve (1:04:37) It also comes with a companion volume that describes each of the panels from the world’s Colombian Exposition. So I felt it was important if you’re looking at the panels in the book, that there’d be a companion volume that you can kind of flip through and learn about every fly and every photograph on the panel, because nobody had done any research on those before. And it really gives you a whole overview of like all the main patterns and all the history and some beautiful photographs, outdoor photographs from some of the best photographers at the time. Dave (1:05:07) Yeah, sounds amazing. Let’s go back to that question on the the collector. So if somebody is listening here and they’re thinking this would be pretty fun to get more into this, what do you think? You know, getting started, what do you think there’s some tips you would give them to maybe get into this whole thing that you’ve been doing for many years now? Steve (1:05:23) I would say the main thing is just collect something that you really like and certainly because you’re going to end up holding on to it for quite some time usually and just find things that you’re interested in and that you really like. Dave (1:05:36) Yeah, what if you like everything? Because for me, I feel like like creels, rods, reels, you you name it, I feel like I would love it. It’s kind of hard for me. Steve (1:05:45) Yeah, think you can start out, most collectors start out collecting a little bit of everything and then they then decide over time, well, I really am most passionate about flies or about reels or about rods. Then they learn the thing that they’re most interested in. I think a lot of it, and I can encourage people to talk to lot of people, go to shows, some of the fly fishing shows, you’ll see some antique guys selling stuff. Dave (1:06:08) Are there still shows, so the fly fishing shows like Frimskis and around the country? Steve (1:06:12) Five Fishing shows, yeah, a few of the antique guys show up and I actually sell antique tackle as well now. ⁓ you do? Sort of a side business. Yeah, sort of a side business. I kind of figured out what some of the people like and I find this stuff all the time. And so I sort of kind of, and then I’ve started selling some of my collection. I haven’t sold many of my flies, but I think a lot of the other stuff I’ve sold, I’ve sold most of my reels over the years. Yeah, I’m focusing now really on flies for my own collection. But also my other piece of advice would be buy the best things you can. So it doesn’t need to be the most expensive. But in terms of condition, try to buy things that are in the best condition you can find them. Because that’s always going to keep their value. Yeah, and they don’t have to be expensive again. But get things that are really in top condition. If things have scratches or dented up or missing screws or that kind of stuff, you don’t really want to. be buying that stuff. you end up buying fewer things, but you end up buying things that are really nice. And then just wait for things that really get you excited. There’s plenty of time to learn and to look. And so do a lot of looking before you buy anything. And you don’t have to rush into it. You can just review things, look at things online on eBay, look at things that shows at estate sales. But if you see something at an estate sale and it’s in good condition and it’s something you’re interested in, just grab it. because you probably never see it again. That’s the one thing that every collector has is a short list of things they should have bought. Dave (1:07:40) Right. Right. What’s one for you? What’s one for you that even. Is there one that comes to mind for you that you’re like, man, you’re kicking yourself because you didn’t get it. Steve (1:07:49) Never seeing again. Well, are lot of things that I like initially that I saw in London in the, you know, in the eighties that I should have just grabbed and bought because they’re so valuable now. lot of the salmon flies, were certainly there were collections of salmon flies that had the opportunity to buy that I should have. And, but some of it is, you know, also, you know, some of the cost of these things, they get pretty high and it’s a big investment to make. And so it does kind of get out of hand eventually kind of our You you have to kind of, end up with too many things and you have to call down, sell some things because it’s a, it does, you can get to be kind of a mania, you know, just ask my wife and she’ll tell you like, she’s very supportive of my hobby, but it’s a, it’s a definitely, it’s got our entire, ⁓ entire basement is full of, ⁓ antique tackles. Dave (1:08:46) Yeah, right, right. That’s awesome. What is, you do you think would be a couple, you’ve got a couple of good books as resources, any other resources or books or, know, that people can learn more about, you know, collecting antiques and stuff like this and fly fishing. Steve (1:09:00) Yeah, there are number of great books on rods, on fly rods. ⁓ Marty Keene’s book is very, very good. And then there was a book that was written sort of in general on, I think it was called Antique Tackle Collecting or something like that by Campbell. And that was done, I was done in the 80s, I believe. That’s still one of the best. Campbell, yeah, he was a fantastic writer and really