Ginger I would be interested in hearing who Herters claimed invented it. Did they say that? I've never heard credit of it given to anyone else. I did catch up with Mike Martinek this weekend and I remembered to ask him about the polar bear. The reason I questioned it was because all of the photographs I've seen of Carries original flies have had golden pheasant crest for the throat. I couldn't see what was under the wing though. Mike said most of the time she used GP crest. She had used polar bear on some of them but he agreed that it was probably for people that requested it. It wasn't something she used exclusively. He also said she didn't always use bucktail she used a kind of Asian goat hair? I hope I remembered that correctly. He owns several of her flies and seems to have good knowledge of her. The only other good source I've seen for information on her is the Leslie Hilyard book and he also attributes the Gray Ghost to Carrie. As far as I know he owns the rights to the name of her company and many of her original notes. Regards, Deb
I was just going to tell this story to Ray but thought might as well share it. My Great Uncle Bob taught me how to tie flies in 1982. He died in 1984 from Lou Gerhig Disease. So he never knew (or maybe he does) how far I have gone with fly fishing and tying. Anyway his wife is moving into a nursing home and I have been helping clean out their house that they lived in for some 50 years. I found a 1971 edition of "Minnows of North Amnerica and Their Streamer Imitations" by George Herter. In it is a recipe for the Gray Ghost and its story. The paragraph states that Carrie Stevens did not Invent the streamer but made it popular. It also mentioned that the original pattern sometimes used Polar bear hair instead of golden pheasant crest for a throat. Thinking that not many of Ray's contributors would have used polar bear and since I had some from Chris Marshall, I did. I copied the pages from the book and sent them to Ray with my fly. Ginger M. Allen
