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Around the early 2000's I became more interested in the history and traditions of fly fishing. I started to read about bamboo rods (and eventually fishing them) as well as the history of the traditional catskill dry flies. I even had plans to make a frame with those traditional flies.
Until 2009 I wasn't aware of Mike Valla yet (“I have been staying under the radar”) and that changed when I bought his first book 'Tying Catskill-style dry flies'. To get an idea how long ago that was, the iPad was launched a year later in 2010.
Mike's books are fabulous. I think I got most of his books along the years. Early 2021 I contacted Mike and we have been exchanging emails and DMs about doing a Q&A, but he was so darn busy we couldn't fix a date for a chat.
It took a few years before we could finally sit down together. This past Sunday we had a chat on Zoom (his first ever!) and before we knew we were talking more than two hours. During the talk Mike told me what took so long to sit down and talk with me.
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“I mean, the whole reason I decided to write that Catskill book (Tying Catskill style dry flies), I thought all that was going to be forgotten...”
“.... Jay, I'll give you a tour (of the Catskill area). I'll probably depress
you what it used to be like, you know, it's just weird because the
first time I stayed with the Dettes, again, I was only 15.
And
Walt, he was actually working, he had a job about 30 minutes away in a
different town. He took water samples for the Delaware River. He used to
drop me off on his way to work down, down river, down the Beaverkill.
And he'd say, okay, Mike, you fish upstream all day. And then when I'm
out of work, I'll pick you up, get next to the road.”
“ ... it was a simpler time”
I said, oh, Hendrickson's Pool. I
read that in Ernie Schwebert's book, Matching the Hatch. And I was so
excited about Hendrickson's Pool. I always wondered where it was, and it
was like a revelation.
There was no signage back then, I think. There
wasn't any signage on any of those pools. Theodore Gordon Flyfishers
decided to put up all those signs. And I told him, leave them down in
New York City. I said, it detracts from the whole natural environment.
It's so changed.”
“It's just, you know, it was a
simpler time. That's all I can say. It was just different. But I always
enjoyed when Walt would drive me down river, he'd always have a story
as we passed pools. And you know, for a 15 year old, you know, I was so
enamoured with it anyway.
It was a big thing to
me. Painter's Bend. I read about that, you know, and Mountain Pool. And
he'd say, yeah, Mountain Pool. And he showed me all those pools. So I
mean, I probably reminisce too much about that.”
And so
that's why I remember, I could tell you, if there was a Vince Marinaro
story, I can still tell you it was July 1969, because there were so few
of them. And then when that Cecil Hecox two-part story came out, March,
April 1969, in Outdoor Life, I read that and I said, I'm going to get to
that river, somehow, some way, I'm going to get there.”
“... I probably reminisce too much about that.”
“Yeah,
it's interesting, you know, we talk about Catskill fly, dry flies, the
Catskill style, but you know, in essence, in that era, let's say, late
1950s to 60s, those were just called dry flies, you can go out to Buz Buszek shop in Visalia, California, and if you looked in his catalog,
all those flies, those pictures, they had wood duck wings, but usually
it was imitation wood duck, dyed mallard. They were Catskill style fly,
they were just dry, they didn't call them that, they were just dry
flies. I mean, like in Bergman's book, he didn't call them Catskill, I
mean, that's how they were tied.”
Well,
another thing I like about the Catskill area and the history is the area
was originally inhabited, of course, by the natives, but the Europeans
that came over were the Dutch that inhabited the area, you know, that's
why all the names are related to Dutch language, and that really blew a
lot of people's mind.
Even the Americans, they
weren't aware of it, you know, like in the early 1700s, the Dutch people
came over and they made settlements here and there, and all the city,
town names, the river names, you know, those are all Dutch, as well as
Wall Street was, you know, it was just a street with a wall, to prevent the English coming in.
“... I think there's more interest in the Catskill story in Europe than here”
So
all those people went right up through Catskills, and that's how it got
a lot of its publicity. You had resorts there, for many people coming
out of New York, you know, vacation, resort areas. So that's how it got
all the attention.”
Also,
the industrial revolution that created a whole new group of people
called the middle class people, who used to be working in factories all
day, and all of a sudden, they got a bit better jobs, more free time.
So
they wanted to do recreation. And that's how they also, obviously, came
to Catskill, you know, to fish, hunt, or whatever they wanted to do in
their free time.
“Yeah, like the Riverview Inn, you know,
Winnie's family, the Ferdons, people came on vacations. So it got a lot
of publicity that way.”
“I was telling some
people, I think there's more interest in the Catskill story in Europe
than here, than the United States.”
So
I started this Q&A to remember people, not only as the famous fly
fish or tie, but also the person himself. And one person I regret I
never did it on time was Dave Whitlock. I met him in the early 90s. He
came to the Dutch fly fair here in the Netherlands.
It was actually the
only fly fishing show in Europe, I think, back then. And we met and,
you know, we got along and he tied a couple of flies for me. But this guy is busy. He doesn't have any time. You know, he's
always going somewhere to do a show or a presentation. And before, you
know, he passed away.
Well,
anyway, he did. I have him hanging up in my little nook, I call it. He
did some water watercolors of wet flies and they had them printed into
plates. And so I was at the show. They had them displayed. I said, oh,
man, that's exactly how I tie that wet fly, that Brook trout fly. So
Dave smiled and he held up my the classic wet fly books book. He said, I
painted those from your book. I said, no wonder they look exactly the
same.”
“So he gave me some prints and then he
started writing me these handwritten letters. And he he wanted to start
sending me the original flies from his collection to keep for
safekeeping for his legacy. Didn't want to give them to a museum. Well,
gee, you know, well, I'll sign a some kind of form that they're never to
be sold and it's for research. No, no, no. You
don't have to do that. But I'm going to start sending you shipments any
time. I kept writing these letters and then he tragically, you know, he
passed away.
And you know, I'm not going to ask Emily about it. You
know, she she should keep them. But it was just the gesture, his kind. But
he would have been a great one to talk to. He's got a, you know, a good
story and he was very appreciative I wrote that chapter on him.”
