As I understand it, subject to correction, Ed VanPut used the Adams almost exclusively for years and did quite well. I’m more than willing to say the pattern is a good producer in the Catskills and especially in hands of an excellent fly fisher as he. However, to say that the Adams is a Catskill fly, either in terms of origin or style, is incorrect.
As far as the magazine, I don’t doubt that there are more issues sold today than in the late 70s when the magazine first came out. Would you care to give an honest assessment of the quality or quantity of information in each issue, then and now? I grant you the paper and photos of today are far superior. I’m talking about the text.
My letter to the editor was somewhat declarative. That’s because I and many people I spoke with believed the author took that approach. Also, check the next issue, or maybe it was 2 issues, of the magazine after the article first appeared. There is a ‘letter to the editor’ with the summary of a contrywide survey I did.
About 15 years ago there was a great little movie with a title that so aptly describes these discussions:
A Never Ending Story (-:
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Sorry, but it is neither not a Catskill in ‘style’ nor in ‘origination’.
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Why would you say the Adams is not “Catskill style”? It is tied the same as say a Blue Winged Olive or a Pale Morning Dun, but just uses different color materials.
I think the phrase “Catskill style dry fly” came about mainly to differentiate them from flies like the thorax patterns and Comparaduns. I have always been comfortable with the term and it has never been a mystery to me.
Hey Buckeye… I only know one thing about all of this. Well, two things.
Thing One: a Bivisible is a great choice for a dry fly for a Beginner’s Swap. It’s easy and it catches fish and it’s good at showing you the steps in tying a (wingless) dry.
Thing Two: tyeflies here ties one heck of a Catskill Style Dry.
Allan, since you asked:
I think it is a fine magazine. Yes, I liked the old style and format of the early years including the few years I wrote a column for it a bit more, but that could be just personal. If you have noticed they have gone back to flies on the cover, or at least the back cover. It is indeed slicker now. What I don’t care for, and again this is just my personal preference, is the proliferation of synthetic material, goo and glue type flies. I prefer to use as much natural material as possible and also prefer tying everything on rather than using hot glue or epoxy .
I have known tyers who, wanting to get a fly in print, would dream up a pattern, usually close to something existing, never fish it, write it up and send it in…and some made it into print. What the heck, it’s pretty neat to see a pattern you tied in a magazine and for a while they were hurting for articles.
When the late Dick Surrette was editor
he did have a lot of well known people writing for him. I can tell you this, it was not a high paying endeavor. I got $125 a column. He also kept all the flies. I would tie a fly to each step and have an artist friend of mine draw each illustration.
I figure I got about 40 cents an hour…lol, but true.
When they wanted to lower it to $100 Gary L. and a few others quit. A few issues later they lowered it anyway. Currently the pay is 3, 4 and 5 times that much.
If you send something in with hopes of being published you should have someone else edit it for you. As a writer you may be too close to your own words.
On the internet we all write things that we are in a hurry to get down, not BB stuff, that is mistake ridden so much we are used to it, but articles and stories. BB’s we can edit…articles we can’t…Sooooo if you send something to a magazine be sure it is clean copy" and that you have tripple checked the facts. Editors love it when it is “ready to go”.
As far as Catskill style flies are concerned I think what we must remember is this: once you get past Theodore Gordon and his first few apostles FT andFF were also developing at the same time in Pa. . Because these tyers in the Catskills were breaking away from old English patterns to closer match the insects here perhaps as FT spread and because it started in the Catskills,… is it possible that other areas simply began refering to it as “The Catskill Style”? Yes, I know…sparsley dressed…
Just a thought to mull over…
I definitely wasn’t going to get in on this again, I must have posted 20 times in the old thread. But here it is:
The question wasn’t even about “style” which seems to have “crept” into this thread again. The original question that buckeyetier asked was "What is a Catskill dry?..not “Catskill Style”.
