I believe that your "Yellow Drake" is the absolute first ever tie.
Alan Di Somma Phoenix,Az. http://www.azod.com http://www.azflycasters.org/ http://www.wmonline.com/attract/lakes.htm http://www.wmonline.com/attract/streams.htm "Deep Thoughts" If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him??? ----- Original Message ----- From: "DonO" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, December 30, 2002 1:08 PM Subject: Re: [VFB] Favorite FF Mags : Bob VanAmburg wrote... : : "after reading that article about the Peabody fly : that Capt. Roger guy Claims : to have invented...(It's a Bloody Peacock & Brown : Soft hackle!!!!!!!!)" : : This awareness is what will put an end to all the false claims of : 'originality'. : Feedback from readers to the rag- I mean mag- will force them to validate : the : claim - or rescind it. Their reputation is what's at stake, if you make : that so. : : Even with all of the 'Off the wall' stuff I do, I still never claim : originality, : although people sometimes affix that to some things I do. : (So, if they haven't seen it before, it really is 'original' to them, isn't : it?) : If the 'art of extremism' is just taking known things to an extreme, so : is that something new? "Eye-of-the-beholder" may come into play here. : : Is a size 32 Royal Coachman "new" or "original". Yes and no. There is a : Royal Coachman fly, but tied on a 32? Is it new, or just extreme? There : are a half-dozen 'innovations' I've come up with to do them, but what is : really 'new'? Maybe someone else did it -or does it- too. : : Same with a 19/0 muddler. Known fly, extreme tie. : : Are my "Flex-o" flies "new", or just extreme versions of predecessors? : Are my 22" long marlin flies "new", or just extreme versions of deceivers? : Am I the first to ever tie a beaver? or a Platypus? I'll never really : know. Who cares? They're fun anyway! 'Terribly wounded minnow' gets a lot : of laughs. Is it new? Who cares? : Saber-toothed rat...new or a variation of a mouse pattern? Who cares? Not : me. : : We can go back to the thread of 'variations on a theme', but is a variation : of a fly a new fly? : : There are at least a half-dozen people out there claiming to have invented : the humpy and the muddler. Really, only God could know for sure if a person : was the first 'chronologically' to apply a certain technique to a hook. But : we can know if a technique had a 'predecessor', especially if it is in : print. But we still can't know if that one was the first, either. : : Easier put- we can know if it's a 2nd, but we really can't know if it's a : 1st. : : And any claim is valid until someone disputes it successfully. So, just for : instance if 'Capt. So&so' is 90 years old and says he invented the brown : hackle peacock in 1930, who is there to disprove him, other than a published : work prior to his claim? : : Since it's very hard in our field to sign and date our work, other than by : pictorally publishing it, it is also hard to prove inventorship. : Co-inventorship is very common- two minds coming up with the same idea. : Happens all the time. Was there a third- before them? A 4th? : : That unknown always makes it difficult to claim originality. : : Just my musings and ramblings over lunch...for what they're worth. : DonO : :