“... old Dette's house”
And
I kept, you know, over time, I finally asked Walt and Winnie, well, you
know, that was a big thing. You know, John MacDonald and. Those
illustrations, who was John Atherton? And they said, well, he was an
artist that used to come around here. And so, of course, my hometown
library had.
They wouldn't in today's world
have that stuff, but they had those Fortune magazines on back file. And
so I would have the library and retrieve them for me. See, most kids my
age, 15, 16, they were out having fun with girls and stuff. I was at the
library and I was trying to research these articles. And I was an
annoyance to the librarians because they had to go to the basement and
get that Fortune magazine.
But then over time,
you know, I was able to buy one in adulthood. But that's that's amazing
you have you dug that stuff out, too. And, you know, the pages are literally falling apart.”
1) Q: When and how did you get into fly fishing and tying?
“... what happened was in the mid 1960s, you know, I used to be dragged around by my father and grandfather and their friends to fish, but I really didn't want to fish at all. I hated going. I used to like wandering in the woods.”
“
But anyway, in the 19, when was that, 67, I had a report card. I don't know how they do it over in your country, but if you're not doing well in a course, a class, the teachers would write something to the parent.
If you were, if you had problem with your proficiency. And it was from my art teacher and said, you know, something to the effect, Mike, Mike's a very nice boy. He lacks dexterity. He can't seem to, too, his hands won't do what his brain wants to do maybe.”
“Mike's a very nice boy. He lacks dexterity”
“So, so my mother was very clever. So for Christmas, she bought me a Noll fly tying kit. So she figured that would help my, she didn't tell me that though. She just said, maybe you'd like fishing better. And instantly from that day, I, this was for me, this Noll kit.”
“So anyway, then all of a sudden, 1968, I start seeing articles, Outdoor Life, they were like fly tying. And there was one in Field and Stream, February, 1968, that AJ McLean wrote, and it had these, this story, trout flies east to west. And there was a little picture of the Darbees. And it had their three favorite flies and one said Quill Gordon.
And I was looking at that, oh, I got to tie one of those. So this increased this whole thing over time. So then got to be into the late 1968, I started getting books and reading about it more and more and more. And then I start buying fly tying materials from Eric Leiser. And then his shop was called Fireside Angler.
So I would save my school lunch money, instead of buying lunch, I'd save it and send him money $2, two US dollars is all I had. And I'd mail it to Fireside Angler, and they would return a package with much more in it than I had ordered. And it always would say free gift. Well they knew it was some kid, right, he and his wife.”
So my father and grandfather wanted nothing to do with fishing in the Catskills. They were mostly, they were worm fishermen, bait. And they would go to little brooks and things in central New York State. Not the big rivers, because it's hard to fish worms in a big river, you know.
So they wanted nothing to do with any of that. There was one brook in the southern Catskills, it was called Basket Brook. They would sometimes go to. But anyway, they wouldn't take me to the Beaverkill. And they said, no, we have no interest. Find your own way. That's how it used to be.”
“I'm going to go fishing alone in the Catskills ...”
“Today, it's like, the kid wants to be transported. I had this classmate in high school, and he was kind of a disadvantaged kid. I used to hang around him. And he would tell me, it was one Friday, he said, well, I'm going to go to see my father, because my parents are divorced. So on weekends, I go to see my father 60 miles away.
And I said, well, how do you get there? I take a bus. I said, oh, you can take a bus? Oh, yeah, I do it every Friday. Then I said, well, maybe I could take a bus to the Catskills. It cost $5 US for a bus ticket from my city in Binghamton. And so I announced to my parents, I'm going to go fishing alone in the Catskills. And back then, it was like, OK, go, go, kid. Today's world, you'd never be able to.”
How far is it from your hometown?
“65 miles. I didn't know where I was going.”
“... I knew the bus would end up in Roscoe, because that's where the bus terminal used to be at the Roscoe Diner, this little restaurant. So I knew that because I had obviously contacted the bus people, and they said, yeah, you can get a bus from Binghamton, 65 miles to Roscoe. So OK, I'll go.”
Oh, kid, that's a hell of a walk for you. But Dettes is right across the highway. You can see the sign. I said, OK, I knew them, too, from reading. OK, I'll go over there. So I ran across the highway with my hip boots and rods, and I climbed over a fence. You know, I couldn't climb over that fence now, but I did. I had all my stuff.”
“... I go banging on the door, Winnie came to the door, and she was like aghast. <Who are you?> I'm here to fish. I'm here to fish for the day. Well, where's your parents? They're home. I said, and I remember this, because you know what's important to you, you remember. I opened my fly box, I said, are my flies OK? She said, these were her exact words. <You have nothing to be ashamed of, young man>. Maybe on your Adams, your figure eight, you could improve.”
“But come into the house, because Walt wasn't there. She says, I have a pie in the oven, but you have a question about fly tying, I'll quickly answer it for you. So she sat down, and I said, well, how do you do this, how do you do that? She said, kid, do you have any food or anything? I said, I don't need any food. I just need to know where to fish.
“Who are you?”
So she gave me a map. She said, you can either go behind our house several hundred feet to the Willowemoc Creek, or go down the Beaverkill. You can follow the Willowemoc short distance to its junction, and fish the Beaverkill. So I'm going to fish the Beaverkill.”
“Off I went with my map, no food, no water, nothing. It's a ways, it's about at least three miles. I fished downstream, and I ended up at Hendrickson's Pool. I didn't know it was called Hendrickson's Pool. Well, anyway, I didn't catch anything, nothing. And I had to get back home that day. So I walked all the way back up to Roscoe, there's a road, instead of walking up the stream, all the way back, I walked up the road.”
Yeah, otherwise you'll be lost in the woods
“It would take too long. So I decided to go where Winnie told me, in the Willowemoc, upstream from their house. So I caught up through the brush, I went up there, and it was about seven in the evening. I still had not caught a fish. And it was a beautiful evening.”
“... and I'm fishing up near this wall, it's in my book. You see that picture of a railroad embankment. And I wasn't even, I don't even have a watch. I had to get my bus back, you know, home. And I'm casting to these rising fish. I said, oh, man. And so I see this guy comes along, he had a vantage point above me, and he yells down to me, hey, kid, are you that kid from Binghamton? My wife sent me out here looking for you. He said, you got to get a bus back home. I says, yeah, and right then I got a fish on. So I was going to show off.”
