End of the year

These two Humpies are the last flies tied in 2024 and ready to fly to the USA.

The Abbey

Another tie of the Abbey

Rat Faced McDougall

Originally starting as a fly named the Beaverkill Bastard, this fly invented by Harry Darbee in the late 1930's somehow was renamed Rat Faced McDougall. The story about the name change can be read in Harry's book 'Catskill Fly Tier'. 

A very similar fly called the Irresistible by Joe Messinger sr. looks almost identical. The Rat Faced McDougall having a hackle fiber tail rather than the more durable moose body hair.

Leslie Harrop tying

There are some video's of Rene Harrop tying flies. We don't see much of other family members tying. Here's a recording of Rene Harrop's daughter Leslie recently tying the Harrop mayfly cycle flies. Besides showing how to tie their designs she also tells some remarkable stories along the way.

It's a long sit so maybe you might want to watch it in parts but it's worth the tips and stories.

Flies for Ed van Put

Update Dec 15, 2024:

Heard that Ed van Put passed away this past Saturday (Dec 14, 2024).

Thank you for your friendship Ed!

Rest in peace 

Update Dec 19, 2024:

The Catskill Fly Tyers Guild Zoom meeting was devoted to remebence of Ed van Put. The fly to tie was the Adams, Ed's favorite fly. The picture below shows my Adams next to one Ed sent me.

Update Jan 9, 2025:

A nice article about Ed in the New York Times after his recent passing.

This was originally posted on June 29, 2021:

Recently I've been exchanging thoughts with Catskill legend Ed van Put. Ed is a Catskill authority who has been fishing the Catskills for more than 50 years. He wrote several books about the Catskills: 'The Beaverkill' and 'Trout fishing in the Catskills'. Ed also participated in Christopher Rownes' series on fishing with the dry fly.

We also decided to do a fly swap. Of course I asked for his signature fly called the Able Mable. I'm getting a few flies ready and of course a couple of Humpies are included.

Update Aug 6, 2022:

Here's a great interview with Ed.

I can now imagine Ed tied the flies for me at the desk you can see in this interview!

Update July 30, 2021:

Ed sent me some flies, a piece of mink and the amber thread for tying the Able Mable.

Thanks Ed!

Some other posts I wrote about Ed van Put:

1) Tying the Able Mable

2) Ed van Put's Joan Wulff Special

3) Adams with rooster or hen wing tips?

4) The Beaverkill - presentation by Judy van Put

Spain

Here is an interesting letter Edward Hewitt wrote to Harry Darbee in 1950 about the fishing possibilities in Spain.

Connect

So I thought Providence was the last video Confluence Film made but there's this one called Connect.

This video starts with a footage about my friend Masa Katsumata fishing in Japan with Scott Fly Rod's rod designer Jim Bartschi.

The ultimate Catskill podcast

Listening for the second time now, the four part podcast about the Catskills on the Hallowed Waters podcast by Matthew Supinski.

Joe Ceballos, the president of the Catskill Fly Tyers Guild is the guest that has all the knowledge about the history, the fishermen, the tiers and the fishing of the Catskills.

Each episode is around 2 hours (part 4 is almost 4 hours!) long, so it's an epic listen. But for anyone interested in the Castkills, it's a must listen.

Listen to Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

The art of making Japanese longbows

It's amazing to see how similar the making of Japanese bamboo longbows, both to material selection and handling to manipulating the bamboo, is to bamboo fly rod making.