Fly fishing and more: June 2023

My Q&A's started as an idea to interview some of the memorable people I've met in fly fishing, both online as well as offline. Rather than a true interview I decided to keep it simple by asking a few Q&A's.

I've written a lot about the Humpy on my blog, tied many since the late 1980's and fished them all over the world. Everyone who knows me 'I'm not haunted by waters' but by the Humpy.

Earlier this year I had a Zoom meeting with my youth hero Jack Dennis. Jack is a true legend in fly fishing. His life is probably worth a movie. Now at age 75 Jack is as busy as ever. It took a while to set a date for the meeting, but boy did we talk!

“You know, I get to 75 and I go wow It sure went by fast and then when I started analysing it year to year and I sat back and said how in the world did I do all this? I am blessed.”

“I think what happens is it melts together. I have a dear friend Randall Kaufman who who's a very accomplished writer and we start knew each other since 16.

He eventually did the same kind of books as I did and our businesses mirrored and friendship and he eventually moved back to Jackson Hole.

It's you know, and we have the same dreams at this age. He's a year younger than me and Mike Lawson is a year older than me, but we're born on the same day, which is pretty interesting. 80 miles apart and we ended up in the same kind of business.

“... I’ve been really lucky ...”

I’ve been really lucky, I remember when Gary Lafontaine was dying of ALS and one point he wanted to drive off the highway. It is one of the worst deceases to die from and I said ‘you know, you got more things to accomplish… don’t do this’. He lived for another three years past that. And the memories what he has done in his life kept him going and he told me that the memories came back as it was in real life… And people say you shouldn’t live in the past, the past helps you to live in the future. I consider myself real lucky.”

1) Q: So, how and why did you get into fly fishing?

“My father was a test pilot and flew in World War II and after combat and flying over the Himalayas at the end of the war which was some of the most dangerous flying, he ended up flying for Warner Brothers. He flew with Ernest Hemmingway and Gary Cooper, who was a writer and an actor.”

“Cooper and Hemmingway loved to hunt and they always requested him as a pilot. And my father loved to fish, he was from California, originally from Independence, Missouri. He went to the first army core academy in San Diego.”

“The reason I’m saying this was he loved the outdoors. He flew Ernest Hemmingway and Gray Cooper and he met my grandfather who had a ranch in Jackson Hole… Anyway, being born in Jackson Hole in 1947, just family situations I ended up having to live with grandparents.

“I was taught by guides. That’s how I got into fishing”

So in the summer my grandfather, me 5 years old took me to a fishing trip to Lewis Lake in Yellowstone Park. He had a Pfleuger reel and a cane rod and he let out the line and he let it troll with a little Johnson motor and ‘boom’ I hooked my first fish. I never saw the fish until they released it. ‘Reel, don’t reel, reel..’ From that moment I was hooked. So than on, my grandfather had the financial means to hire a guide three times a week, all the way to my early teens. So I was taught by guides. That’s how I got into fishing.”

“My grandfather went to Carmichael’s tackle shop, I was 8 years old, and (he said) I want the best rod and the best reels for my grandson. And (Carmichael says) ‘John *you* don’t even own that stuff’ and he says ‘yeah, but I’m not a fly fisherman but my grandson is going to be’. Yeah It's all almost inevitable that you'll get into fly fishing when you live in that area.”

“…. because Carmichael had the first Rocky Mountain fly shop. Bud Lilly, Dan Bailey all of them flocked to see how he did it. He started in the early ‘30s with guide service in the park. And this was just a shop, unbelievable, you know, you didn't have that many in the West Coast. They were usually in a hardware store or somebody's a house.”

“… Dan Bailey started as a fly tying operation, not a shop (yet). Then people would come in and he’d say what do you want. I have a wonderful relationship with (his son) John Bailey and he gave me the first merchandises to start the (my) store. They all shared fly tyers, Don Martinez, Roy Donnelly, Buz Buszek, all these guys from California. And that was where the hot bed of fly tying in the west was, it wasn’t in the Rocky Mountains.