“So I was going to show off”
“He says, kid, I think that's a fall fish, a chub, that's a trash fish. So I reeled in, that's what it was, a trash fish. And there was these big drakes, and I asked him what they were. He says, well, look, there's no time to talk. He says, you know what, we got an extra bedroom. Why don't you just stay here two weeks?”
“I says, yeah, OK, I'll do that. Go call my mother on the phone. So he took my number down. He walked back to the house. I'm still fishing. He came back. I'm thinking I'm staying there, right? I said, what'd my mother say?
Well, she said to get your little ass on the bus. He says, kid, there's only one bus going back to Binghamton, and it's like coming right away. We got to get you out of the river.”
“So I got out of there. I was very disappointed. And it's not that far of a walk. Let's say it's 15 minutes over the highway to the bus depot, the diner. So he's racing me over there because this kid's going to miss his bus.”
“... Walt told me after, you know, the fact that they were watching me from their bedroom window. They could see the bus to make sure I'd get on the bus. Well, anyway, I got home and my parents said, well, who are these people? And I said, well, these are the people. They're very famous. OK, you could go back there sometime. They never called them. They didn't communicate. So then I'm calling Winnie. So I want to come back next week. OK, come on.
“... hey, kid, are you that kid from Binghamton?”
And so I took the bus and I end up staying a couple of weeks. And so I kept doing that. And my parents never communicated with them. Never, not one time. Now, in today's world, your parents would be under suspicion of child neglect and they would be under suspicion, right, of taking this kid. But, you know, it was a fascinating thing.”
“So then I started going there and there was never a question. Anytime I wanted to, I could stay there even and then spend forward to college years. But when I graduated from high school, I stayed there maybe five, six weeks. And Jay, now I'm like, you know, 18. It was an experience that was unbelievable.”
“... the who's who of fly tying and fly fishing would come through that shop. Everyone I read about, Sparse Gray Hackle (Alfred W. Miller), you just name it, Ernie Schwiebert, Art Flick, I met him there for the first time. You name it. These are people that came through that shop. And I was so enamored with it. It got to the point I didn't want to go out fishing. I wanted to hang around there. Listen to the stories.”
“And this continued on all the way through college, during college breaks, like these week breaks, I would stay there. And then I always stayed there.
“... I never once saw Harry tie a fly”
And if she wasn't staying in the house, she told me to sleep in her bed because she was down on the Long Island. And I still I still remember where the key is hidden. It was in the same place for 40 years. But anyway, that's how I got to get into that whole Dette thing.”
“You know, I wandered over to Harry's once in a while. But honestly, I never once saw Harry tie a fly. Elsie was tying. Harry was just talking, you know, I never saw him tie a fly. So that whole thing, that whole Catskill thing kind of became embedded in me.”
Good thing you were born, you were not born this era because you'll be hanging around your smartphone all day.
“Yeah. Well, that's the thing. And the thing is, I've always been this way. If I had a will to do it, I was going to find a way. But it was that classmate when he told me. He visited his father every weekend by taking a bus. A distance the other opposite way, but that's what gave me that idea.”
2) Q: You obviously had the Dettes teach you how to tie the Catskill style flies. Do you
have a nice story that characterize how they thought about tying?
“... but the fly tying thing. There was before I met Dettes. This is back when I got the fly tying kit. There was that little brook in the Catskills that ran it's a tributary of the Delaware River. It's called Basketbrook.
And my father and grandfather, Fred, would sometimes want to fish that. And this is before I was tying flies, you know. So we went down there and it rained like hell in the Basketbrook was flooded. So they wanted to go to a tavern. They were sitting at the bar and I sat with the bar with them. But they gave me ginger ale and potato chips, you know. I'm just a little kid. I'm like 14, you know.”
“And so they were talking about fishing and there was this old guy dancing with a woman on the dance floor. And the bartender lady said, oh, well, he knows about the trout where Basketbrook goes into the Delaware. So she called him over to talk to us.
“... I couldn't find a job”
And I was listening and he said, you know, I fish Basketbrook at night with a fly called a Black Prince. And so my father's friend said, go out to my car. He had some flies. And it was raining like hell, I remember.
“You know, after I got out of Cornell in fisheries biology, I couldn't find a job. I ended up at Georgetown University for dental school and I became a children's dentist. Now, children's dentistry, I have to get into an orifice this big, you know, with a mouth going like this. And I had to precisely so you need some dexterity.
But when I applied to dental school at Georgetown, the way it works is if you make the first cut, you're invited for an interview at, you know, so you have to get a suit and tie. And so it's an all day interview with three different interviewers. And, you know, during the interview, my last interviewer was a biochemistry professor. And he said, oh, I see on your application, you like to tie flies.
“They just were called dry flies...”
In the first two interviews didn't go well, you know, during the day. So I like perked right up, right. He pulls out this box of flies, he said, what do you think of these? And I said, oh, I bet they would catch every one of those would catch it. They were lousy looking.
So he says, you know, Mike, we look for high academic ability because your first two years, you're in the medical school, mostly with all the sciences again, you know, even though you had biochemistry, you have to take that and gross anatomy and physiology and all that stuff. But we have to make sure you have dexterity.”
“You know, we look for if someone had an artistic ability. We have some artists in our classes or anything or woodworking and you tie flies. So that was the missing, because everybody's got high grade, you know, the dexterity, now see how that worked out, you know, that whole thing. But that's how the whole fly tying deal.”
“And you know, that's basically, I mean, that was what fly tying was, you know, those classical flies were the flies everybody used. It wasn't something like a niche type of fly, you know, it was all over the place in magazine or in catalogs. They just were called dry flies (instead of 'Catskill dry flies'). That's how they were called. They were just, there wasn't any mystique about it.”
“Well, I mean, when I was in Sweden, when they had that WoodsTorrt, I gave some slideshows and I had mentioned, you know, I've never tied with CDC. I don't even know what it is really.
I said, look, I'm sure it's great material, I just, it's out of my air, I can't get my arms around it, you know, I'm kind of, I don't really need to know.”
3) Q: What makes the Catskill style flies, especially the dry flies, so special to you?
