Saved from oblivion, or the twisted fates of witnesses of days gone by

Ocalone from oblivion, or the twisted fates of witnesses of days gone by

      A long, long time ago - I don't even remember the exact year - on some subsequent visit to the apartment of the late Mr. Tadeusz Godzicki, of unforgettable memory, I received as a gift a magnificent handful of artificial flies, whose appearance as well as the stories of Mr. Tadeusz himself confirmed their historical, pre-war origin. For the most part, these were sea trout and salmon flies. There were far fewer of the smaller trout ones, as Mr. Tadeusz tended to prefer trout, hence the small number of them he had left, as the rest were ragged by trout, or remained in the water on numerous hooks. Well, such is the fate of almost every fly! Since Mr. Thaddeus was a rather wealthy person, he could afford „high-end” flies, hence many of them came from reputable British companies such as Hardy Bros, Milward's or Allcock. Besides, this was evident from the „racy” appearance of most of these flies. However, this did not mean that he did not also buy from less reputable, (and therefore cheaper), companies. And how could this be recognized? Well, that some solutions - especially the sea trout ones - had cheap substitute materials used, and most often these were rays of turkey darts or rudders, instead of the racial cover strands from mallards or grouse (Scottish mullet). Well, and not the hooks anymore, not the British shapes.

And so, out of respect for these antiques, I kept them quietly in boxes - and that was my terrible mistake! Those damned moths, which somehow got into the supposedly airtight packages, made a monstrous cut in my collections. In their voraciousness they left mostly almost bare hooks. And they had an exceptional appetite for mallard wings, turkey tasted less to them! What was saved from destruction, I had already packed in airtight string bags and kept in my quasi home museum. But back in February 2012 - yes, „pro memoriam” - I created a dossier for myself on my computer, just because I like to have one. And I did well, because this kind of resource moths will surely not move anymore, and a precious memento of the old days will remain. I've included these scans below, and they are worth looking at.

One more thing, but this is just to the P.T. of all sorts of unbelievers, heiaters, etc. „clingers.” And for those who come to think that this Węglarski is attaching his scans to someone else's collection, I invite you to take a look at my computer, where the date of the following scans stands like a bull in the appropriate place: „2012-02 Feb.” And this is impossible to plot on disk! That's it, for the sake of clarity.

So let's take a look at these scans.

As you can see, there was so much back then, although the moths were not idle here either!.

      Well, and here the story continues: Soon of unlamented memory Andrew Fox, with whom we knew each other well for more than a dozen years, a fanatic and theoretician of fly fishing, which was once not very popular in Krakow, solicited so long until he extracted these flies from me. And that they went into good hands, I was sure of it on 100%! I knew about his large collection of British trout flies, which he „inherited” from a former member of ZO PZW in Krakow, a Krakow fly fisherman Mr. Luba, (as far as I had good information about it). This collection I had the opportunity - as a few - to see. The flies were stored separately in airtight metal quasi-tubes, so they were effectively protected from those damned moths, which did a lot of damage to my fly collection - as has already been mentioned. Even some of our colleagues had a slight grudge against Andrew, because apparently he also used these vintage flies of his during his fly fishing expeditions. I didn't notice such profanity, so I cite the matter as an anecdote.

      Returning to those former flies of mine: Andrew packed them in his own way, incorporating them into the existing collection. Then came the bad days, months and years - full of ailments and illnesses. In the last months of his life, he even began to take an interest in the dozen or so smallest British flies left to me from the gift of Mr. Tadeusz Godzicki. Well, but the galloping disease proved faster... Andrew moved to another world on April 1, 2015. Thus, this remainder of the flies remained with me. On the other hand, this legacy, which colleague Ruszkiewicz managed to obtain from Andrzej's son, is (probably part of it?) found on the forum galeriamuchowa, where one of the sets, was called „Milward collection bow ties” as part of the collection: „Flies from the collection of the late Andrew Fox...1920-1930s”. But for some time now I have been tormented by an intrusive thought: where have those flies gone, which I once scanned, and which - by a twist of fate - ended up first in the good hands of Andrew, and later in turn - Sebastian Ruszkiewicz? I guess they were not lost after all, I hope? And so it came together....

      I recently came to the conviction that it would be worthwhile to show also those wet flies that Andrew did not manage to „pull” from me, (in a positive sense, anyway). So I recently made some scans, which I present below, and added brief comments so that such a presentation would not come off too dry.

