Fishing Rivalry

[The Black Douglas]

I can think of three famous fishing rivalries, alas for the readership, but one is salmon related.

the rivalries are:

Halford - Skues
Sawyer - Kite
Kelson - Marston

in the case of Halford/Skues, Halford was a very wealthy dry fly fisher, who pioneered the exclusive use of dry fly on the chalk streams. The smaller chalkstreams can't stand a lot of pressure, so this code made some sense. it was refined into a code of absolute imitation.

this aside, Halford seems to have been a kindly man, taking Skues (London Lawyer - Pal Mal) under his wing and proposing him for the Fly Fishers Club.

Skues later dedicated paragraph after paragraph in his books towards sniping and ridiculing Halford for his disapproval of nymph fishing (shallow barely sub surface). The sniping was quite nasty and in my view unnecessary. I think Halford remained aloof.

the Kite Sawyer rift is surrounded in mystery, I recently read a slightly clipped yet polite review of Sawyer by Kite in The Journal of the Flyfishers Club y2k compendium. Sawyer is quoted elsewhere as saying "I'll never know why he treated me like that". that the pair lived in/around Netheravon must have made for tensions.

finally we have Marston - Editor of the Fishing Gazette's demolition of Kelson, particularly his claims to have invented flies. maybe some of our readers can elaborate, I sold my copy of The salmon Fly a while back, finding it unreadable, an earlier library copy a quarter century previously I really enjoyed.

clearly there is some spitefulness in fishing. is it a determination to be right or the seeing off of competition that is the motivator?

The Halford - Skues conflict, in my opinion there was a greater conflict between Halford and Marryatt. Halford was very reliant upon Marryatt for much of his now established theories on fishing the dry fly, even dedicating some of his earlier work to his then friend who always shuned publicity. But there was a falling out and Marryatt's early death from Influenza meant that things were never resolved between these 2 pioneers of dry fly fishing.
I think Halford was refered to by Skues on more than 1 occasion as the High Priest and in many respects ribbing aside Halford was held in high esteem by Skues.
There has been much written about the rift between Kite and Sawyer, it's true that Sawyers ideas for fishing the nymph featured in Kites book, a fact of which Kite was only too well aware as the book came about from much collaboration with Sawyer and in his introduction Kite stated the book could never have been written without Sawyers input. Many see Sawyer as progressing the Nymph and its fishing on from what had been Skues initial work, even Skues helped Sawyer to get his work published as he supposidly stated that this was an advancement to his original work on the subject, i suppose the question is was the conflict between Kite and Sawyer as real as people make out ?, i have even heard that there was resentment from Sawyer towards Kite when a white Jaguar car came into Kites ownership, a car Sawyer saw Kite driving daily, there are many such tales all without any real foundation.
As for Kelson, well how many saw him as a bit of a wide boy ?, i doubt if Marston was in the minority here.

[charlieH]

I agree with most of what you've written CharlieH, and yes the brotherhood of the angle is a pretty good one, but a bit of rivalry can be great fun. My best mate and i compete against each other every year, and take the mick out of each others failures, and congratulate each others success. On more than one occasions its made cr*p seasons pretty amusing!
Tight Lines
Aled

Agree completely, Aled. Fishing isn't (or shouldn't be) so serious an occupation that there isn't room for a bit of banter and friendly rivalry.

[blacknorange]

Agree completely, Aled. Fishing isn't (or shouldn't be) so serious an occupation that there isn't room for a bit of banter and friendly rivalry.

Absolutely no room in Salmon fly fishing for rivalry. Lowers the tone on the day IMO.

B/O

[Eminem]

aye righty naff.

I'm sure we'll hae a Deeside Ghullie alang in a wee minute or two tae pass on all the deadly secrets a how tae cutch the sulmon.

Hemin,yivnaeonyideafityerspikinabootminhivye?

Nose bleed at Scotch Corner methinks

[kgm]

Hemin,yivnaeonyideafityerspikinabootminhivye?

Nose bleed at Scotch Corner methinks

I left the granite city in 1993 but still love the turn of phrase.
As a side, remember the Aberdonian on his first skiing holiday asking the instructor "Fit fit fits fit ski"

[blacknorange]

Hemin,yivnaeonyideafityerspikinabootminhivye?

Nose bleed at Scotch Corner methinks

Whas feel are ee?

B/O

[keirstream]

[QUOTE=Eminem;
Nose bleed at Scotch Corner methinks [/QUOTE]


Furryboots???????

[compagnito]

The Halford - Skues conflict, in my opinion there was a greater conflict between Halford and Marryatt. Halford was very reliant upon Marryatt for much of his now established theories on fishing the dry fly, even dedicating some of his earlier work to his then friend who always shuned publicity. But there was a falling out and Marryatt's early death from Influenza meant that things were never resolved between these 2 pioneers of dry fly fishing.
I think Halford was refered to by Skues on more than 1 occasion as the High Priest and in many respects ribbing aside Halford was held in high esteem by Skues.
There has been much written about the rift between Kite and Sawyer, it's true that Sawyers ideas for fishing the nymph featured in Kites book, a fact of which Kite was only too well aware as the book came about from much collaboration with Sawyer and in his introduction Kite stated the book could never have been written without Sawyers input. Many see Sawyer as progressing the Nymph and its fishing on from what had been Skues initial work, even Skues helped Sawyer to get his work published as he supposidly stated that this was an advancement to his original work on the subject, i suppose the question is was the conflict between Kite and Sawyer as real as people make out ?, i have even heard that there was resentment from Sawyer towards Kite when a white Jaguar car came into Kites ownership, a car Sawyer saw Kite driving daily, there are many such tales all without any real foundation.
As for Kelson, well how many saw him as a bit of a wide boy ?, i doubt if Marston was in the minority here.

yes but Kelson remains the colosus of the salmon fly.

as regards Skues I think you are not correct, certainly each of his books I seem to open seems full of tiresome spite towards Halford, who seems to have been a kindly man.

In Itchen Memories Skues rejoices in bagging five brace or so to Halfords one - rather autisticly perhaps,

This piece and the lower paragraphs thereof rather bears me out:

Halford and Skues: “This Chalkstream Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us” | MidCurrent

tight lines to you now.

[The Black Douglas]

yes but Kelson remains the colosus of the salmon fly.

as regards Skues I think you are not correct, certainly each of his books I seem to open seems full of tiresome spite towards Halford, who seems to have been a kindly man.

In Itchen Memories Skues rejoices in bagging five brace or so to Halfords one - rather autisticly perhaps,

This piece and the lower paragraphs thereof rather bears me out:

Halford and Skues: “This Chalkstream Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us” | MidCurrent

tight lines to you now.

Well i suppose it's true that there has never been a more comprehensive study of the Salmon fly since Kelsons time, we have had books on various methods of tying or style of fly but Kelsons opus magnum still remains the most comprehensive work that i have seen.
That link is an interesting read, although i must say i have always thought that Halfords style of exact imitation was damaging to the development of the dry fly, much prefering the works of say Dunne, Marinaro & La Branche.

[compagnito]

yes regarding Halford those following took the dry fly forwards tremendously.

exact imitation possibly is limited to hawthorn and mayfly, of the others I'm not sure there are enough to exactly imitate at present.

I'm not claiming Halford's doctrines are to be adhered to, but rather pointing out the spiteful vitriol which Skues produced.

as regards Sawyer I read recently that his use of copper wire was unique, as to sunk nymphs I'm not too sure. he fished regularly with Charles Ritz who knew continental techniques well, which probably included using metal beads to sink the nymph.