“Well, the whole history with Dettes, it's like, like anything, I grew up with it. That was my arena, you know, was the history and everything that, that behind it is what attracted me to it, too. There was, there's a lot of literatures, you know, a lot of history behind that whole story that that so-called Catskill School of Fly Fishing”
“Val, could you plug in the computer before it dies? It says it's ready to die, low battery. See, my secretary, she, she's very helpful.”
Well, I mean, back then, tying flies, the ability was kept secret, you know, it's, it was a way of making your living. So you don't want to show how to tie flies.
“You know, the Dettes were different about that. They were always, they didn't run a school or anything like that, but they were always willing to show anybody that came in. So, there was never any proprietary technique.
Now, if you can imagine this, when Walt Dette was at work, because he worked during the day, and Winnie would be tying, I'd be sitting at his table tying, because he allowed me to use all his stuff, right? I'd rather be there than fishing. Well, anyway, I would ask Winnie question after question after question, and how do you do this? How do you do that?”
“There was no secrets ...”
Then they had these silk thread they used, spools, and they used, Walt ran it through a waxer to wax it, and it was a special kind of machine he kind of built that would run the thread through a hot wax. I asked him about it, thinking, well, maybe it's, you know, this is when I'm a little older.
He said, no, I'll show you. He even told me what he's putting in to make the wax. There was no secrets. I mean, I think today people are pretty open about, I mean, the guys I know, at least, you know, what their techniques are, but, I mean, because there's so much out there, I mean, there's not really any secrets.”
“But, see, the story was that Rube Cross wouldn't, you know, tell Walt, but, you know, I've had discussions with Lance Hidy about that, and his dad knew all about Rube Cross, and I came to the conclusion that Rube was writing his book, and maybe for that reason, he didn't want to disclose to Walt his technique. So then they had to, as you know the story, they had to buy Rube's flies, and they took them apart. But, you know, that's the only time I've ever heard there was this secrecy behind it, was that story with Rube (Cross).”
Well, the story that Eric Leiser wrote in the book about the Dettes, that Walt should go to hell or whatever, I think it sounds really kind of funny, but maybe Rube had indeed a reason not to tell it, because he was writing a book, and, you know, he had to sell the book to make a living out of it too.
“That's not the sequence he (Rube) used ...”
“Well here's the weird thing about that, that Walt said to me. He said, you know, Mike, when he came out with that book, he describes the sequence of how he ties that fly. We took those flies apart. That's not the sequence he used. So they still felt he wasn't telling the whole story, and he kept that little, because I remember Walt was very insistent when they autopsied those flies and dismantled them. That sequence is not the sequence in the book. So who knows? So long as Rube remains dead, we'll never know.”
“...
I didn't go to intend any shows last year. I, you know, honestly, Jay,
when we go, it's socially that I get to see people that I right. But
Valerie, my wife would tell you, they always give me a fly tying table.
I'm never sitting there. I'm wandering around talking to people. I
put a sign, be right back, but two years ago, a friend of mine, he
said, my people, people keep coming over looking for you.
I said, well,
just tell them I'll be right back, but I'm never right back. So my
friend went to my vice and tied a fly on my vice and left it there to
make it look like I'd been there.”
4) Q: You started fly fishing in the 1960’s and fly fishing has changed a lot. What are in your view the three most game changing developments in fly fishing?
“Of course, everything's changed. What hasn't changed? Like
the Beaverkill is nothing like I remember as a boy. There were never
these campsites with trailers on the river and all the congestion and
none of that was there. And there was never signage up on every single
famous pool that reminded you this is this pool name. It was more
rustic, more natural.
“... everything's changed”
We didn't know that if
you came across a pool, you wondered what the name was. You'd be
pleasantly surprised, oh, that's Hendrickson's pool. But now you have
signage all over and trailer trailer parks on the river. And it's just
it's hard for me to even go down to that.
I did
a piece for the magazine on my 50th anniversary of fishing that river.
And how it's how it's changed. But like I said, everything's changed.”
Well, I remember I wanted to go to the Catskills to meet the Dettes
when they still had the shop in the original house. Well, obviously, I'm
too late now. But I think this house is still there.
“I
used to have keys to it. They actually own the whole cottage street over
time. And I had keys to all those other houses because Walt, when he's
son Clay, he owned the original house. And then they, he owned houses
down the road from where Joe Fox lives. So he was sort of, I was sort of
the caretaker because he was living in Texas. And I was looking after
those homes. He (Clay) passed away and left the homes to his son, Eric.
So that house is empty.”
“My first rod was, I got that, I think, for my 14th birthday, was that Cortland glass rod, seven foot, with a level line. I had no tapered leaders, Jay, I used, I don't know if they have this brand over across the pond or even here, it's called Scren, it's a monofilament, I used them for a swim. It's just, that's all it was, there wasn't any tapered leader. But you know, I caught a hell of a lot of fish back then, as a kid. And that was my outfit.
Well, it's just like so much information out there. I mean, look at all the number of rods and companies making rods. Look at the number of reels, and fly tying.”
5) Q: Same question but in fly tying.
“You know, maybe sometimes I go overboard on this with people, I don't want to make them feel bad. But I say, you know, you guys don't know how easy you have it with fly tying material. To get done, hackle was unheard of.
“... that was the only dry fly hook people used”
“There were like two dry fly (hook) models. They were always the 94840 Mustad, you know, that was what everyone used, that was the only dry fly hook people used, occasionally Herter's had their own brand. You couldn't find Alcocks or anything, but that's what everyone used, was that 94833, the lighter, that was it. Streamer hooks, there were just a couple. There was the Limerick one, 3665A, 5A, Mustad, and one other one.”
“The wood duck, you couldn't find, if you knew a hunter, you'd get wood duck. All the wood duck was dyed, mallard, that's what we all had. But again, dun hackle, forget it. Dettes raised their duns, as you know, and Darbees and Flick, and they didn't even kill their roosters. They plucked the feathers out, so they wouldn't kill the bird.”
“... but that whole thing with fly tying materials, is just exploded. Now look what you can do today.You can in seconds, look online and even see the exact cape you want, and within two days you'll have it.
