Earl and Sadie Grummet
Fly Tyers
..... at least that's what the sign said.
Out in TheMiddleOf Nowhere, Wisconsin, I saw this sign by the side of the road, hand painted and nailed to the mailbox post.
Little did I know ....
We pulled in. Dad
wanted to get some Pass Lakes. A old man came out to greet us. He
introduced himself. "Earl Grummet", he said, "and that's
Sadie over there.", pointing to a lady standing in the doorway watching
us.
Dad asked about a dozen
Pass Lakes. Earl said he didn't have any stocked, but could tie up a
dozen in no time if we wanted to wait. We went in and Earl got to work.
The room had pictures on
the walls of the sort you'd expect - of rivers, lakes, people holding up big fish, and friends
around campfires. There were a couple
fish mounts on the walls gone copper-colored with age. The tying bench had two stations. Earl sat at one. The other was obviously Sadie's. Out the window was a bird feeder and down the
hill was a pond. It seemed to me to be
the perfect room to tie flies in.
I'd been tying flies for
a couple years, from a Herter's kit my dad had bought for himself, but lost
interest in. I had never met another fly tyer before and I was kind of
excited about being able to watch him tie. I told him that I had just
started tying and asked if it would be ok if I watched. He pulled up a chair
next to his and sat me down while he got to work on the Pass Lakes.
He pointed to each of
his tools as he began tying. He began by talking about his vise, which he
made himself from bar stock, a thumb screw, and a c-clamp. It seemed
primitive compared to my Thompson vise, but it worked really well. He
mentioned that he'd tell Dad how to make one for me. He went on, talking
about the big spool of his home-waxed silk thread that sat in a nail pounded
into the desk. He didn't use a thread bobbin. His scissors were
embroidery-type. He did a whip finishing knot by hand, without a tool.
The only things that seemed up-to-date were the Allcock hooks he was
using. He asked questions too, like where I fished and what patterns I
could tie.
It's hard to describe
how awe-struck I was. It was like I was seeing something amazing for the
first time. Maybe it was
There was a picture over
his desk, of Sadie and himself seated at a big desk, surrounded by fly bins, tying
flies in a store somewhere. I asked Earl where it was. He said it
was Abercrombie and Fitch in Chicago. They had been invited down there to
do tying demos for the customers. Now I was truly impressed. This
was not the Abercrombie and Fitch we know today. This company was perhaps
the largest sporting goods store and outfitter in the world. It was an
outdoor sports Mecca for hunters and fishers. If you couldn't find
something at Abercrombie and Fitch, you didn't need it. Even in my youth
I knew that to be invited to come to Chicago and tie meant that this was no
ordinary fly tyer. This was, in a word, cool. In modern parlance, Earl was the
balls.
Respect.
Finally he turned to me
and said, smiling, that if I was serious about tying flies that catch trout, I
should know a pattern he would show me. He got out the materials a tied a
fly he called "Arrowhead". It was a simple pattern - 1 brown
and 1 grizzly hackle tip for tailing, a peacock herl body and a grizzly and a
brown hackle palmered from tail to head. He tied a couple more and handed them
to me. Earl said he'd fished these on the Brule, White, Namekagon and
other Wisconsin rivers as well as all the way up the North Shore of Lake
Superior to the Nipigon country catching trout everywhere on this fly. He turned
to Dad, saying, "On the house".
Dad paid Earl for the
Pass Lakes and we left. In the car, I had the feeling I'd been given
something very special, and not just the fly pattern. What I had been
given was something kind of life changing. When I got home I started
tying with greater interest and dedication. I went to the library and
checked out books on fly tying. I found new heros like Flick, Marinaro,
Bergman, and others. Fly tying went from something I did when everything
else got boring or the weather got shitty, to something I became damned serious
about. It was a whole new world, and Earl Grummet had opened the door to it.
I never saw Earl Grummet
again, but what he a gave a me that day has stayed with me ever since.
That doesn't mention all the trout I caught using the Arrowhead.
Years later I was doing
a tying demo to support the local Trout Unlimited chapter. I looked up
from tying a fly to see a boy, sitting right in front of me, completely
absorbed in what he was watching. I remembered a boy in rural Wisconsin,
perhaps feeling the same way, at another tyer's bench. I smiled and
looked at him. Did he tie his own flies? Yes.
"Well," I said, "if you're serious about tying flies that
catch trout, there's a pattern I'd like to show you....".
I have a number of this pattern available in my Etsy store. Click Here