it’s a great basic. introduction to everything. it’s not expensive. You can find it online. And ⁓ that’s a really good one. So those are two pretty good ones. then on the reels, Jim Brown’s book that he did with the American Museum of Fly Fishing is kind of the definitive book on American reels. That’s quite well done. And that, again, you can find online. And he did a book on reel patents, but that’s more technical. Dave (1:09:52) Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Those are some great resources that go along with your book on, with Mary Orvis on the flies, right? And then all that. Steve (1:10:00) Unfortunately, mean, fly fishing treasures, we’ve we basically sold out, there are copies out there that people sell occasionally. Dave (1:10:07) Yeah, well, that’s going to be its own antique, right? Collectible. Steve (1:10:10) I did a thousand copies and we’ve sold out. I’ve only have a dozen left now. So it’s Dave (1:10:14) That’s it. You’ve got to collect your own copy of your book before it goes. Steve (1:10:18) I got to keep a few anyway. ⁓ no, it’s been really well received and just been an incredible experience. All the people that I’ve met and I’ve talked to both here in the UK, around the world. I hear from people all over the world. It’s just Dave (1:10:29) fun. That’s cool. What about ⁓ the communities? Are there any online communities that are one you’d recommend for some of this? Steve (1:10:36) There are a number of them on Facebook. The Classic Rod Forum is more of a, that’s a general sort of flight fishing and rods and reels and flies. That’s very, very good. But that’s like a message board. But it’s very, very good. And the guys there are very knowledgeable. You can get on there and post something and they’ll tell you more than you ever want to know about it. But yeah, lot of the Facebook groups are quite valuable. And then Instagram. Dave (1:10:49) Yeah, message. Steve (1:11:02) I would recommend anybody who is interested in this stuff, you know, just follow people on Instagram or, know, I get a lot of traffic on Instagram and hear from a lot of people on Instagram who are posting photographs because it’s great for, for posting photographs of the antique stuff and then sharing them with everybody. was, that’s a great resource in itself. Dave (1:11:22) And what’s your Instagram? Remind us again on that. Yeah, FlyFish and Treasures. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. Well, before we take it out of here, I just want to ask, get your, question of if you can only have one of each item and the ones I want to check on are kind of, let’s start with the rod. So it sounds like you have some cool rods. If you can pick any rod, price doesn’t matter. You can only have one. What would you go with? Steve (1:11:24) It’s fly fishing treasures. That’s an interesting question. There’s some that exist somewhere but haven’t really been found. Dave (1:11:49) Okay, what would those be? Steve (1:11:51) So the Felipe rod, which is the original rod in the US, that’s out of Eastern Pennsylvania. So that’s one of the treasures that’s still out there. There used to be one, I think it was lost in the fire at the Anglos Club in New York. ⁓ wow. But there is probably one out there. On reels, I just love the old salmon febric and pane reel. Very large, beautiful reel with the ceramic. Dave (1:12:09) Okay. Steve (1:12:20) plates on the side plates. That’s a phenomenal thing. And then on the flies, I’m actually quite interested in early Irish salmon flies. They were actually tying and using the exotic materials way before the English in many ways. And they were never given any credit by the English, So certainly early flies by Blacker and others that were Irish, they were. center of the Millenary Creek was like in Ireland initially and they were getting all these feathers from all over the world for latest hats and other things they were making and so they had you know all these you know parrot feathers jungle cock and all these things from all over the world so there the initial flies are quite beautiful so those are probably some things I’m looking for Dave (1:13:02) That’s cool. Okay. And, ⁓ and what about people? We’ve talked about a number of kind of famous people from the past. Who is one person you would most love to interview if you could bring them back from the dead and talk to them. Steve (1:13:15) I’d love to talk to Mary. I just think she’s a remarkable person. you know, many of many people, there was a guy by the name of West Hill, who was kind of the unofficial historian at Orvis for many years. He filled in a lot of things for me in terms of the local research he had done going to the town hall and Manchester and research on the Orvis family. And he kind of brought her and her family to life for me. And I would love to have talked to her. Just I think she would be just a remarkable. fascinating person to talk to. I knew a lot of people. But also was one of these people who could deal with everyone. She could deal with the famous and the wealthy guys, but she also just was well liked in town. She could talk to regular people and enjoy being with regular people and working with them. And the fly tires she worked with and how she trained them is really quite remarkable. Yeah, I’d love to do it. Thanks for the opportunity Dave.