The way it used to work, it was all Indian capes, as you know. They were a little better Indian cape than if you bought one today, I'll say that. They kind of evolved into these little miniature things now, but you put an order in for one, you'd have to wait two weeks.”
“You never knew the quality you were going to get, and they had these big thick quills. Winnie Dette, I'll never forget, she might be tying a dry fly, Jay, and used three hackles to get through one dry fly. In fact, the materials thing was so bad, in the mid-1970s, even with Indian (hackle), Walt Dette wrote a column for Fly Fisherman Magazine, that he predicted, and this is 1975, that people were going to have to resort to cutting the hackle to make the end stiffer, like cut hackle, because the hackle was getting so poor, even the Indian.”
“And then shortly thereafter, all of a sudden, Metz popped up, and Walt said to me, things are changing in fly tying. There's this Metz. Let's go down and see him. Well, anyway, to answer your question, just the fly tying alone, that thing with materials, with the fly fishing, when I was fishing Beaverkill, West Branch of the Delaware, there wasn't anyone on the West Branch of the Delaware.”
“I have my old journal here, I was just looking at this morning, all the dates I fished the West Branch as a boy, because Walt would drop me off there, there weren't any fly fishermen. There were a few fishermen under the bridges, a conventional tackle.”
“all of a sudden, Metz popped up...”
“I saw, I do remember one fly fisherman in 1970, an older guy, and it's the way I remember him, because the way he pronounced Cahill, he said, I'm using a light 'Ca-hill'. So anyway, look at it now, it's hugely overpopulated with guides, and the thing about fly fishing that's changed, as I'm looking back, there were no (fishing) guides. A guide was someone you would need to go Atlantic salmon fishing in Canada, because it was required by law to have a guide, but there weren't any guides.
“Now even Walt Dette, he never once took me out on a river, never. He used to say to me, Mike, you'll learn better if you just figure it out, right? Well anyway, the way it used to work is, someone comes along, they're interested in it.”
“If you joined Trout Unlimited, and you say, hey, I'm new at this, can I tag along? Yeah, come on with us, and you know, we'll show you how. There were no guides. Now the whole fly fishing industry is bundled with guides. There's so many, there's 50 guides in the Catskills alone, and it just amazes me that people will pay money to be, I mean, there are some situations, it's beneficial to have a guide, don't get me wrong, because now most people, they use drift boats and rafts going down the Delaware River, it's going to be hard for someone to just figure that out, you know, and it can be enjoyable. Many of my friends are guides, I'm not knocking guides, I'm just trying to make a point.”
“... if you're asking me what's changed over the years, I always had this theory that this was originally industry-driven. Fly fishing can be difficult to learn, and if you want instant gratification, it's like golf. It takes time.”
People are not willing to put time and effort in it, I mean, it took me 15 years to tie a decent humpy. Nowadays everybody wants to be an expert in three weeks these days.
“Well, you know, and that's what's going on now, I call them fast trackers. There's people who just got involved last year that they want to jump right to the top, you know, they're thirsty for relevance. Nobody wanted any relevance in my time, you know, in my young year.
“But the whole fly fishing thing is hugely influenced by the internet, by things like YouTube, it's just, I've always wondered, is this going to implode at some point? Yeah, it's crazy these days, absolutely, yeah. You've got industry, they've got product to push, they've got to sell product. Oh, that's hard to do, but we've got this guy that can get this $1,000 rod because we'll take care of you, there's a guy that, you know, we'll take you out for $400 US.”
“... fly fishing thing is hugely influenced by the internet...”
“But you know, it's the way, don't you think, Jay, in society now, people don't have the patience to, they need more instant result. That's why I always wonder what happened, you know, what's going to happen with golf? Golf is not something you can have someone just show you overnight. And it takes a lot of time and patience. Although I've been told they're trying to make the holes larger, it's a little bit easier.
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing that, what I always thought was interesting, even when I was younger, the number of some very wealthy people that would come through that you would never know, they wandered into daddy's, they'd always see, because I didn't have a license, driver's license, they would always say, kid, show me down river, let's go. And then they would take me out to lunch.
I didn't know some of these people are very wealthy, and they didn't really care what background you were from, or circumstances in your life, it was just this way.”
“... in society now, people don't have the patience...”
“Even if you think about this, you know, all the troubles we have in our world right now, if they could think like fly fishermen, everybody would love each other, and they get along. There's no thing about, you know, what race are you, or what part of the country, they all, if you notice, if you go to a show, everyone blends in.
“... I always thought it'd be good, I don't think the magazines want to go this far, have a cover picture, everyone's fly fishing, but they're from all different walks of life, a whole range of different people, and we're different, but we're not, and we're like glue, and how could that be, all these people who appear differently, and they're from different dispositions, and, but look, in fly fishing, that just vanishes, any differences vanishes.”
Yeah, although the cover picture of fly fisherman magazine, it's still that the best issues that get sold are the white old guy with a big fish, you know.
“And I've had that discussion, I have many friends, they're from different races and everything, and there was this one guy who happens to be African American, I don't like to ever say, you know, a black guy, or this or that, it's like, he happens to be an African American, he just happens to be, he's very close to me, in fact, I send him things that he doesn't, you know, the gifts and stuff, and I says, you know what, I was talking to him, I said, I don't see anybody but some white dude on the magazine cover, except if you're like a guy from the Bahamas, I said, what's wrong with these people?
You know, he agreed, and he kind of laughed about it, but I said, well, it's not really funny because if you think about this, why hasn't that happened? I don't know why.”
Well, I'll tell you a little story, Mike, back in the mid 80s, when I was really picking up fly fishing, and my father, we were born in Korea, South Korea, and he went back to Korea for business, and I told my dad, please pick up a Korean fly fishing magazine. So he went back to Korea for business, and he came back and he said, nobody knew what he was talking about, because fly fishing, you know, in the 80s, in South Korea, nobody knew what it was.
“Really?”
Fast forward now, every Korean fly fisherman, they are in Simms waders, they are fishing with Sage rods and Abel reels.
“So in my books, it says Ayumi 'Rocky' Ozeki, I said, what's it like in Japan? He says, Mike, it's unbelievable, the fly fishing, they buy up all those Whiting necks.
He said, more whitey necks to go to Japan, maybe South Korea. He says, they're all going over there. I said, really?”