And access to the materials by going to Mexico, had the access to the materials. And of course there was the Catskills in the east. It’s hard to believe how fast this business went after the early ‘70s, it took a long time. And Pat Barnes and Bud Lilly and several other guys, they were all teachers.

“I was going to become an artist...”

And in those days in Montana, because of the agriculture they were out in first of May and back in middle of September. So if you’re a school teacher in those days, those became the guides. And there was virtually no business after the first part of September. Except if you were living in a rich area like Jackson Hole, so you’d have a local cliental. You’d lose half of your guiding staff because they would go back to school.”

2) Q: You started a fly shop (mid 1970’s?) in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. What made you decide, besides running the fly shop, to start writing books and later make videos?

“Actually in 1967, so Randall Kauffman and I, I just got out of the military. Randall was in LA and my grandfather had a house in Redwoods, our family was originally from the Philippines and were bankers. God that could take up a whole hour explaining that.

So I decided I was going to become an artist which I did in the military and went to work for in Beverly Hills doing movie bills. It lasted about two months and Randall said 'I gotta get out of here!', so we took off. At age of 19 I had to stay near Wyoming because I was in the reserves.

So we would decide we would go to Jackson Hole, my grandfather still had a place there. We went to West Yellowstone and looked there and said that didn’t look exciting for a single guy in the winter time and looked at Pinedale, we say 'ah… I don't know if this place is ever gonna be...’, we went back to Jackson Hole and we walked in to this shop and said ‘Oh my god There's a guy that I knew during the summers!’. He had a fly shop with a jewellery store. He said ‘I am saved, I need you to guide!’. I said ‘well I can guide but Randall here doesn't know anything about guiding’. And can he (Randall) tie flies? Yes, and so he tied flies and I guided.

“... I really wanted to be a fisherman...”

He said ‘look, start a fly shop for your fly tying operation and if you can make it work, I'll sell you my fly shop’. So, we opened a little doing just nothing but fly tying, and the winters came and it went 40 below (Fahrenheit) and that was the end of Randall.”

“…but during that time we met Dennis Black (founder of Umpqua Feather Merchants) at the very first conclave of the Federation of Fly Fishers and I was lucky enough to guide Lee Wulff and Arnold Gingrich, who was the founder of Esquire magazine. And also we got to meet, oh so many great fly fishermen that are legends now. I mean the old days, the young (now) people wouldn't even know who they even were.”

“Dennis Black, who was from Fresno, California and he tied flies and we went fishing together. So he kind of said , 'Randall come out to Oregon because I'm gonna open this place in Roseburg, Oregon’.

“You just don't want to do

what your dad did...”

Randall was there for a while and then his mother remarried, his father had died and they moved to Portland, Oregon. And his mother said ‘look, maybe you should do the same thing Jack is doing and Dennis and open a fly shop and I’ll back you’. Randall and his brother opened Kaufmann Streamborn (closed since 2011).

And we loved to tie together and nobody had roots in the winter time so we would meet various locations in the west and we would meet in part way. We were all single at that time. We look to have places where the young ladies were.”

“…I really wanted to be a fisherman. I could have gone to the air force academy, I just didn’t wanted to do that. You just don't want to do what your dad did. I wanted to fly fish. Starting this shop, we had a guide service and no tackle, just materials. We had people tying flies, we were selling flies to Orvis and all the sudden, I always wanted to be on the American Sportsman (TV show about outdoors) when I was a kid.

So, in college before I was called up (for the military) I was a basketball announcer, that’s my second religion. First is fly fishing and second is basketball. So I interviewed Curt Gowdy from the basketball field for one of his radio station. I didn’t get the job, but he actually was the guy who tested you. It didn’t mean anything to him but a couple of years later in 1968 I had a friend who said you need to come to the first Trout Unlimited annual meeting, which was a going to be in Denver. Many big names were there.

This friend of mine was there who owned a newspaper in Cheyenne and he introduced me to Curt Gowdy. He forgot me working for the radio station. He asked me if I was any good? So he hired me for the American Sportsman show. We became good friends, he wrote the foreword of my first book ‘Western trout Fly Tying Manual’.

