A Few Warren Duncan Flies

 I suspect that there are very few folks that have fished Atlantic salmon on the Miramichi for awhile that haven't heard the name Warren Duncan.  I never met the man, but many of the anglers and fly tyers I know have many, many stories about him.   He was one popular, generous man who maintained a fly shop in Saint John, New Brunswick.   I won't attempt any sort of bio here; just google his name...he's easy to learn more about.  Warren died at his tying bench in 2007, an unfinished Rusty Rat in his vise.   Speaking of Warren and the Rusty Rat, one of his fascinating feats was tying a complete Rusty Rat in the little more than a minute it took him to recite Robert Service's The Cremation of Sam McGee.   I managed to hunt up a very poor quality video of Warren doing that:

The Atlantic Salmon Museum in Doaktown, NB is about to receive a few more of Dunc's flies for its collection.  They came to me (as a proxy for the Museum) via my friend Royce Stearns, who steered them to me while helping to disperse the angling estate of the late Ronn Lucas, Sr.    According to this note penned by Mr. Lucas, the flies arrived at his office (in 2003) completely unannounced - no note was included with them (don't forget that you can click on the pic for a larger version):

I think this first fly is his version of an Orange Blossom Special:

This is a Silver Doctor (thanks for the info, Jerome Molloy!):

Jerome also said that this is a Night Hawk.  And Jerome would know!!

Last up is, I believe, a Copper Killer:

These four flies exhibit Warren's flair for the overstated when it comes to flies for display.  His fishing flies were definitely tied more sparsely (although still pretty "full" of materials.   Courtesy of a gentleman from Maine (thanks, Mac!)  I have a small collection of Warren Duncan's flies:

My little collection affords the opportunity to directly compare one of Warren's wall hangers to one of this fishing flies...in this case the Copper Killer:

There are zillions of Warren Duncan-tied flies out there.  From what I can tell, he gave as many away as he sold.  I see them on various online auctions often; they usually sell for about fifty bucks each.  Some more, some less.

In the scant research I did to verify a couple things about Warren, I came upon a comment about his business card in a thread about his passing on the Speypages forum.  A close-up of his card reveals some letters after his name:

The fellow that was participating in that post about Warren wrote that he asked Warren directly what the "C.R.S., D.K.S." stood for.  His response:  "Can't remember shit, Don't know shit."   I do really wish I could have spent time with him.

Cheers,

Gary