So I was in Seoul about almost two months ago, and I was amazed how many fly shops in Seoul were in the capital, I think there are about six.
“Really? I never knew that!”
“Where do they, like South Korea, where do they fly fish? Is it, do they have trout stream, what is it, mountains? I don't know.”
And I visited a Korean bamboo rod maker, I think he's one of the two professional bamboo rod makers in Korea, and he said, yeah, three hours from Seoul, you've got amazing mountain stream with native Cherry trout, I think those are actually chars.
“We had a little event going on locally, and my wife Valerie is a schoolteacher, she's retired, one of her former students and his fiance, let's see, where was she, I think she was from Japan, well, anyway, they found us. And so Valerie was conversing with her former student who's now in his 30s, he said, I have something for your husband.
“Really? I never knew that!”
It was a Japanese fly fishing journal and written in Japan, hieroglyphics, whatever it is, but then they had the photo, it would say like Ted Patlen, you know, it was something I wrote, they had translated into Japanese from the Founding Flies book. So I said, you've got to be kidding me, why would they be interested in that over there? And that's how I asked Ayumi, so no, Mike, you don't understand, he said it's huge over there.”
Yeah, in Japan, it's really huge, much more than in Korea.
“Yeah, I would have never thought South Korea, I would have never, my brother-in-law spent time in South Korea, but he's not, he's not, he wouldn't know a fish from a frog. But because he never mentioned anything.”
You know, in Japan, besides America, there's where the majority of high end bamboo rods went, also historic rods, all went to Japan.
“Really?”
But you know how the Japanese fly fishermen, they just buy all this expensive stuff and they rarely go out because, you know, they have to work, work, work. And when they age, they have to sell it after only have fished the rods for maybe once or even never fished it. I went to the fly shops in Tokyo, the amazing amount of Paynes, Leonards, and all those high end rods in the shop for sale.
“I never would have imagined that. Never. I've learned something from you, Jay.”
“I mean, the whole reason I
decided to write that Catskill book (Tying Catskill style dry flies), I thought all that was going to be
forgotten. I mean, there wasn't a hell of a lot of talk about it, you
know, the Catskill style, and the time part of it.
And
in this, you know, that Founding Flies book, it was the same reason.
That wasn't my idea either, that book. Blackpool doesn't like my ideas.”
“I
had proposed, the way it works is you propose to the acquisitions
editor an idea, and then they take many of these ideas and go to a
meeting and discuss, you know, there's many people involved, of course,
like marketing people, and they hash things out, what they want to take
on.
And so I happen to be fishing on Schoharie
Creek, and I never carry my cell phone when I'm fishing. I went up for
lunch, I was sitting in my car, and the phone rings, it's my editor. He
said, hey, Mike, you know, we had a big meeting about your proposal. And
the proposal was women fly tiers. He said, we
didn't like it. So he said, but we have a more ambitious project for
you. I said, well, what's that? You're going to tell us the story of our
Founding Flies.”
“... in the end, no one turned me down”
“I said, well, what does that
mean? He said, well, you know how we have founding fathers, and every
country has founders that so you're going to write that. I says, I am? I said, I don't know about that. That sounds like an awful hard. I said, more ambitious means more work, right? So he says, a more ambitious project.
So they sent a contract to me, and I said, OK, and I said, well, how am I going to do this? He said, well, you'll figure it out. So
I sent the contract back, mailed it. I almost called them, Jay, the
next day.”
“I said, look, I was going to say, when you get the contract,
please tear it up. I can't do it. The reason for that was if I didn't
have cooperation all over the United States, how can you possibly write a
book like that?”
So
I, I decided not to call them. And I said, well, I'll just go with it.
And, you know, Jay, in the end, no one turned me down. They all, even
the people in Michigan about the Adams fly, Mike, come out here, we'll
help you. Then no one turned me down.”
“Because
like Keith Fulcher, I got ahold of him. I kind of knew Keith, but he
didn't really know me. The Thunder Creek flies. I said, Keith, he's why I
know you, Mike, you're the little kid, right? That's how they remember
me, that's my notoriety. I said, Keith, is there a chance I could get
some of your Thunder Creek flies, to photograph?
He
said, Mike, I'll send them right up. He sent me his whole collection. I
photographed them. And I, I always returned postage as a gesture. I
sent them back to Keith. About a month later, I said, I got ahold of
Keith. I said, I'm not happy with the photography. Can you send them
back again? No problem, Mike.
Keith was
wandering around Wisconsin, which is in the middle of the United States,
you know, where Thunder Creek flies were created and conceived by Keith
Fulcher. I felt I should get to Thunder Creek, you know, to get. So
Keith was in constant communication with me in my trip when I was trying
to find Thunder Creek.”
“He sent me his whole collection”
“... and the point is, everyone helped me. There
wasn't even the guys in California. Rick Ackles, a guy's name. I said,
hey, I heard you're big buddies with Andre Puyans. Andy and I were
close. He taught me how to tie flies. So I told
him what I was, you know, trying to do. He said, Mike, I know his
widow, Jennifer. Don't worry about it. We'll get you original flies. And
he kept on her for me. I got shipped to me a cart.
I
mean, it was a box about, oh, three feet wide and two feet long, this
gigantic box of Puyans flies. But I didn't know Rick Ackles, you know,
and then Rick got a hold of some other friends who had original Puyans,
those AP nymphs. And so through Rick, they mailed me original flies to
photograph.
But anyway, getting off the track here. But that book wasn't my idea. And I didn't even know if it would happen.”
“And
those people, I'm sure they don't want their family history gone lost
because the generation they don't care about what granddad did when
fishing, you know. So it's really so important that these stories are
written and archived in a way that future generations know who the heck
Andy Puyans was or.”
“Yeah, they wouldn't know on the East Coast. I mean, that was going to be lost. And
then there's that fellow Lou Oatman, the streamer fellow around here
from the 1950s. Ernie Schwiebert called him the father of baitfish
imitations. And and I heard, well, there's this guy, he's close to 90
years old. His name is Herb that used to follow around Oatman in the
1950s. He's a photographer.
And you know, we
can put you in touch with him. So I called this guy Herb, Herb Erickson.
