[VFB] Credit where credit is due...

[Byard Miller]

Just wanted to bring to your attention a submission to the most 
current issue of Fly Tyer magazine. In the section First Wraps - Fly 
Tyers Tips is a letter from H Kanemoto describing a dubbing twist 
method that sounds very much like one that our own Don Ordes has been 
touting for the last couple of years here on the list. In the article 
credit for the technique is given to Royce Dam. I certainly don't 
doubt Dr Kanemoto's integrity as he states that the technique he 
describes was learned from Royce personally.

It is just my contention that credit be given to the deserved 
innovator of the technique...DonO!

As a fly tyer with 40 years of experience under my belt and one who 
avidly seeks new techniques via the media, DonO's presentation of 
"rope-dubbing" was a new one to me when he first mentioned it on the 
VFB list well over two years ago. I'm confident that he developed the 
procedure long before he ever mentioned it on our mail list.

It's my feeling that Fly Tyer magazine needs to be made aware of an 
injustice being done. I suspect that an influx of emails and letters 
from all of "DonO Supporters" may encourage them to give credit where 
credit is due.

A call to arms to all VFBers...;^) Do it now while fresh in your minds.

email:	David Klausmeyer, Editor	[EMAIL PROTECTED]

snail mail:	Abenaki Publishers, Inc, ATTN: Editorial Dept, PO Box 
4100, Bennington, VT 05201

I have never really given much credence to laying claim to fly design 
or technique because we all strive to improve patterns for our own 
geographic purposes. That's why we tie...to innovate...to 
improve...and of course to catch fish. But...

... as yet another example of someone "claiming" credit, I offer as 
evidence the recent submission to "Flyfishing & Tying Journal" in 
their Patent Patterns feature. The now known as "Ritter's Caddis" is 
a pattern that I developed over 25 years ago to entice those fussy 
native trout of the Battenkill River in New York. My "DTWC" or Deer & 
Turkey Wing Caddis was designed with the premise that caddis are 
almost always in a state of movement. It was my feeling that a few 
fibers of deer hair over the wing of a standard Turkey Wing Caddis 
pattern would simulate movement when viewed by a feeding trout. I can 
actually document reference to my DTWC in personal fishing journals 
from the 1980's as well as from the many friends that I tied it for 
back then. It has also been a published pattern in the Virtual Flybox 
for over six years.

keep tyin'...byard