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Title: Bill and Audrey Nelson interview--May 7, 2007
Date: 2007-05-07
Description: Well-known fly fisherman and guide, one of the "fathers" of the Federation of Fly Fishers.
Digital Collection: Fly Fishing Oral Histories
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Fly Fishing Oral History Program
Local Identifier: FFOH_NelsonBill_Audrey_20070507
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Fly Fishing Oral History Program Audrey Nelson ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fai
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Fly Fishing Oral History Program Audrey Nelson ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Bill and Audrey Nelson on May 7, 2007, at their home, in Eugene, Oregon. The interviewer was Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Monday, May 7th, 2007 and I am here with Bill Nelson, and his wife Audrey. We’re going to do an oral history. He did just sign the Informed Consent Agreement. Our first question is: How did you get started fly fishing? BN: My father was a fisherman and he dallied with the fly fishing system. When I got into high school, one of the shop teachers was a fly fisherman and helped me build a vice, that’s when I started tying flies. Then as time went on, my father would take me up and drop me off on a stream on his way to work, and then picked me back up again after work in the evening as I came down the river. TB: Now which river are you talking about? BN: Stillaguamish, and also, the Skykomish, because it was close and had good fish. TB: Pilchuck? BN: Yes, I fished the Pilchuck once in a while and the Snohomish. There were fish in the Snohomish that you could take on a fly. But that’s about it. I didn’t journey to a lot of places when I was still a youngster. Fishing was good in those days. TB: Now what was that shop teacher’s name? BN: His last name was Jones, first name Casey -- Casey Jones. TB: Where did your father work? BN: He had his own business for a while; he was in the tire business, Nelson Tire and Recapping. TB: So he traveled? That’s why he could drop you off at the rivers and you would fish down? BN: Well, no, he’d just drive up there, drop me off and then go back to go to work, and when he was through work, he’d come up and pick me up. Usually, on those forays we’d be fairly close to town anyway, on one of the rivers. Pigeon Creek was another one, Rock Creek; there are others that I just can’t recall all at once. We would pick out a stream and a time and place for him to pick me up. TB: So what was it about fly fishing that attracted you? 1 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BN: Well, mostly to be able to do it. We did a lot of things that were near to where my folks lived on Puget Sound, right on the beach practically. Just out of the Indian Reservation, they were down on the beach. It’s called Tulare Beach and I’d go out and fish in the salt chuck, trying to catch fish. I was tying flies when the war got going and I was still too young to enlist in the service. I sold quite a few flies to Sears, the local Sears store, and they liked them. I got, I think it was twenty cents each for those flies that I tied. Then they sold them, I forget what they sold them for and I didn’t want to look. We had a zoo there and I would go up to the zoo when I was short of feathers of some kind. I’d take some peanuts with me and I could get a peacock to come over, show it to him, and then you’d throw it just a little ways [behind] him and he’d turn around and you could get a [tail] feather. The guy that was up there running that thing decided that he was going to save some skins for me if one of their exotic birds died. Then I’d run around and see who was raising chickens and I’d get some chicken feathers. There was a feather pillow in the house, it was kind of worn out, and the feathers would come out of it and I’d use every one of them. So I just monkey-ed around mostly. But I did catch fish on the fly when I was in high school. Fresh water fishing mostly, but my parents lived on Puget Sound, which is salt water fishing. I’d walk around on the beach and cast for cutthroat or whatever, there’s a lot of things you can catch out there on a fly. Bottom fish, as we called them, mostly cod, and things like that. They would come up and grab it, sometimes, so it was fun to do. Phone rings BN: I went into the Navy right out of high school. TB: Did you fly fish when you were in the Navy? BN: Whenever I had a chance, yes. When I was kind of through with schooling and the war was over, actually, I was at Clearfield, Utah. (I could tell you a crazy story, but I better not). Anyway, we fished on several of the streams down there in Utah, and they were fun. I’ve got some pictures of that someplace. Pretty soon we had about three or four guys that would go with us; I mean that all of us would go together. One of my shipmates was a native of Salt Lake City, which is just south of Clearfield. We had a lot of fun doing things, but we’d also fish a lot. It was like still being in school, you got Saturday and Sunday off. And that’s what we’d do, whenever we got a chance, we’d go fishing when we weren’t working. They have a funny schedule when the war’s over and the Navy’s doing this and that. I was sent off to find a filter for the pool so we could kind of redo the pool. We had a swimming pool there at Clearfield, and I’d use that as an excuse to go hunting for that filter and we’d fish along the way. It was fun to do that; we’d have a jeep, the Navy jeep and go down to Salt Lake City, and