In the old thread Allan Podell quite succinctly made the point that a Catskill dry is a fly that “originated” (was invented) in the Catskills by fly fishers that “lived” in the Catskill region during what most northeastern fly fishers refer to as the “Golden Age”. Namely folks like Gordon, the Darbees, The Dettes, Rube Cross, Herman Christian, Ed Hewitt, Art Flick, Roy Steenrod, and others of their ilk.
Yes, there was a “style” attatched to them based on the kinds of rivers in the Catskills (sparsely tied, very stiff hackles). These flies are still around today in huge numbers in “every” (let me emphasize that “every”) fly shop in the northeast and particularly the Catskill Region. Saying the Catskill Fly is obsolete in the northeast is like saying the Spey Fly is obsolete in the salmon rivers of the Pacific northwest.
I don’t know who’s pulling whose leg here…JC seems to like keeping the pot stirred on this (lol), but Catskill flies obsolete? Not by a longshot.
Later, RW
“We fish for pleasure; I for mine, you for yours.” -James Leisenring on fishing the wet fly-
[This message has been edited by Royal Wulff (edited 09 December 2005).]
hmmm…if an adams isn’t a catskill style fly, how come someone signs up to tie one every time there’s a catskill swap?
and I disagree w/ you, chris, on the tail.
it’s largely dependant on the tier. i.e. allan and I both tie light cahills. he tie the tail in bunched atop the shank, I splay and cock the tails. they’re both catskill flies. jsut of a different style ;-]
Premise:
The term “Catskills style dry fly” was first used in print sometime in the seventies (i.e. well past the Gordon, Cross, Steenrod, etc. era) simply to differentiate from the Western style dries. The term has since taken on a life of its own, without a definite and accepted baseline or definition. For the same token the accepted term might have become “Eastern style dry fly”.
I invite you all to prove me wrong. With the relevant literature reference, of course
I believe Hans to be essentially correct in that the term evolved for the purpose of differentiating the flies from other types. But I don’t think it’s an eastern vs. western thing at all. I’d say it was mainly to differentiate them from thorax flies and Comparaduns, which also originated in the east.
Hmmm Hans… I don’t have time to go thru every old book and magazine I have but fairly recently I was reading something on the early history of a FF Club in Pa. and there was a reference to 'Catskill flies" didn’t work as well there as they did on the …Neversink…or was it maybe the Beaverkill and that was many years before the 70’s. Of course earlier than the 70’s they would probably have more likely been refered to as “Darbee’s Flies”, or, Dette’s Flies" or a little later, Flick/Jennings flies.
One thing I can tell you though. Whether someone said Catskill flies or Catskill style flies,(in your 70’s on) they, at that time meant the same thing. Just a shortcut in language.
One thing I think I can clear up though is the following.
At a Guild meeting at least a year or two ago ( Allan, you may have been there to give me an exact date) Dave Brandt, playing on words, asked the question, “What’s a Catskill Fly”. It was made a big deal of in the newsletter, a lot of it by Allan who loves to friendly argue on these type of things.
We, Dave and I , were talking about it and all the fuss it raised on the long drive to one of the FF shows we tie at. I said to him, you mean “What’s a Catskill Style Fly don’t you.” and he said, “No, I mean whats a Catskill fly”.
Now knowing Dave I knew he knew that in the past whenever one was said it was the same as the other. He of course wanted to get technical on me. I said “okay, its a fly tied in the Catskills” Then he gets into what if it is tied by a guy in Jersey but fished in the Catskills. "
See what I mean… He loves to do these little play on words.
I think everything on FAOL posted about it has either been brought up because of Morgan Lyle’s article or Allan and the Guild letter.
Think of it this way:
“Whats a New York Bagel?” VS “What’s a New York Style Bagel?”
