What's new?

[Allan]

Because of the fly fishing/tying information explosion in the last 20-30 years, this question probably effects fly fishers who've been at it for some time. Here's the proposition and see if anything comes to mind:
You've fished in a certain way, made certain type(s) of casts, tyed a peculiar style of fly, set up your leader/tippet a certain way, found and used a unusual fly tying material, found something that you use in fishing that seems to be unique, etc. In short you learned something ON YOUR OWN and have used that item, technique, etc. for quite awhile. Then, low and behold, you read about the same thing in some book, magazine article, on some web-site, from some guide, etc. Not only do you read about it, the author or source claims that it is something completely new. Now, let's not take anything away from the person making the claim. After all, he/she could have come up with it completely independently, as did you.
Now there are several things like this that has happened to me and I'll list them in a later post. In the meantime my question is:
Has this happened to you and WHAT specifically was it?

Allan

[Byron haugh]

Happens a lot.......As I have posted in the past, I will see something I've done myself and thought I "invented" it, only to find that someone else has "invented" it.

One example: Catskill style flies were the flies I was most familiar with growing up in fly fishing. They were the most popular dry fly patterns.
Sometimes, I found that wrapping the hackle of those days (often with thick and unruly stems) on a very TINY amount of dubbing as sort of a "pillow" for the hackle allowed the hackle to wrap better. I mentioned it to the owner of my local fly shop.
A year or so later, I saw on a package of hackle - not sure if it was Whiting, Metz, or Hebert - it showed doing this very thing!!!!

[sagefisher]

Yea, I got the idea. Sorry About That

[Allan]

Larry,

I guess my question wasn't clear. I'll pose it again, somewhat differently:

What have YOU done/used that you was your own creation/device/usage/invention/etc. that you later read or heard about as a 'new' creation/device/usage/invention/etc. by someone usually a renown fisher/writer. A personal example: I figured out that a certain type of cast is needed to get under low-hanging tree limbs, so I came up with a cast that works for me. Many years later I either read about that same cast for the same purpose. The cast even had a specific name, that I don't remember, but it was the same exact method that I used.
Get the idea?

Allan

[Byron haugh]

I thought my post was germane to your question

[Allan]

Byron,

My last post was not a response to your post which WAS an example of what I meant. My response was addressed to Larry(sagefisher).

[aged_sage]

I used what I called a 'skip', or 'bounce' cast to get at fish rising back under over hanging limbs. Something I worked out for my self, based on the old habit of 'skipping' rocks across a pond or stream surface. A few years later I read an article in one of the major fly fishing magazines about some guy who had come up with a new cast to get bugs back under the over hangs without having to go upstream to an open spot, and cast the fly to the far bank and let it float down, as was advocated at the time for this situation. The cast description was for what I had been doing for about three years!

[Byron haugh]

I think most of what has been invented by certain people who first popularized it or patented it would eventually have been "invented" by someone else. Do you think no one would have come up with the idea of an elk hair caddis without Al Troth? Perhaps years later, but I think someone would have.

It is the nature of mankind that someone is always experimenting with "new" ideas, techniques, materials, etc. in fly fishing that leads eventually to new generally accepted flies or fly patterns/styles. In my opinion, anyway.

[Kerry Stratton]

Not sure if this is what you mean but I think up and tiea lot of different patterns for sea run cutthroat. I tied up one pattern thatwas particularly effective. I thought hey, I just came up with a cutthroatpattern that nobody else has. Later I purchased the book Fly-Fishing CoastalCutthroat Trout, Flies, Techniques, Conservation by Les Johnson. A great bookby the way. In the book, Chapter 9, Coastal Cutthroat Flies, is a picture of myfly. Problem is the credit is given to Summer Carson, a California tier andclaims he developed the fly in 1935 patterning off the Royal Coachman. Which, coincidentally,was the inspiration for the fly I tied. The actual fly shown is a simplified version of Summer Carson’s fly andthat version is credited to Claude Krieder. Either way apparently I wasn’t the first.

[Fishingfiend]

Two methods of bass fishing, both of which I'd been using years before they became popular.
1. I couldn't feel a fish take a lure when I was Texas rigged, so I put a weight on the end of the line and tied my lure about 12 inches up from that. I was fishing this way in the mid-80s ... Now, of course, it's called the "drop-shot" rig.
2. Again, because I hate fishing with the weight in front of the lure in Texas rig, I decided to do away with the bullet weight and pinched a weight on the hook shank. Now you see belly weighted hooks all over the shelves.
I know I was using these ideas long before they became popular systems for catching bass.