try to find out what we could do there. On the way, if we could do something good, well, we’d do it, and get the filter and go back and install it, but on the way we would probably get a few casts in. That was fun. I had a bamboo rod (glass wasn’t really used in those days). I still may have part of those bamboo rods that were made in the years past. You put them in kind of a case and try and save them, and pretty soon you loose track of where they are. But I still have a couple of fishing rods and stuff like that. TB: So you got out of the Navy and then you came back to Everett? BN: Yes, I came back to Everett then. I enrolled right away at Washington State College. It’s called Washington State University now, and that’s where I met Audrey. TB: So you went to school, and what did you study to be? 2 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BN: I was studying things like math. I was thinking of becoming an engineer and I kind of switched and got out with a business education. I felt that it would be great to be an engineer, but the way things worked out was better. TB: So then you after you graduated from college, what did you do? Or how did you get back to Everett? BN: I was still in Everett in the summer time. I went to work at U.S. Rubber Company. That was kind of a strange thing too. I didn’t have a real, full education in business, but had some engineering background in it. I didn’t really graduate, but that was the four years counting the credit I got for the things that I had completed at Montana School of Mines. AN: Bill was stationed at Montana School of Mines (Butte, Montana) where he earned some college credits. He later transferred to Clearfield, Utah. BN: In the V-5 program which is a Naval Aviators training thing. They gave me full credit. They taught us engineering and things of this nature. Also we had Naval Organization, Naval Org they called it, they didn’t give you any college credit for it but it was supposed to be done before you were able to continue with the program. We would have football, baseball, and basketball teams from Montana School of Mines and that was still in the Navy. As soon as I got back, I registered at Washington State University. I had credits that I could use there and that was helpful. I knew a lot of the people at Washington State, and we re-established old friendships and went fly fishing there. TB: So where did you go fly fishing at Pullman? BN: The Grande Ronde. We didn’t really know what we had at that time. We’d go there and go fishing and try to catch a trout. I wasn’t there in the real summer time. The late summer and fall steelhead fishing is just outrageous, it’s so good. We married and settled in the Seattle area. The district manager for U.S. Rubber Company in Seattle came in and grabbed me, says, “We have a desk for you over in the U.S. Rubber Company,” (because my father had been in the tire business). That’s the way I started with the U.S. Rubber Company. It was my first job after leaving WSU. I was an order-clerk (I think is what you would call me). Then I got to be a salesman on the road, and calling on all of the U.S. Rubber Companies’ accounts, in various areas. AN: When you worked for U.S. Rubber, you were only in Seattle a short time (mid-1949-1950). Then he was transferred to Portland first (1950-1953), then Grants Pass (1953-1955), and finally Eugene (19551957). You did a lot of fishing in Oregon. BN: The Sandy River and the Willamette. We’d go down and fish there too, just below the falls. AN: He’d bring home all kinds of big fish. There was a little grocery store across the street that had a freezer, and they would put them in their freezer, and keep them for us and for themselves. You did a lot of fishing there; we were there for two years, in the Portland area. BN: It wasn’t all totally fly fishing there below the falls, but another good thing we’d catch was Jack Salmon, and catch them on the fly better than a spooner could or anybody else. We’d fish with a fly beneath the falls there for quite a long time. Then when it was tough, we’d have a casting rod and pitch it somewhere out there and try to catch some fish there. It could be wonderful fishing there and they’d let us go through the mill and down to the rocks right there at the bottom part of the falls, so I got hooked on that too. AN: You ought to tell them about when you were in Grant’s Pass and Eugene, how you had this little boat on top of [your] vehicle. He just went everywhere – down to the coast and over to Klamath Falls. TB: How did you get involved in the Evergreen Fly Fishing Club? 3 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BN: In 1958 I accepted a job with Armstrong Rubber Company and moved to Lynnwood, Washington (1958-1962). One of my best friends, Lew Bell, was president of the Evergreen Fly Fishing Club and I knew a lot of guys that were in the club because I was raised in Everett. I was living in Lynnwood but I would drive down to the meetings in Everett. There were a lot of nice guys in there. TB: How did you come to know Lew Bell? BN: I went fishing with him a lot and things like that. We just became dear friends; he’s my closest friend ever. We did other things besides fishing; we did potlucks for the club and stuff like that. But that’s a close-knit club; everybody is familiar with everybody else. It was a small enough group you got to know everybody in the club. They’d switch around to have lunch in various places. We’d go to lunch on Fridays, I think it was. Anyway, they’d have a weekly luncheon at the Elk’s Club or someplace else. (My father used to