Curt and I put together for the idea for the (Jackson Hole) One Fly, but I come back later. In 1969 the TV show brought all kind of business. My friend said the shop is yours and the guides and you need to move it up. We had to start with the shop, not bigger than the bedroom I’m talking to you, with companies like Cortland lines. We moved to a larger shop. In 1971 I met my wife and that changed everything.”

“… back in those times we had to shuffle around, selling camping and hunting stuff, everything to make a buck. I ended up buying a white water business for $15,000. Five years later I sold it for couple of hundred thousand dollars and that gave us some money to open a general sporting good store in 1974, along with our fly shop. It was small but we got lucky. The other general sporting good there had Nike and we couldn’t get Nike, but we got New Balance and Columbia. Little did we know they would change the world.”

“...my talent is probably picking people”

“… People asked me what is your talent? You know fly tying can be learned by anyone. Most all the people who were experts from Whitlock to Schwiebert, all had other jobs. I don’t know anyone who tied flies made much more than a living. Books never made them. Only people that made money on books were Gierach, you got to produce a lot of books ,and Randall and I. Because we self published. And when you sell 350 000 books, even though you're only making four or five dollars a book. The cost stay the same but the book prices go up. It was a wonderful way to make money.

But my talent is probably picking people, picking friends and employees. This young guy comes in to the fly shop, fresh out of college, and says 'I want to work in the fly shop but I want to run it!'. Well okay, I said I love your enthusiasm, it was Jeff Currier, and I took him under my wings. Started taking him to New Zealand as a photographer, he was a very good photographer, and to the Sports shows. Then Scott Sanchez joined and we added those kind of people. So, picking friends like Mike Lawson and Gary Lafontaine and finding a way to all work together.”

“… When I was in Denver, I was trying to get better at tying flies and I got lessons from people in Jackson Hole, especially the guy who claimed that he came up with the name ‘Humpy’. He had a fly shop called Fort Jackson (in Jackson Hole, Wyoming). He was a great promotor. His wife was really the fly tier. I learned from her, I learned from women Ramona Bressler.

I needed to know more, but there were no books. (Mike) Lawson had the same problem and Randall did too. You had to take the flies apart to see how they were made. And then I said ‘why can’t you just take pictures of all the steps?’.

“...I want to work in the fly shop, but I want to run it”

People said that costs so much money. Then I saw one book that had 5-6 photo’s, a book by Art Flick (Master’s Fly Tying Guide). Well you missed all the in-between steps! So I found a photographer, that became a life long friend, and we came up with this idea to high light Western flies. I didn’t realize that the West and the East would come together, because fly patterns are the same. A Royal Humpy would work in Virginia, air travel became more safe and people could fly into Jackson Hole, they could fly into West Yellowstone and they could go fishing.”

“So I went to Winchester Press, they were *the* publishers of paper back books. They sent me a letter and said it was a great idea but it’s too regional… I ended up meeting the guy that wrote the letter! I went to my banker, and he was a fly fisherman, and my family and grandfather was a banker, they knew each other. And he said I’ll finance that.

It was a community effort. We sold a book for $6.95 a piece. I went to Eddy Bauer in Denver, back then the big shop, and I went there with 1,000 books. In 3 days we sold out. People wanted your signature and I signed every one of those suckers. Eventually I did drawings in them too.”

“… well, anyway, we bet off more that we could chew with getting the store started because there was a big recession caused by the savings and loans which interest rates went up to 24%, it was a very bleak time in any kind of retail history.

“... I went there with 1,000 books. In 3 days we sold out”

I had a guy offering to back up the sports goods store, the fly shop was backed up by Dan Bailey. The guy said let me help you out with stocking the store, as I was really busy with guiding and so, which was several hundred thousand bucks back then. He said your book will sell for many years and I will sell the books and when you’re square with me you’ll get the book back.

