Back in the early '80's, tyers in the Southern Council - FFF and across the country were using bead chain to weight their "buck tail" streamers. The problem was that we still needed more wight... So we tried larger bead chain and even lead weight on the hook shank, but most of us were still unsatisfied with the results...
Then, Tom Schmuecker of WASPI developed and started producing lead, dumbbell eyes, and almost immediately, all the tyers that I knew were all using these lead eyes to weight our various bucktail streamers. These flies worked and virtually everyone in our part of the country started tying with Schmuecker's new lead eyes... especially the tyers at the Southern Council's Conclaves.
We didn't re-name the buck tail pattern as "Schmuecker's Minnow" or the WAPSI Minnow" or after ourselves, because we read that in the 40's when Joe Bates wrote that when he originally added bead chain to a classic buck tail minnow, that such a change was not enough of a change to re-name the pattern...
A couple of years later (about 1988/89?), Lefty wrote the article in Fly Fisherman magazine about Bob Clouser and his "Clouser Minnows". The day that magazine arrived at my tying buddy's house, he opened the magazine to the article on "Clousers Minnows", and he shouted, "Clouser Minnows! Hell, we've been tying these for years! How the hell could they be named Clousers?" He then proceeded to open about four of his fly boxes, which were full of the same fly described as "new" and in the article...
A few years later, I had the opportunity to eat breakfast with Lefty at an FFF conclave in Gatlinburg,TN (just me an Lefty at breakfast), and as I asked Lefty how he could justify naming a pattern after his friend that so many were already tying... Lefty looked up from his eggs, smiled at me and said, "I take care of my friends."
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