have the tire business right across from the Elk’s Club in Everett). It’s hard to recall those things in sequence. I wish I could do better for you. TB: You’re doing great. So how did you first start talking about forming the Federation of Fly Fishing? BN: We were on the Grande Ronde River, Lew Bell, Dick Denman, Dick Padovan and Dub Price and quite a group went there, it was kind of an exclusive group. At that time that was the best steelhead fishing in the world. We tried to get days off together, so we would all have the same week off, or two weeks off. Rick Miller would go down and fish with us in the Grande Ronde too. And we just started talking about it. We actually started talking about it when I was still up in Lynnwood working for Armstrong Rubber Company. We would have coffee at the Alpine Café (Everett, WA) and there would be about six or eight of us around this table and we’d just start talking about it. We all got together there at least once a week and maybe a couple days in a row, you know if I was around for a little while. We had discussions there when we were having coffee. But most of the planning and the ideas were thrown together up on the Grande Ronde when we were fishing. When we got back, everything was pretty much in our minds. We didn’t get it to a point where we got the Federation of Fly Fishermen through in thought but we all knew exactly, how it would go and where it would go. Then we bought the business in Eugene (1962) and moved here. TB: What business did you buy? BN: Eugene Tire Patch Company. The guy just said, “Well, you’re the only guy I’m going to sell it to and I’m going to make you a good deal. We’ll sell your home up in Lynnwood.” He took the job of selling the house we had in Lynnwood along with letting me buy his business. Then he spent about a month or two following me around. He worked with me for a month anyway. I got used to driving this panel [truck], and then I put some racks on the top. I had a light aluminum boat and I could put it up there on top. Everybody got a kick out of that and so half of my accounts became fisherman. That was fun. When I got down here to Eugene I found out they didn’t even have a fly-fishing club, and I thought, well, we must do something about this, we’re going to get a fly club, so I put an ad in the paper to find guys that would be interested, and we had six guys, I think it was, to begin with, set for the first meeting of people. AN: Oh, you had more than that, you had about a dozen the first night, I think you had about ten or twelve guys. 4 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BN: Yes, okay. Anyway, we formed the McKenzie Fly Fishers. TB: Now, let’s back up a minute, when you guys were talking on the Grande Ronde, what were the things that you thought needed to happen? Why were you interested in forming the federation? BN: Well, we worried about people doing things. We wanted to preserve as much of the water like the Grande Ronde and several other rivers, if we could possibly do it. Then we got to be friendly with people from various other places. I think I took two or three guys from the East Coast fishing here and there and that was when I was still up in Lynnwood. Then my travels around Washington, Oregon, Northern California, and Western Idaho, to sell patches to fix tires and tubes; while I was doing that, I met a whole bunch of different guys that were interested in fly fishing, so I thought, what the heck! We formed a club here and I laid it on them, and they went ahead with it. It was quite an affair really, by the time we got through starting that thing. People came from a long ways away and some of them were well known in those days and it kind of turned all of us on to what we wanted to do, and that was to help preserve fly fishing as a sport. We felt that we were more concerned about the fish than anyone else was, as far as preserving a run of fish in this river or that river. Anyway the whole thing was just a great experience for everybody involved, really. Some of them aren’t with us anymore, but you sure think of them with great respect. Lew Bell was my closest friend, he was an attorney in Everett, and actually, he was asked to serve in the U.S. Senate! He said, “No, I just don’t want to get mixed up with that.” TB: The other thing is why did you feel that there needed to be something beyond Trout Unlimited? I read where Trout Unlimited had formed in the Fifties, and it was geared towards preservation of fishing. BN: Oh, yes, and Martin Bovey who was the president of Trout Unlimited, came to our first meeting in Eugene when we were going to build a Federation of Fly Fishing. TB: So, the Trout Unlimited wasn’t going far enough? BN: No, it was just a different system. End of Side One, Tape One BN: Trout Unlimited was a good organization, don’t get me wrong. Martin Bovey asked for a list of the folks that were going to be in the Federation and then he, in turn, gave one of our members a list of the fellows that he thought would be very interested in the Federation and in the fly fishing system. There was also fly fishing clubs on the East Coast that he gave us information about. Martin Bovey was really good; he gave us a lot of information. We even had guys like Lee Wulff. TB: Now how did you get the idea to ask him? AN: He was a famous guy. Bill wrote to a lot of people that were prominent in that business or that liked to fly fish like… TB: Bing Crosby? AN: … yes like Bing Crosby, and Bill received a really nice letter that we can’t find. TB: I’ve seen a copy of that. AN: I think somebody published it at some time, but