What I was tying 50 or 60 years ago today?

[mt_flyfisher]

This is not what I am tying today, but rather what I was tying (and fishing) 50, or maybe 60 years ago today.

Some of you, with nearly 600 views now, have seen the E.Vom Hofe bamboo rod that I’ve offered for sale in the Swap forum, and may recall that I mentioned there about finding other items in the house at Chautauqua in addition to that bamboo rod.

It’s been nearly 60 years since I found some of those items in the tackle room of that house (not the attic where I later found the bamboo rod), which I then took home with me. I was in school at State College at the time, and when I was not in class I often fished Spring, Penns, Big Fishing Creek at Lamar, or elsewhere in the area.

One of the items that I found in the house was this vintage Wheatley leader box. It measures just over 4”x4”x1”, and I believe it was used in its era to keep cat gut leaders in.

You could keep your dry leaders in the compartment one side of the box, or keep them wet (and make them more flexible) by keeping them between 2 wool pads that was in a compartment on the other side of the box.

I opened the other side of this box yesterday, and looked between the 2 wool pads. I hadn’t remembered that I must have used this box 50, or 60 years ago to keep some of the flies I had tied to fish with then. Here’s one of those flies. Look at that hook’s barb size.😧).

B

 

[Bamboozle]

That's a nice Wheatley Box!!

I have a square one that is similar, except it is not a combination box. Mine only has one lid and inside are parchment leaves/pages with bands across them to hold leaders. I used it for years as my standard leader box when I wore a vest crammed full of Wheatley fly boxes.

I also have two round Wheatley soak boxes. One is "Silmalloy" their brand name for the aluminum used in their boxes and the other is a heavy brass soak box that is blued and it has a white interior. Both have the same felt pads with buttons as yours.

I also carried leaders in the blued brass box for years and I guarantee there are still some in there.

I still use Wheatley Boxes in a few of my set-ups that fortunately I bought when they were still available or from vintage tackle dealers. Today they don't offer anywhere near the number of options and only the "Original Wheatley Boxes" are not outsourced.

I love Wheatley boxes so keep me in mind if you want to sell it...

 

[JeffK]

60 years I fished mostly bucktails, with a few wet flies. Always liked Silver Doctor because it looked cool, but blue winged olive, coachman and light Cahill winged wets were in rotation too. Fished 6's and 8's mostly. 50 years ago I got introduced to simple muskrat fur on a hook scuds which were killer on the Bushkill in Easton. A big secret for curved hooks were English baitholder hooks, but just tying around the bend on a regular wet fly hook did fine as well. Somewhere about 55 years ago I had my first good days on dries, but it was on brookies in small streams with Catskill style dries not tied by me.

 

[Bamboozle]

I just took a look and I have TWO square Wheatley leader boxes, one is the aforementioned leader only box with parchment pages and the other is two sided with felt pads on one side and the other side has clips on the inside and on the door/lid for holding flies.

 

[5footfenwick]

Great find! Thanks for the interesting post. That fly is really awesome. Who knows? Maybe that was a small barb back then?

The prices go up as the portions go down. Perhaps these companies are just skimping out on the barb these days? I’ve even seen hooks without them. Talk about cutting costs. How that gets by quality control is beyond me!


~5footfenwick

 

[mt_flyfisher]

Not long after I left college and began working for a living, I was sent to England to work for several weeks. That might have been about 1972. Things were pretty cheap there at the time compared to what they would have been in the US.

I probably could, and should, have bought some Wheatley fly boxes there at the time but didn’t. But I did buy a couple Hardy lightweight reels at their store on the avenue Pall Mall in London for around $25 each, and I bought a bamboo rod at Farlow just down the street for less than $50.

I didn’t know much about salmon fly patterns, so when I was at the Hardy store I just got some of what I thought were the more colorful looking ones, which I’m sure were less than $1 each, and framed them sometime after I got home. (My wife affixed them with wax, and they’ve slipped downward over the years, and need to repositioned.)

(Look at the large barbs on those hooks too.)😀

 

[redietz]

One of the items that I found in the house was this vintage Wheatley leader box. It measures just over 4”x4”x1”, and I believe it was used in its era to keep cat gut leaders in.

You could keep your dry leaders in the compartment one side of the box, or keep them wet (and make them more flexible) by keeping them between 2 wool pads that was in a compartment on the other side of the box.

Nice find. More neatly tied than what I was tying 60 years ago (mostly streamers.)

If you were using gut leaders (silk worm gut; leaders were never made from catgut) you had no choice but to keep them wet. even dry fly leaders. Dry gut is as rigid as uncooked spaghetti, and about as brittle. OTOH, gut went out with the introduction of nylon,more like 75 years ago.

 

[Bamboozle]

IF the hooks were Mustad 3906 or Mustad 3399's (the old standard wet fly hooks), they had big barbs by today's standards.