John Betts is the the number one most under-recognized and under-appreciated fly designer. Eveybody seems to know his name and that he had something to do with "popularizing synthetic materials."
But his patterns are not known and they are not for sale in the shops. Fishing marketing revolves around manufacturers and magazine editors who use celebrity status to sell us what they think we need. John didn't become a sellebrity. He probably didn't want to. So the marketing forces have ignored him.
They should all be cut from our budgets. John is a far better Betts than the pompous magazine editors who think they know what we should know. Most of those guys are journalists who know a wee bit about fishing. A few of the current crop of magazine editors (only a few) are both good journalists and good fishermen. But even they are still married to a celebrity-based marketing system. And that's a fatal flaw in my book.
That's not a good basis for market making. Not in my fly book.
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