I can’t find it, but it was a nice letter of regret, but he had a lot of positives too. 5 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BN: Oh and we flew to Jackson Hole. One of the guys had an airplane, Bill Hilton, who was another close friend, and I’d fish with him a lot. We took four guys all together, including Bill, and went to an outdoor writer’s convention in Jackson Hole. We went around and met a lot of the guys and we got a lot of support out of just that meeting of the outdoors writers. That was one routine we went through, and it worked out very well. Also, we had folks that didn’t really want to belong to something, but yet they thought that our idea as far as conservation and everything like that was concerned was good and they came along and went to it. It wasn’t an easy program having the first conclave. But everybody really pitched in and did the best they could. TB: So you were a new club, that had just been formed, and right away you were trying to have this big conclave, so how did that go over with your club? And did everybody stay with you? BN: Oh, no, in the beginning there were guys that just didn’t think it would go, and they even quit the club, so to speak. But then in the interim period the guys that stayed and talked about it, the next thing you knew we had a run of people that wanted to be in the club and to help with this conclave we were going to put on to form a federation. The word conclave came from me in the fact that when I was going to Washington State, the fraternity went down to Las Vegas. The University of Nevada was going to have a new charter down there, so we went down there and we kind of got everybody else that we could to go to this thing and it worked out really well. It was a conclave they put on there, and that’s where I got the word conclave. TB: The conclave was in 1965. BN: The first one. TB: And I think you had just formed the club in 1964, didn’t you? BN: That’s correct. AN: Yes. TB: So it’s like the first thing your club did was to have this national conclave the next year! AN: It scared the guys. But they were all young and enthusiastic and ambitious, and full of it -- they had confidence. BN: We had the cream of the crop. We had the cream of the crop of everything. AN: The ones that dropped out though, a lot of them came back in, too. BN: Yes, that’s right, after we did the work. But it was a good club too – it was just outstanding as far as I was concerned. But the Evergreen Club is still part of it too, they helped so much. AN: And his friend Lew, who was an attorney; he helped do so much of the work, in that line. He was from Everett and he was a wonderful speaker, too. BN: I think I’ve got a little tape on that someplace, haven’t I? AN: Well, you’ve got all the beginning. TB: Oh, all of those speakers are on tape? BN: Yes, some of them are. 6 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED AN: I don’t know all of them, but some of them are on that Never Name the River? TB: Oh, sure, that’s where the footage came from. BN: Have you seen that? TB: I did; that was invaluable. Tell me a little more about you then, I know you are well known for being a salt-water fly fisherman; you were a guide up in B.C., right? BN: Yes. TB: How did you get into that? BN: Well, I belonged to the McKenzie River Guides Association here, and some of us would go up to B.C. on our vacations to a place called April Point. We were friends with a couple – Marsh and Stephanie Webster – and we shared a cabin at April Point for quite a few years. We’d each take our own boat and have a great time. It was a fantastic setting. We were fly fishing on salt water. Sometimes we would use up about everything. TB: Now that was kind of a new thing, wasn’t it? BN: I think so, yes. But we’d wade along the inside edge of the kelp, and cast ahead of us, and try and catch fish that way, and we did! It was amazing how many fish are inside the kelp and nobody can go in there and troll for them. We’d fish the mouths of the rivers in the fall, and just fly fish it, and it was just absolutely outstanding. I met a guy, his name was Bob Hurst, and he was with the Canada Fisheries, in the area there at Parksville. That’s south of where we were on Quadra Island. We got to be good friends. Then we started trying to use flies and by golly we sure did use them, and they worked out pretty good. Two or three fly fishermen in the fisheries and then there were guys that were just fly-tiers and they started tying salt water flies. Short Break TB: Now which fly is this? BN: I guess you’d call that The Mrs. Nelson. But this is a better example that kind of does the work, there, that’s a herring. Then they come out in different sizes. TB: Now how did you happen to name this Mrs. Nelson? How’s it like to have a fly named after you? AN: It’s great, it has a great story. BN: I was fishing with a guy from South Africa, William Vander Byl, who came to the lodge, and he was kind of excited about casting for salmon in the salt chuck. We took him down to the south end of the island and he’d cast and catch fish here and there, and he did really well, in comparison to some of the people that we were trying to help catch fish. We were coming back from the south edge of the island and we had two or three fish that he caught. He lost a few fish and then he had very few strikes down there. I had a net float on my console (I had a compass in there but then the compass went haywire and the hole that held the compass was just right to hold the net float). When I wasn’t using the flies I’d put them in this net float. And he said, “What’s that fly there in that net float?” 