Jeremy,
Don't listen to them! They're all full of prunes. Here's the whole story!

It was in the first century that Peter and Paul met for a day or two of fishing after Paul messed things up in Thessalonica. Paul had to lay low for a while and since he was only a short distance from good trout water, he and Peter took off for the River Aestreus (or something like that) where they set up camp.

In those days fishers made their own tackle from scratch, using things at hand and it was no time at all before they had fabricated rods, lines and hooks. They then set about hunting for a cat with which to make leaders and soon had a nice one, all sliced up and Bloody knoted. (thus:the Blood Knot)

A Swiss reporter who had moved to the Netherlands was taking notes said, "Gentlemen, this is an historical event, what shall we call this place?" And Paul answered..."I proclaim that we call it "the place where we killed the cat"!

But as often happens this name was corrupted over time and was finally known as "Catskill", first in the Dutch and Swiss dictionaries, then in Noah's. (Noah the dictionary man...not the boat builder).

The next morning Peter said, "Dang! Where in tarnation can we steal a chicken for the wax colored feathers called for in the fly recipe book?

About that time a chicken came walking by and Paul jumped on him but missed the wax colored feathers from his waddles (whats a waddle anyway?) and came up with a handfull of stiff hackles.

"Where are the wax colored feathers from the waddles of the rooster" asked Peter...and Paul who was all scratched to hades said "This is all I got...snif snif before the SOB took off".

The resulting flies were a success and the Dutch/Swiss reporter said "What shall we call this new style of fly?" And Paul said, "I proclaim that it be called the "Place Where We Killed the Cat Style" of Fly".

A gentleman from Londinium who was working his way upstream was surprised at the catch and asked "What sort of bait fallacious are you gentlemen using? Oh yes, I see, the same fly as I. By the way, did my chicken come by here? Peter, who was enjoying a mouth full of souvlaki said... Nopf, didnpf compf pastf here!

The reporter had to meet his ship for the Netherlands but got hit with the boom and lost his notes overboard while rounding Cape Malea. So he didn't proof of the matter!

To this day, the Dutch are trying to sort things out for us so we will stop arguing about "The Catskill style" but there's no hope. I've thrown the curtain back and you can now see that none of 'em knows a darn thing about it.

Ol' Bill
1932

Is that better, Hans?


[This message has been edited by snipe (edited 31 August 2005).]

[This message has been edited by snipe (edited 01 September 2005).]