The Flies of Charlie Krom and Keith Fulsher - Updates

 Several weeks ago, Linda Warren (fishing and life partner of the late Bob Warren) invited me to help her have a look at Bob's fly fishing estate, if you will.   We had a fine time, I think, opening cigar boxes and tub after tub of goodies.  Knowing of my interest in preserving the legacies of fly tyers who made a difference, she generously gave me any flies we thought would/should/could be preserved for future fly tying generations to ponder.   What she gave me will end up on the walls of the Atlantic Salmon Museum in Doaktown, NB, Canada just to ensure those future ponderings.   Bob had a long relationship with Charlie Krom and Keith Fulsher...far longer than I was privileged to enjoy their company and tying lessons.   I did a previous blog post on Fulsher, Krom and Warren.  Sadly, all three men have gone to their reward. Go here:  https://theriverscourse.blogspot.com/2014/03/fulsher-krom-and-warren.html

I also did a brief update on Charlie Krom's tying activities: https://theriverscourse.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-latest-from-charlie-krom.html

Keith Fulsher created the Thunder Creek minnow series and published a book about them.  Don't forget that you can click on the pics for a larger version of it!

Now we have a couple beautiful examples of those flies to care for:

In the book:

Known to every hair wing Atlantic salmon fly tyer worth her or his salt (I know there are other pronouns around these days, I just don't know what they are) , Fulsher and Krom's Hair-wing Atlantic Salmon Flies is, by most standards, the, uh, standard for modern hair-wing recipes.   It also contains a short history of what the guys considered the development of the hair-wing salmon fly.

I treasure my first copy (I have three; this one for the library shelf, and one at each tying bench in Vermont and New Brunswick).   Note:  they used to be expensive, now they are not.  Pretty easy to pick up an unsigned copy for twenty bucks or less).

I think it quite fun to be able to match a fly tied by an author with the recipe in their book.  (In this series of photos, there are penciled initials I wrote in next to the fly so you could see who tied it.  CK is Charlie Krom, KF is Keith Fulsher, of course). To wit:

Ooops, forgot the initials on that one; Charlie tied them both LRW's.

Some years back Charlie sent me this set of flies on a card with what he thought worked well throughout the day on a summer day:

Back in 2008, some years before he passed on (at age 95, in 2017), Keith published this book (and one that I really treasure):

Some of the flies in the book:

And one that's close to a book fly:

Late in his life, Charlie (who passed away in 2021 at the age of 91 and was still tying in 2020!) self-published a wonderful "book" (don't quite know what to call it; it is in a binder of sorts) that he titled Three Hackle Holographic Spey Flies.  And yes, I know, the classicists will say no way those are spey flies.  I agree with that, but I'd say when you're in your late 80's and with Charlie's street (OK, river) creds and tying abilities, I say he can call them anything he wants.  His hooks, his rules.  And I just hope I can still think, much less design a whole new style of fly and tie at Charlie's level (yeah, right,wishful thinking particularly right there, Gar.) if I even make it to my mid-80's.

Flies in the book:

And a smattering of Charlie's other inspiring flies built in his 80's:

I was really taken aback when Charlie sent me his "speyified" verson of my Celtic Beauty!

And a fitting fly to end this blog post:

And a huge thank you to Linda Warren for keeping all these goodies together and now making them available for the world to enjoy and learn from.

Cheers,

Gary

A Prototype wall mount for "unframeable" fly sets/displays

 When the estate of Ronn Lucas, Sr. sent me the collection of Marc Madore's flies in its collection, I was, of course, delighted....but at the same time dismayed.  The collection will, of course, be going to the Atlantic Salmon Museum in Doaktown, NB, and I want to frame it for display before it gets there.  But the great little vignettes, if you will, of steps in tying, say, a Bomber, do not lend themselves at all to being framed in the usual sense:

Back in my days at the other fly fishing museum I was associated with, I built the bases for plexiglass (or acrylic) vitrines which we purchased to make large 3-dimensional displays for a traveling exhibition.  This was one of those I built:

My thinking about the problem with displaying Marc's vignettes rolled around into enclosing them in table top-sized plexiglass/acrylic vitrines, so I started googling just that...plexiglass vitrines.

Are you kidding me??  Have you priced a little, say, 4x4x10 inch plexi enclosure lately?  Yikes!!  That idea was a non-starter for both my wallet and the Salmon Museum's.  What to do?

I built a zillion 1:24 and 1:25 scale model cars as a boy, so I was acquainted with the basic size of those cars, and vaguely remembered that some people store them in little plexi boxes that are about the size I was looking for.   So...Google 1:24 scale display case...and away we go!  

It turns out you can buy these and similar for any amount from the lowest I saw in Ebay and Amazon ($14.99 plus usually at least 10 bucks shipping) to Amazon's $29.99 unit.  All essentially the same case.

I happen to be a veteran of the eBay wars and know how to read the fine print pretty well (lol, except for things like divorce papers and bank notices).   For once, I did it right and purchased a lot of 24 1:24 acrylic display cases for my winning bid of $11.50 plus $23.99 shipping.  That turns out to be $1.48/ display.  Such a deal.  They arrived safe and sound just a couple days after the bidding ended.

One of the twenty four:

So, one of Marc's vignettes could just sit inside one of these on a table or some such thing:

But where's the fun in that?  It could get jostled around and even - heaven forbid - someone could easily open it and snatch or disturb the goodies in side.  So we move on.

My old friend Yoshi Akiyama (whom I hired as collections manager for that other museum) and I spent hours in my basement making little shelves and holders for that aforementioned traveling exhibit like all the little doo-dads holding the fly rods up in this photo from that exhibition:

Even at 74 (turned that today, no less), I can still come up with an idea or two.  I came up with this basic prototype, made from scrap pine, in about 5 minutes:

Works great for capturing one of Marc's vignette's with the case on it!

Importantly, I can drill tiny holes in the case where it overlaps the wood base to insert small screws to prevent pilfering.

I can see making the platform out of a nice cherry, oak, or even just nicely finished white pine.  I can think of other uses for it, too:

Or even for displaying your cherished childhood hot chocolate mugs!

It's obviously easy to build, so I hope I get to see other cases like it my friends and acquaintances make that they share here!  One of these days I'll share photos of them displaying Marc's flies inside the Atlantic Salmon Museum....which I hope you will visit!!

Cheers,

Gary