7 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED And I said, “Well, that’s a fly I tied for my wife.” He said, “I sure like the looks of it.” And I said, “Well, I think it’s a good one, I like it.” And he said, “I’d just love to try it. Do you suppose that your wife would mind if I tried it?” And I said, “No, she’d be delighted.” So we put in at Quathiaski Cove and the second cast he hooked a nice Coho that was swimming around in there and we got him in, and released it. (He was a good releaser he couldn’t take fish back to South Africa anyway). He kept casting and about every other cast, he’d hook another fish on the fly. He was all excited. I’d left it (the fly) on the rod (he was going to go out again the next day). He went back into the lodge for lunch. (I didn’t eat in the lodge because I thought it was too expensive and I went home for lunch). While I was at home, why he sat down at the table where there were several guides and other guests, and he started talking about Mrs. Nelson’s fly. The guides and the guests went down to the boat to look at it, and he said, “That’s it right there, that’s Mrs. Nelson’s fly.” The people that went down to look at it, they picked it up and brought it back to the lunch table and talked about it, called it the Mrs. Nelson. And it’s been “The Mrs. Nelson” ever since that. I was going to explain to you that there are a few things that are different. I tie a lot of Mrs. Nelsons because it is a very good fly. Here’s a reasonable example of the Mrs. Nelson fly. It generally has a good eye, and here’s another one, bigger. I got the idea, and maybe it’s right or maybe it’s wrong, but it seemed to work for me, that you want to match the size of the bait more than you do any other part of it. Some guys just put a great big one on and it scares the rest of the bait away. But the one that’s the same size as the bait that’s in there generally doesn’t seem to bother them. So I go from this to this, and all the way in between. TB: Wow, so these are all Mrs. Nelson’s over here (referring to some flies)? BN: Yes; and then there’s another one, you know what a candle fish is? TB: I don’t. BN: Well, it’s a very thin, minnow type thing, and people call them candle fish or needle fish. Up there in Canada, they call them needle fish, because they’re thin and long. The candle fish have enough oil in them that Eskimos can dry them and light them and they’ll work -- they have that much oil in them. At least that’s the story I get, I never tried it myself. But here’s an imitation of a candle fish, they’re darker on the back and they have a green and a pink in the sides. TB: Wow! Now did we really settle how it was that you started going up there to Quadra Island? How did you decide to retire and become a guide up there? BN: Well, we went up there many times. The guide whose family owned the lodge would come around and we’d talk to him. I was out on the dock, there, casting for perch, really, and we got pretty well acquainted. He even came down to visit us once when we were still living in the States. The Websters and the Nelsons would have a standing reservation for a cabin a certain time of the year (the first week in September). It was a big time. We’d go up there and fish and got to know quite a few people that were of course at the lodge there, and the guides. We were fishing with flies, and the guides would get a pretty big kick out of that, especially a guy named Rob Bell-Irving. He was one of the fine, fine guides. His father was Lieutenant Governor of B.C. and the background of his family was mostly medical people, but we became fast friends. He gave me the idea about keeping the boat running, and run the fish and the fly behind the boat. Up to that time we had really only cast. Then we started having so much fun doing that that it was just great fun for us. The lodge owners actually gave me an invitation to come and build a house there or lease something, but we’d already gone on the main island, Vancouver Island, with the Websters and bought a piece of property, because they were going to retire too. Warren Peterson, who was the head person there at the lodge, said, 8 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED “Oh, gosh, don’t go there, come over here, you’ll like it, and we’ll lease you a piece of property to build a house on.” The lease was very reasonable, as far as I was concerned, so we talked the Websters into that too. I went out and built the first house, in this little cove, and then the next year the Websters retired, and they built a home there. The two of us settled in behind this cute little island, like you saw in the picture there. It was just like it was all supposed to happen. Then I became a guide there (1978). I was guiding while we were building the house too. It was kind of a fun thing to do, and it helped take care of a lot of our expenses. It was just a great idea, and a great thing that I enjoyed very much. It was just a part of my life that I’ll always remember. It was fun to be there. TB: Now, were there some celebrities that came up there to go fly fishing? BN: Oh yes. TB: Anybody special that you might have guided? BN: Well, let’s see, actually, I guided Julie Andrews and John Wayne. Her husband had a yacht, and I only had her one day and then we found a girl guide. That’s a little tough out in the boat when we were going out for a long time, but it was fun. She’d come up and fish for a month sometimes, stayed there. One time they were taking the yacht out and two of the guides that were very familiar with