It worked out fabulously. So when we got the book back it was time to re-do it, with a spiral binding and revised it. Cabelas gave me an order for $190,000 that was in the ‘80’s. Then we brought out volume 2 and 3. Volume 3 sold 150,000 copies, it was amazing. We eventually sold 450,000 books all three together.”

“… these days fly tiers, trying to make it, you got to write a book to have credibility. These days you can’t make any money with club speakings. Imagine in the ’90s I got $750, along with Lefty Kreh. And now the best they can get is $500. Now you better have something to sell. I went to clubs with my books and DVDs and the selling of these would triple the money I got for the speaking. I did 40 years of 120 speaking days a year. And eventually the bottom fell out of that (too).”

3) Q: Let’s talk about the Humpy! You wrote the book ‘Western trout fly tying manual’ and made the video ‘Tying western trout flies’. I watched that (copied!) VHS video back in the late 1980’s and I was blown away by the Humpy. I had to learn to tie that fly! Why did the Humpy become your ‘signature fly’?

“… My signature fly is the Royal Humpy. It has an interesting story. Joe Humphreys fished with me when I was 14, along with his friend Charlie Ridinour. We were out fishing and he had never seen a Humpy before. He said that he couldn’t see the fly. Charlie suggested he could fish the Royal Wulff, but that doesn’t float as well as the Humpy.

“Back then our biggest problem was the hackle...”

Right then, Charlie wasn’t a fly tier. I was tying flies, I end up tying flies for Bud Lily, Pat Barns, Carmichael's, all those shops. So I got a lot of input from them, so we came out and that fly was an immediate success. Lee Wulff picked that one, which will lead into One Fly (event). But he just thought it was a brilliant idea because he was a big hair guy.

It was still the number one selling fly humpies. Grandpa always kind of struggled with it. Dennis refused to tie it and I could crank out four dozen an hour.”

“…Back then our biggest problem was the hackle. Dennis (Black) says look Man, you got to do this. I said, what do you mean? He says order 20 necks from Herters grade three grizzlies and So I did it and I came back with these beautiful small Henry Hoffman style necks and they thought they were small but were grade threes and we filled up buckets loads until Herters caught on and what it was, was Hoffman experimenting and he just sell until he got it down to Herters to get his money out. And we go ‘wow, this is going to change fly tying!’ and it did. So once you had those saddles it made tying that Humpy much easier.”

“… The veins (stem), being so thick, became the biggest problems with the saddles. You had to get the veins thin. Randall and I came up with a solution for the veins by wrapping two feathers at the same time, that would give you the even thickness.”

“... any kind of innovations comes from bunch of different places, it doesn’t come from one guy”

“… You know, any kind of innovations comes from bunch of different places, it doesn’t come from one guy. One of the things we learned very early in the game was that other people around the world knew things we didn’t know. And they had the reason for it.”

“Probably the biggest change in my life was in 1976 going to New Zealand and Australia. I had a Pan Am pilot friend who lived in Australia and he said look I know a guy who owns a big department store who would sponsor you to go to Australia. And bring as many books as you can get on the plane. I did a book tour in Australia and a fishing tour sponsored by the government of New Zealand.

…. And boy, I learned real quick that there is a lot more to selective fish. Once you got to the easy fish, when I was a kid nobody fished the spring creeks. Why did you do that? You could fish the Snake river and throw out a Humpy and catch a 2 lbs fish! And I was crawling on my belly and watch how the fish refused the fly if it didn’t float right. Then you start realizing flies have to designed for each condition.

… But the most amazing thing is, I was fishing in New Zealand, and I was fishing this run and this guide said 'you know what the big problem we have when Americans come here to fish? They don’t know how to cast. They don’t know how to cast short and accurate. They want to over throw it'. Well, this is in the 70s and 80s.

“They (Americans) don’t

know how to cast ...”

What we do for these guys is we put a nymph under a dry fly, if they over throw it, you get a chance with the nymph. Because here is their theory the first cast over rising fish you got a 85% chance to hook the fish, second cast it drops to 50% chance and third cast drops to 20%. So why not throw two flies to give them two?”