Set one:

These are microscopic wet flies (on #18-20 hooks) - probably grayling, though. It's worth reflecting here on the antsy work of their makers, for measly - even then - pence or other pennies. We get to know them well - sequentially - from left:

Black Gnat; Yellow Dun; Red Spinner; August Dun.

March Brown Male; Black Gnat; Red Spinner; M.B.M. - (moth marks).

Set two:

Also miniatures, but only #16 - possibly also trout. Also a testament to the high craftsmanship of their makers.

Here, too - „old friends,” in turn:

Blue Dun; Black Quill; Black Quill; Iron Dun.

Water Cricket; March Brown Male; Yellow May Dun; Partridge and Yellow.

Set three:

Also small flies, only „already” #14 - possibly rather trout.

Here, too - „old friends,” in turn:

Blue Dun; White Moth

August Dun; Yellow Quill; Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear

Now I will show some silk leaders with flies on hooks without eyelets. If I remember correctly, in the second half of the 70's he gave me, a dozen of them, the late Professor Roman Ciesielski - then Rector of the Cracow University of Technology. That's where the moths made the cut! What survived was a small percentage of all those received old-fashioned fly leaders.

 It's worth noting that these are mostly „new”, (because there are no signs of use), although these workmanships date them to at least the first years of the 20th century. How did such relics survive?

Set Four:

Beautiful hooks Limerick #10

Set five:

Beautiful Sneck Hooks #10

Set Six:

Brown Ant (?) on beautiful Sneck hooks #10

Set seven:

And that's March Brown Female on Limerick hooks #14

Set eight:

Here is the original package of wet March Brown on beautiful #14 Sneck hooks. One fly still originally clipped in the company cellophane!

And that would be it, or that much?

And now a few words of more general reflections, so as not to end this boring so abruptly.

      Let's look, once again - but carefully - at how much craftsmanship was put into the flies shown here. How balanced the proportions are there - both in color and construction. How brilliantly handled then was the considerable, (compared to our times), poverty of materials, especially adequately thin but strong leading threads. And let me remind you, in those days only natural silk was available, and how it was handled, we can see, for example, in the construction of the tiny #20 wet Red Spinner (vide - set one).

Now, let's contrast the images of these old jewels, (despite the „molar” damage oftentimes), with the nightmarish synthetic and sloppy sticklers, mistakenly called „artificial flies”, a wide range of which is offered by various companies, firms, portals and portals - with the big one at the top (on the letter „A”- that I will not more accurately „put the product”)! This unbearable mania for using, mostly where one doesn't necessarily need to, synthetic substitutes; it's a curse that spread in earnest at the end of the 20th century! These pseudo-ecological theories about - for example - the covenants to ban hunting altogether, these recent bans even against fishing, (a certain MP also made a silly splash on this subject!), is this supposed to be an explanation for the necessity of widespread use of plastics? And what is most tragic in this is the measureless hypocrisy of the preachers of these supposedly „ecological” slogans, is the measureless gibberish of the „defenders” of various free cows, free hens, or other free nutria! Know the proportions, my lord - Count Fredro once used to say! Well, but since these various screamers are sometimes financed from very suspicious sources, they must dance as they play for them... Do you remember the uproar against the breeding of fur animals in Poland ? Or don't you know who wanted to unleash in Poland this competition, dangerous to their businesses ? Take a little look at the Internet portals, such as MSN. There recently there was a lot about the financing of a certain „ecological” movement by a certain large eastern country....

But, to the point:

With all these fly fishing „novelties”, it happens more or less like my American adventure described below: back in the 1980s, while in the USA, I was very ceremoniously received at a certain respectable Polish-American house. And imagine - the sumptuous dinner was served on disposable plastic plates, and the disposable forks and knives were plastic, too! Just like in an inferior highway bar! Because the hosts (supposedly) did not want to wash the dishes! And the lady of the house came from a pre-war Polish teaching family from Volhynia, where all of them (parents + two sons), having miraculously escaped the pitchforks or axes of the „liberators” of our Borderlands in 1943, finally „landed” in Greenpoint, USA, after a long wandering! And what is the connection with the flies? Well, it's that the grandparents are doing well both in the box of flies and in the home of a distinguished American Polonus. Are you familiar with this?

But I'm finishing now, because I've started to get off the main line of these somewhat nostalgic musings.

Wojciech Węglarski

wwegl@wp.pl

Krakow, February/March 2022