her because they were kind of the back up boat for this girl guide, and as her husband’s yacht went by the dock, one of the guides wearing his clothes, ran down the ramp, and jumped off the end of the dock, singing, “The hills are alive…” It was funnier than heck, it was kind of at lunch time, and we were up there and I thought I’d fall down laughing. You remember that? AN: No, I was home. TB: And John Wayne came up there? BN: Yes, he did. I only guided him a few times up there, but we hit it off pretty well. He had his yacht parked in the dock area there. And one time I dropped somebody else off, and I was going back and he was sitting on the fantail of his boat (it was a converted torpedo boat, that’s what his yacht was). And he says, “Hey Bill! I’ve got a problem here.” And I said, “What’s up?” And he says, “Well, I’ll show you.” I climbed the ladder, got back to the fantail there and there was another chair, and I was standing there, and he says, “You see that bottle over there? I’ve been working on that for two hours, and I only got it down that far. Now I need some help.” So I had to sit and have a drink with him…and that was fun. Now where am I? Ted Williams, did you know who Ted Williams was? TB: That’s a baseball player right? BN: Yes. That’s a picture of him there on the console and then Norman Schwarzkopf. I have nice letters from him (we kind of lost track as far as keeping in communication). AN: Bill, you should remind her you were a senior guide. There were only two of you, and Warren, the owner of the lodge, that was in your age group, which was fifty when he moved up there. The rest of them were all young kids, they were in their twenties and a few, a very few in their thirties, I think. They were young, Bill was an old guy. But he taught a lot too. The owner up there had Bill give classes to the guides on deportment, and what do you do if you don’t catch any fish, and all these different things -- look at the eagles and this and that. He knew all this other stuff. He provided entertainment out there on the water; it’s not just all fishing. TB: Oh, yes, very cool. Wow! (looking at photo) BN: That’s Norman Schwarzkopf and that’s his son, Christian. 9 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: And that’s you? BN: Yes. And see what Christian is holding in his hand? It’s a sling-shot. I kept the sling-shot on the boat and a can of marbles. And if the seals or sea lions became too aggressive (they would come in and grab a fish while you had it on), why you could kind of drive them off with a slingshot. That kid kept the seals off of that -- that was twenty-eight and a half pounds. Norman caught that fish on a number six fly rod, and that’s Audrey’s fly rod. AN: My fly too. I took it away from Bill right when he came in from that excursion; I put that fly and hid it so he’d never use it again. Bill gave both Norman and his son Chris a copy of the fly as a keepsake. TB: Is that what’s framed here then? AN: Yes. TB: Nice! Very cool! AN: At that time Norman was so famous it was just right after the war. He had security all over the place, flying around. TB: Oh that’s right, 1993 was after you had retired. BN: Yes, we had moved back here. We had a camper and took it to B.C. to fish and to see his old friends. End of Side Two, Tape One TB: So why don’t you tell me about taking Norman Schwarzkopf fly fishing? BN: Didn’t I tell you how they got in there and everything? TB: Well, we weren’t on tape, though. BN: Oh I see, okay. I think Ted Williams talked to Norman. They were up in that area and I’d been guiding Ted Williams a bit and he knew we were up there on a vacation. And so they got on the radio at the lodge and called me to stop, they wanted to talk to me. There was some concern about something happening to Norman, so they didn’t talk about him on the radio or anything. When I got to the lodge, why, they asked me if I would take time to guide Norman Schwarzkopf, and I said, “Well, I sure will.” So I said the tide is right at ten o’clock, and we should get on the water before ten, if we can. He was going to be in the following day so I was supposed to pick him up. He was going to be there by ten and we’d take off. I had to make sure they had everything they needed. But the chopper was late coming in. The guides would walk by me and they’d say, “Hey, what are you doing? That’s the second time you’ve washed that boat!” I said, “Well, I have to do something here, I’m waiting for a guy.” And they said, “Well, do you want us to help you?” “No,” I said, “I kind of want to stay here and keep track of it.” (I’m just washing the boat to make people think I’m busy). They got quite a kick out of that. Those guides were just wonderful at April Point. I still hear from quite a few of them. Two, three of them have their own lodges now, up on Vancouver Island, the north end of the island. We hear from them, we get Christmas cards exchanged. There are a couple of them that moved to New Zealand, we hear from then now and then. Anyway, I don’t know how I got off on that tangent. TB: Back to Schwarzkopf. 