This is a subject that DOES have a specific answer. There is one specific reason why a New York Bagel cannot be duplicated anywhere outside of NYC and the funniest thing is that it is based on the Catskill. In spite of all attempts to duplicate the recipe for the basic bagel, out of area bakeries cannot duplicate the key ingredient. That ingredient is New York Water which comes from the Catskills and primarily the Neversink Reservoir. In nationwide ‘taste tests’ that included all bottled water, New York’s tap water has always placed in the top 3 and often won. That is why the bagels are so good.
So bagels made across the country may look the same as a New York Bagel but they won’t smell or have the same taste as one.
At least I am able to clear that mystery up.
Now as to one of your comments about Catskill Fly, the conversation you refered to with Dave Brandt, Ralphie, myself, Bill Leuzler and others was when we tried to define ‘Catskill Fly Tyer’. Let’s see some on this board try and define that phrase. I dare you!(-; In fact, I’ll start a new thread entirely for that. See above.
Allan
[This message has been edited by tyeflies (edited 10 December 2005).]
Allan, the real secret of the NY Bagel is that they do not use the resv water from the Catskills, but the water from the East River…Lol. Just kidding Allan…because of the body a week found in it.
The Adams is not a fly from the Catskills, but many times is tied in the Catskill Dry Style. A Catskill Dry is alot of things.
Common Winged Dry
Tail: longer then shank
Body: Tight and well tapered, not real thin.
Hackle: about two time the gap on a 94840
Wings: Longer then hackle, the Dette Gauge it would be 2 sizes bigger then hook size.
Head: very small, almost can not be seen. There is also a clear gap between then eye and the head.
This applies most winged flies and some of Flicks wingless flies like his BWO. The Adams is tied in this mammer alot, but the orgional was not like this. There are some exceptions to this rules like Wulffs. Again not a Catskill fly it was tied different by the Catskill tyers. Walt Dette a big fan of hair wings made the hackle a little longer and the wings even longer, and it was not a messy looking fly like Lee made. Another type of fly that breakes a few of the rules are Fan Wings. Tails are longer and the wings will be longer.
Palmered body:
Tail: this is a little different, on a Bi-Vis is the early days did not have a tail, that was changed in the early 30’s and a short tail was added before then hackle tips can be seen alot as a tail. On a fly like Delaware adams the wail was longer then the shank
Body: if any is tight and tapered
Hackle: the rear is a little longer then the gap, the front is 2x the gap. This applies to Bi-Vis, and flies like the Delaware Adams.
Wings: same as above
To figure out the correct sizes we turn to the Dette Hackle Gauge. On a size 12 fly the rear is a size 12, front size 10, and wings size 8. This is the same on a normal dry. The Bi-Vis is tyed with a vary dense hackle, that includes the rear, with modern hackle 2 feathers are used.
Caddis
Hackle: shorter then the mayflies on a dette gauge as size 12 hook has a size 12 hackle
variants and spiders
Tail: well over the shank, about 1 1/2
Hackle: There has been a change on this dues to the change in hackle. In the old days it was very long on the Dette Gauge a size 14 would have a size 6 hackle. But as times changed and the hackle did too a size 14 would have a size 8. Only the stiffest hackles are used and alought they are not a pretty fly the hackles are stright and neat, but very dense (but do not look it because of the neatness).
Spiders have had the most change over their life time of any fly tyed in the catskill style, some of the oldest were very sparse, this may be because of the long stiff hackles they had. Or maybe Art Flick’s had a bigger impact on the view of how they should be tied. DeFeo and Jennings also may have also had a big part in this change.
There are many other “rules” to how the old Catskill tiers did things. All of the above information I have learned from Mary Dette, after countless hours tying next to her and just talking shop. The most intersting thing is the changes from one Catskill Tyer to another and their 2cents they gave to the style. That is for another post and I need to get some dinner.
![http://hipwader.com/images/filson/f40/adams9.jpg[/url:f00ff]](http://hipwader.com/images/filson/f40/adams9.jpg%5B/url:f00ff%5D){kind=link}