“… Immediately when I got back with that, there were people using two flies all over the place but not that way. What we said we’ll tie an emerger underneath it. We took the concept to the Green river (Utah), when there were 4 guides on the Green river. Perfect big tailwater to experiment. And nobody could catch a fish in what they call the ‘scum’ where we would go around. We just started nailing and people would come up and asking what hell are you doing?!

So Mike Lawson and I started doing our seminars around the country with this ‘two-fly thing’. But using it as a concept of matching the mayfly in different stages. That’s how we started the idea of the Traveling Fly Fishermen came. We needed to take those beginners and intermediates and bring them up and discover streamer fishing and all the other aspects of fly fishing. I sound like a preacher right now!”

4) Q: Since the 1980’s (I started fly fishing in 1982 at age 14) fly fishing has changed a lot. What are in your view the three most game changing developments in fly fishing?

“… first of all the big changes in fly fishing was information. I started in the ‘80s with big video projectors doing live tying instructions. Trying to show something from here is like this small. So why can’t we teach people through video?

Gary Borger who was a professional teacher, a professor already figured that out. Scientific Anglers had all the money to invest in that. They came to Gary and Gary said you have to talk to Jack about western flies.

So I talked to them and they said this is what you are going to make and I thought why would I do that?... I mean I had always been into filming, I filmed everything in New Zealand.

“80% of the angling public can’t

tell a thing what a rod does...”

I still have the tapes which I’m going to put out my history on my YouTube channel. I've got Footage that goes into the 76 when I first went there and footage from American sportsmen”.

“… I’m not going to tell you rods didn’t change anything. 80% of the angling public can’t tell a thing what a rod does or doesn’t do. You have to be a really good caster.

And I did a little experiment. I asked what is the best casting rod you’ve ever owned? They all said it was the Winston fiberglass rods. The J.K. Fisher rods that was designed by my buddy (Jon) Tarantino, before Steve Rajeff. He was THE caster in the world. Fisher was the first guy that moved in, with Russ Peak and the guys in California to build the first graphite type rod. Russ built a fabulous rod. They were fiberglass tip section and a graphite butt section, fabulous rods. So cane rods, only helps you to become a better caster.”

“… But I think what really helped was the development of good fly lines. When I was young silk lines had to be dressed with floatant, they casted fine but they didn’t float. Fly lines changed everything. Also nylon leaders”

“… the next big thing was waders. Having a wader that wouldn’t roast you and keep you safe, these breathable waders. Places like Australia you had snakes where you had to wear waders. John Simms, we've been friends in in the early ’60’s, he was a guide at Carmichaels shop. His first invention was the wrist lock. Joan Wulff owns it now , the company that bought John’s original company out didn't want it. John went with neoprene waders later.”

5) Q: Same question but in fly tying.

“… I think first are books. All before we had was, we had Joe Brooks's introduction to fly fishing. There weren’t many books back then. One of the big thing was vises. More choices became with vises like Regal, Renzetti and DynaKing.”

“…. you know, the innovations keep coming, but I think in fly tying it still is pretty much the basics. I was with Emmett Heat when we came with the Chernobyl Ant. It all happened because we were with some Hollywood people. And they'd flown in and they had guys that really couldn't fish very well, with some that could.

“...the movie attracted a lot

of people for all the wrong reasons”

And so the guy, it was really funny. He was producing the Magnum PI show and he's a big Hollywood producer. And he said, look, I'm a Mormon. I don't drink anything but Coke. But I know you guys must drink beer. He says, I'll bring beer.

So he calls a beer distributor down in the local town and he brings his whole truck up. And here's, there's about 13, 14 guides. And they just said all the, I mean, too much than a hundred cases of beer. And they got together the nights, over a couple nights tying everything you can think of in foam. That’s where the Chernobyl ant came from.”

“… And then there is hackles. And I think a lot of credits got to go to the people before, you know, you think of a guy from Colorado. First it was Henry Hoffman, then (Bucky) Metz. And there was another guy by the name of Spencer.”