10 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BN: Okay, we’re back to Norman now. He came in on a chopper with his son and another guy that wasn’t there to fish. They took the chopper back out of there after that and took it someplace else. In a little while, here comes an Otter (DeHavilland Twin Otter two-engined) floatplane, and it pulls up by the dock. I can’t remember how many there were, at least five, maybe six guys get out of there. They had vests and sport coats, and they got off that Otter, and you could see the bulge because I know they had arms to protect in case something happened. They were the people that were going to take care of the security. They kind of grilled me and then they said, “You’re not to mention his name.” And I said, “Well, I’ll just say, the position and this is Kisser One.” The name of my boat was Kisser One. (Stan Stanton named it; he said, “That boat just kisses the water.” It was his first look at a Boston Whaler, and he says, “That’s just fine.” We were talking on his radio and mine, and it just ended up with Kisser One. It was kind of funny too.) When I took off from the dock, I would say, “Kisser One, now leaving the dock, all free and clear here,” so that they knew where I was. If there was any problem at all, they had a boat there to come. “Kisser One, south end of the island, we’re going to go out.” “Kisser One to the south end of the Marina” (that’s another island). So we went across and went to another island. We caught fish at the south end of Quadra Island, four or five of them, and released them. He was great for releasing and so was his son Christian. We went back over to Marina (we had to get him back in by four, he said) and we were over there and we were catching Coho here and there. There was a big rock pile and you had to know where the rocks were before you drove in there, and I kind of mapped it in my mind so I could drive through. There was a little kelp bed and we were releasing a fish and I looked up, and there was a big fin and tail that had come to the surface and went back down again. It was big! So, I said, “I know you want to get back, but let’s take one more shot, I saw a good rise over here. I was quite impressed with the size of the fish.” So we went by there, and he got his fly on the surface and was kind of making it move a little bit and it went right through the place where that fish had come up. And it came up, and came down on that fly just like a mako shark! It didn’t really do much for a little bit there, and then all of a sudden the fish decided, I’m not going to have anymore of this, and it takes off. Man oh man, I knew then that we had that big one. One of the other guides was in another boat and saw us over there and he tried to cut in front of the seals (when you see a fish in trouble why those seals are coming). He cut in between the seals and the fish and kind of scared them away a bit, which was a great move on his part. Norman’s son Christian was up there, I gave him the slingshot and a can of marbles, and he was good with it. I thought he hit one seal right in the middle of the head, but I don’t know for sure, I was doing a lot of other things. But he was coming so close to those seals that I think he just kept them away. He didn’t hurt any of them, I don’t think, but between the other guide running across, we got that fish up on the boat. Norman says, “Well, let’s release it.” I said, “No way! We release it guess whose going to get eaten? That fish will be eaten by seals, and I just as soon not turn it over to them. Let’s just bring it back into the lodge and get an ink print made direct from the fish (not with a camera), so that you have an idea how big it was.” It was a big fish (Chinook), caught on a number six fly rod, Audrey’s number six fly rod. Schwarzkopf just did a wonderful job playing that fish. He was a good fisherman, and I think his son, Christian, just did a wonderful job too with that slingshot. They both did well, on every fish that we hooked. TB: So it was just the three of you out on the boat? None of the security detail actually came out on the boat with you? BN: No, they had a different boat. If they thought we were in trouble in any way, why they’d come swinging around there. But they stayed half way down the island. They were in radio contact with us, and it worked out fine. I said, “Kisser One, I’m having a little trouble with a fish here, trying to get it close to the boat.” Of course that worked for them, but when they saw that fish, then they smiled and waved. 11 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Any other of your own personal stories of a great fish you caught, or any other great fishing story? AN: You rowed for Tyee, or somebody rowed you because they wanted you to catch a Tyee, and you did. Everybody has to do that, or give it a try, you know. Tyee are great big, fat fish and somebody has to row a boat – no motors. BN: When they are 30 pounds or better they’re a Tyee. You can’t use a motor with them or anything; you have to row the boat. You can’t use bait so we threw out a fly. TB: And where was this? BN: This was right out in front of Painter’s Lodge on Vancouver Island, it’s right across from April Point, just about a mile and a half, across the passage. One of the guides there that I was friends with rowed me for a Tyee and I got a Tyee pin (maybe I’d better show you that). Anyway, took it on a fly, and it was quite good. It was a lot heavier rod than Norman had, a heavy weight, I think it was a number ten. We were going to catch a big fish. It’s quite a thing to be in the Tyee Club. AN: It’s an annual event up there, every season they have a big rowing contest, well, it’s not really a contest, men go out and they have just a whole bunch of rowers out there trying to get these big fish and see who can get the biggest fish. BN: That’s kind of at the mouth of the Campbell River, itself. They say it was great fun to live there. TB: Then you came back to Eugene in 1989. You must have rejoined the McKenzie Fly Fishers. Do you want to tell me a little bit about what you’ve been doing since 1989? And