I said, oh, Mr. Erickson, I heard you knew Lou Oatman and I'm writing
this book, The Founding Flies. He says, yeah, I follow Lou around. And I
have all the original photographs, the negatives.”
“He
said, come on up to my house. And I lived about 40 minutes away. I
said, well, it's going to be dinnertime. He says, so what if it is? I
don't know if his wife liked that. So I OK, so I
went up to see her and he had all these photos of Lou Oatman on his
walls. And he has he had a studio because he he knew more about digital
photography than I knew. And the guy's like 90.
“And the guy's like 90...”
He
had all the original negatives. Mike, here's all the photos, whatever
you need, because he didn't want Lou's history to be lost. He in fact,
Herb and his wife contacted Oatman's daughters. They
were living in Oregon, one of the daughters, and she had children and
they didn't really know what their grandfather, Lou Oatman, they didn't
have any they didn't know him. He had died in 58. And they were so
appreciative that that, like you said, Jay, the family legacy. We
didn't know that our grandfather was they knew he was just tied these
flies, but they didn't know he was famous or whatever. They didn't know.
But that was the same with the Adams story. Those guys in Michigan said, oh, no, no, no. You got to come out. We'll show you where that Adams was tied first.”
6) Q: What is your favorite fly fishing destination and what makes it so special?
“Well, you know, I've been to everywhere from Montana, like everybody to, let's see, mostly New York. The big rivers I've been to, the popular rivers.
I just finished, well, I finished it last fall. It's in process now. I just, just got, got under my, my goal (new book) that was completed last fall, Fly Fishing Guide to Vermont (Ed: that's why Mike was so difficult to get hold off). You know, I did Fly Fishing Guide to New York State. That did really well, so Stackpole put me on Fly Fishing Guide to Vermont. And I had fished Vermont, the Southern areas, but not the Northern. And what I found fascinating about Vermont is what I like to do to answer your question."
And plus I've lived it for so many years. It's the novelty of it sort of has diminished when I, you know, when someone spends that much time, like I did as a young man, even I moved on to different things.”
7) Q: Describe your ideal fishing day (type of water, species, alone or with a friend, etc.)
“So what I like, where I like to go now are high elevation brook trout streams. Little trickles. Some of them don't even have names. They're all wild fish there. Some are, mostly are very small, but you'll get what we call in the U.S. dollar bill size. You know, the U.S., how big are your, your paper currency? But it's like, you want a six inches, seven inches? And that's where I go now.
“There was a period about 15 years ago, I was going into the New York State Adirondack Mountains. He's very, very remote, isolated brook trout ponds. They're not easy to get to. Some are as far as six miles. I guess I'm supposed to use kilometers with you, right? And it's so remote and isolated, and you can camp in there, you know? Very peaceful. I like that, but I'm getting to the age, it's hard for me to, because what I use is, I put them in my books. It's called a Hornbeck canoe, they're Kevlar.
And they only weigh 10 pounds, so you can bolt them to a metal frame backpack. You don't even have to put your hands on them, you just go through the woods. And they're not that heavy, so you need that to get in there.”
“... I just wander into areas that are isolated”
“I just don't have it in me anymore. I just wander into areas that are isolated. So, you begin to realise that, you know, like that West Branch again of the Delaware is one of the most popular streams in the Northeast. That 10-mile section from the dam downstream, there was one day a friend of mine counted 50 drift boats in one day that came through, past this property.”
“And you know, I'm a wade fisherman, you know, back in time, you may see a friendly canoe go by with a friendly wade, and they'd be very respectful, hey, have a good time. And that never bothered me. But it's sort of out of control now, so that's where I fish, is you really won't see anybody. And I almost always fish alone too now.”
Well, you basically answered two questions in one, thank you.
Last time I was in the Rocky Mountain, Montana, was it 2018 I think, the rivers, the big rivers like the Madison, they were full of people, you know, with boats going down every three minutes looked like.
And I told my friends, bring me to those isolated mountain streams where, you know, where nobody comes and you never run into people.
“You know, the last time I fished in Montana, near Yellowstone, I have a very, very close friend, Paul Weamer, his name, he was a Catskill guy, but then he migrated out there years ago. He's a very close friend of mine.”
“Paul, I have no interest...”
“And I said, Paul, I have no interest, you know, fishing in Yellowstone Park or the big rivers. He said, Mike, I'm going to take you to a place you won't see anyone.
And it was just almost like we would call it a brook here, a small creek. And you take this little gravel road, 10 miles up, follow this creek. It was just full of cutthroats, cutthroat trout. Were they massive in size? No. But they were all wild, beautiful fish. No one, he said, you'll see here.”
“We even tried to work it out with them that, okay, in the heat of the summer, you're not going to want to fish anyway, you know. So maybe with these outfitters that rent these, they rent these inner tube. Maybe we can work something out, but you know, between these hours of the day in the heat of the summer, between like, you know, 9 a.m. and, you know, 5 p.m., just go do your thing. But in the evenings, or early morning, maybe the fishing people would enjoy not having all that commotion.”
Do you have any desire to fish abroad in foreign countries?
“That's a good question. Over in the UK, is there any public water over there? It's not like in the U.S. where you've got all these easements and public fishing rights. It's all locked up with clubs. So I had this, I don't know if you know John Shaner. He's in the U.K. He's sending these pictures on this river and this one over there in the U.K. So I said, John, I want to be like you when I grow up.”
“It's all locked up with clubs...”
“And even in Italy, I was told my friend Teddy Patlen, he's always over there. He says, Mike, it's not you can't really do it in Italy either. You have to go to the mayor or whoever and they got to kiss the ring to somehow be bestowed upon the honor of like.”
Well, in Europe, most trout streams, rivers are all private.
“Really?”
You can buy a license for for a stretch of a couple of miles. But it's it's it depends on the on the price, you know, the more the better rivers are pricier. Like it can go up to like 100 bucks for a day license.
“Even how about like the real famous the ones you read about from Halford, like in the U.K.? Can you even get on those waters?”
Well, like the Test and the Itchen, they're all privatised by clubs. You have to be a member and, you know, it's a kind of elitist thing.
But I don't know, it was sort of hard to get down into New York City for me. I could take the train. But John got in on it after I got in on it on membership. And I think through the Anglers Club, they have a reciprocal arrangement with the London Fly Fishers.