“… And you know, a lot of tragedy in there. There was a lot of people. I'm surprised Henry Hoffman's still alive. Most of those guys end up dying from poisoning from the process of dying. But the guy from Colorado, Dr. Whiting. And what he did was something I think was really monumental. And it took a while for Metz to do it. And that's making a small vein.

You're as good a fly tier as I've ever seen when it comes to hackle. You're brilliant.”

6) Q: Fly fishing has, certainly for newcomers, become a very difficult/complex sport as in so many technicalities, gear orientated approach (have you seen the number of different types of fly lines available these days!), etc. Aren’t we (both anglers as well as the ‘industry’) making fly fishing too difficult?

“…first of all, and I tell, it gets back to the phenomena that we had with the movie, The River Runs Through It. It attracted a lot of people for all the wrong reasons. I think a lot of reasons, the guiding, they were thrown one type of fishing. A lot of people got in, the expansion of guides really helped them.

You know, there are a hundred times more guides than there was when I started and guides became the entry level into it. But of course you had to be able to afford the guide. Fly fishing clubs, you know, started teaching. I think there was a movement to try and within the Federation of Fly Fishermen to try to get the right way to teach people.”

“... And fly fishing isn't for everyone. It's just why it doesn't grow in that thing. And I, you know, we've had these growth spurts because of the pandemic and all that. And it all comes down to grows about 5% a year, you know, or even less. And it'll go up. Now, this next year, the year after the pandemic, it's back to normal.”

“...fly fishing isn't for everyone...”

“Now, it's been, my theory is, if you teach them, you teach the basics. It's not about equipment, but what it really is, it's basically hard. Golf can be hard. You know, (Ted) Williams said that three hardest things in sports is hitting a baseball, casting a fly run, and hitting a golf ball. Those are the three hardest things in sports, difficult to master.

And I think that a lot of people start out, and Cabela's was a big part. I was very involved with doing beginning fly fishing stuff. And all we showed in the beginning fly things is cheap Cabela's equipment, $80 rod, you know, you can get started. Lefty Kreh changed everything when he left Sage and said, people don't need $700 fly rods. He was from a common background, and he went to TFO and said, look, can't we build $150 rod?”

“The problem that happened in the rod business is that Orvis wanted to own the rod business. So they put a 25 year guarantee on their rod. And they did that, figuring that nobody else could match that. And they would have the majority of the business.

Well, some of the rod companies were owned by people who were very wealthy. And Sage is in a foundation by one of the richest families in Seattle. So they all said, okay, we'll offer a lifetime. So it kind of backfired on Orvis. We all, as dealers told them, this is worthless.”

7) Q: What is in your view the single most important skill to improve to become a better fly fisher(wo)man?

“That's easy. That's casting, everything. I mean, you can know everything about insects, what flies, what leaders to use, if you can't deliver it. It's like a car without an engine. You'll lose that car once you have an engine.

“It's like a car without an engine”

So fly casting, the better you get, you then start understanding how rods make a difference in your enjoyment, in your presentation.”

8) Q: Last question. What is your favorite food and drink?

“Man, I like every kind of food. I'll tell you what my goal is. I went to Thailand for my 20th anniversary. We've been married 52 years and we just fell in love with Thailand. Dennis Black of Umpqua had a factory there, so we visited and had a wonderful trip. And so I had my first Pad Thai and all the things that go along with Thai food.

And so as I traveled the world, I wanted to make sure I'd go to wherever Thai restaurant. I've done it in farthest flung of Finland and Sweden. I've done them in every one of the European countries. I've done it in Africa. I've done it in New Zealand and Australia. Just all over the United States, Canada, I found wonderful Thai restaurants.

So, okay, Asian food is my favorite. I like Pad Thai and I like to have it in different places. And I like it with salmon. I'll cook it myself with all kinds of seafood and I'm a big seafood eater. Don't care for trout.”

Thank you so much for your time Jack!

Update Dec 2, 2023:

Joe Beelart, the author of the book on the life of bamboo maker Gary Howells, was so moved with this Q&A, he sent me this unused vintage hat from the Kaufmann's Streamborn fly shop.

Thank you Joe!