He has his addresses up, obviously, but he's getting on these streams and I'm going to have to choke him next week. I'll see him. We're having dinner down in Roscoe.”
As I told you in Holland, we don't have mountains, so we have no trout stream. So I basically fished in southern Germany, Austria for the past 30 years.
“Oh, you have. But what about like in Switzerland?”
Well, Switzerland is a bit different because Switzerland doesn't have really good type of mountains. Let's say it's too rocky, which, you know, Austria is a much better, better country for fly fishing.
“OK, I have a cousin who lives in northern Italy. He sends me pictures. They look like these gin clear streams up there. I mean, I must be coming out of the Alps, right?”
Correct, but again, in Austria, especially the famous rivers, they can be real pricey, like 60 to 100 dollars a day ticket.
“Well, how do you even know when you want to go about getting on those rivers?”
Before the Internet, I kept a book with addresses I collected all over, and people started to call me. Can you help me with the river in such and such area in Germany or Austria? And, you know, it was it was quite it a secretive information to know really which stretch where you could buy the tickets. But with the Internet, it's all over.
“... she couldn't believe I remembered that story”
He was one of the first people I read about as a kid in a magazine, and I still had remembered that story I said to Christine, because I asked her if it'd be okay if I wrote something for the magazine on Mike Fong, Pioneers and Legends, a piece for the magazine, and she couldn't believe I remembered that story.”
8) Q: What food can we wake you up in the middle of the night?
“Oh my God. Let's see. Well, if you were, if you were smoking a brisket (part of a cow) and I smelled it, I would wake up and eat it. But brisket is not, brisket is the heated wood, what do you, cold.
What if I, if I wanted to eat something late at night? Oh, cold pizza.
Now look what she (Valerie) just brought me, Jay. See she just baked these cookies.”
Yeah, she's taking care of you.
9) Q: Final question. Where would you fish if it was the last day you would be able to fish?
“Oh, I'm in my final hours of my mortality. Oh, that's a good question.
You know, I wouldn't be able to go to a high elevation brook trout stream. That's for sure.
You know what I would have to have somebody do? Because it would bring me full circle. I'd have somebody transport me to the Beaverkill, to Cairns pool. Cairns pool is the easiest pool to access, it's right next to the road. And that would bring me a memory.”
“... my final hours of my mortality”
“... the first time I stayed with the Dettes, we had dinner. And then Walt, after dinner, said, I'll take you down the river and drop you off. You would think he'd stay with me, right? And I'm going to take you to Karen's pool because it's easy, safe waiting. You can get in it instantly. It's right next to the road.
And so when he dropped me off, he saw me fumbling around with my reel. And so before he departed to return home, he said, what's wrong? I said, I have a tangle in my reel. He says, I'll run up to the house, and I'll bring you one of my reels. So he left.”
“He said, here, Mike, when you come to visit us, you can use my things. And he left me there at Cairns Pool with this hardy St. George, old hardy St. George from when he first fished the Beaverkill, and that cane rod. And I'm having this time you can't believe, and now there's a couple of other fishermen this evening looking at me like, kid, where'd you get a Hardy St. George and a West Jordan rod?”
“I don't remember what I said, it's been too many years. But that's where that memory of Walt, that's the first pool he dropped me off at, was that first evening I stayed with them, back then when I was a kid, would be Cairns Pool. And plus, there's a lot of memories of me fishing there in Cairns Pool.”
“... Walt has a grandson, Gary, who's my age, and Mary, Mary Dette Clark, when I used to go in subsequent years to stay at Dettes, she would put Gary on the bus from Long Island to come up to fish with me, you know, because I wanted a fishing companion. Everybody else was some old guy, right? But we would go to Cairns Pool. That's where we liked to fish.”
“And then there were other people, I don't know if you ever heard of Ralph Graves?
He was, well, Ralph, Dr. Cahill, like Cahill. He, now I'm out of high school, staying at Dettes, and they didn't even know who Ralph Graves, nobody knew Ralph then, he was sort of this guy that came around, and he was my transportation also.
“... kid, where'd you get a Hardy St. George and a West Jordan rod?”
So Cairns Pool, we decided to fish it at night, and it was my idea. We arrived at almost dark, and the bats came out. He flew out of that river so fast, and went and hid up in his car. He said he'll never go to Cairns Pool again, at night, there's too many bats.”
“I said, well, man, this is easy, right? And in fact, before he drove me to Cairns Pool, after dinner, his granddaughter Linda was staying there that week too. She was my age, one year younger, and so we had dinner, and she invited me to go to the movies with her, and I wanted nothing to do with that.
“... here Mike, put these in your box”
So Walt says, no, I'm taking Mike down to Cairns Pool, and before we left, he took me up to the fly case, where the bins in the shop. He started picking out flies for me, and it was a cream variants. He said, here Mike, put these in your box, you'll get fish at Cairns Pool with these. And I did.”
“So those memories, now, like I put in my Catskill book, the Yogi Berra quote, nobody goes there anymore because it's too crowded, but it's the most popular pool on the Beaverkill because it's so easy to access, and the waiting's so safe. But that's where I'd go, and then, I don't know, they could throw me in there, I guess. I'll have to mention that to Valerie, sprinkle my ashes down there.
That's it.”
Well, Mike, we've been talking for more than two hours now.
“Wow. we did?”
Hope I didn't hold you up.
“Oh, it was a joy. It was a really, really nice talking to you. I'm glad we finally got together. I happen to be home, so, because like next weekend is, they have a big event in Roscoe at the, they're having a dinner, and they're having some awards and things, and so we will be down there next weekend, and not here.”
Thank you Mike!
Special thanks to Valerie Valla, David Stenström & David Keck for allowing me to use some of their pictures.
3) Q&A with Edoardo Scapin
4) Q&A with Hoagy Carmichael
5) Q&A with Jorge Trucco
6) Q&A with Per Brandin
7) Q&A with Jack Dennis
8) Q&A with Charles Jardine
9) Q&A with Christopher Rownes
10) Q&A with Leon Hanson
11) Q&A with Joe Messinger Jr.
12) Q&A with Mike Valla