especially I want to know about your Lapis Lazuli Award. AN: Well they only give one of those every year. I don’t know how long they’ve been giving those, actually. Not every year since it started. It’s one of the nicest awards given at the conclaves. BN: Well, I think they gave that to me in 1990. My guides and I started a fly club up in Canada. TB: Oh, up in Canada too! BN: The April Point Fly Fishing Club. AN: They didn’t have anything to do with that award, though, honey, by the time you came here … BN: Well, what I’m driving for is because I kind of got three clubs started and whatever else, they decided they were going to make an award, so that’s how it got there. AN: I think you were Master of Ceremonies for that event weren’t you? BN: I think so, yes. TB: For the 1990 Conclave in Eugene? BN: Yes. TB: It’s hard to get you to brag about yourself! The three clubs you started were: the McKenzie Fly Fishers, the one up in Canada (April Point Fly Fishing Club), what is the third club? BN: I was instrumental in helping the Klamath Country Fly Fishing Club. They recognized us, so I’m an honorary member, and then the same thing at Reedsport -- the Reedsport Club. 12 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Well, how about Lew Bell? What were some of his great accomplishments? You can’t tell me his story, but what do you think are significant things I should know about Lew Bell? BN: I miss him! He was a great conservationist, a good fisherman, and a wonderful friend! I think, individually, he did as much for other people as anyone I’ve ever known, and an attorney at that! You don’t think attorneys are going to be that great, but he was, he was the greatest. He sent me a couple of things, you know. (To Audrey) -- go get one of those glasses, would you, with a fly in it? Oh, here it is! He sent me this set of [glasses]. AN: Oh, that’s why you won’t let me throw them away! They’re all beat up. I almost threw them out. BN: Well it’s kind of that Lew gave them to me. And then there’s Dick Padovan. TB: Yes, so tell me about him. BN: Well, he’s been on the Grande Ronde with us and been a very fine friend also. He was a banker, a manager of a bank in Everett, and you wouldn’t think that those attributes that he has, of kindness and straight-forwardness with his friends would come from a guy that has been in the bank business! Anyway, he’s still up there, he lives on Puget Sound, and we phone each other pretty often. He’s a good friend. TB: What about Walt Johnson? You’ve got his flies over there. BN: Yes, Walt Johnson, yes, I knew him quite well, took me a minute for my brain to wake up. He tied some flies and sent them to Audrey and me that she used for pins, you know, they’re just gorgeous. He’s one of the great fly tiers of all time, as far as I’m concerned, and he lived right on the Stilly in his later life. I imagine Jack Hutchinson had a few things to say about Walt. TB: He’s mentioned his name. Did you know Ralph Wahl? You’ve got his flies up there. BN: Yes, quite well. TB: Did you ever go fishing up at Deer Creek? Or that was probably already gone by the time you were fishing? BN: No, I fished there, a lot of guys just had a summer home right there, right where Deer Creek comes in to the Stilly and Lew and I would fish it. Gosh I started thinking about that now. Things are just flooding down into my mind here about being with Lew on the river. One time he handed me his rod, I had reeled mine in and he wanted to light a cigarette, so he handed me his rod. He had already cast it, and I just kind of made a little move like this (demonstrating), made the fly move a little bit, and a steelhead took it. And I handed him my rod, and he says “Oh, no, you can’t get away with that!” He says, “You’re just trying to make me feel bad.” So I handed him the rod with the fish on it, and he says “No way! No way!” He’s just something else, just wonderful to be with. AN: Gordy Swanson. You fish with him a lot too, didn’t you? Or did you? BN: We all went to Davis Lake; more people went to Davis Lake than I think were on the Stilly. The whole club would come down and we’d fish at Davis Lake. AN: The two clubs would go and hold an annual thing, I think, maybe they still do. BN: Well they do it on the rivers now, they have a steelhead outing. What we started was a Davis Lake thing and the guys would bring their whole family, and camp there. Then we just had great things happen. We’d have frog races. 13 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Frog races! BN: Yes, there were a couple of kids, one of the kids, I think Gordy Swanson’s son, would go and catch frogs. There are frogs all around in the reeds at Davis Lake and then we would have frog races. Monty Rounds was there, he became our frog master, or whatever you want to call him, so that was for McKenzie, and then the Evergreen had somebody else going this way, we’d have two or three frogs on the same eating table, you know, with the benches on it, and they’d put a little stick at one end there and they would start them behind the stick. Monty was our frog keeper and he’d get his mouth full of gin (only he wouldn’t let anybody know anything), and he could go like that with his teeth (demonstrating), and the minute he set the frog down and then says, “Go”, why he’d (demonstrating) and the frog would just jump!. We won more frog races with gin than we did with the regular training, it was wild! I don’t understand how we could have so much fun, having frog races, but we did, it was fun. TB: Okay, well, anything else I haven’t asked you that you’d like to make sure we get on the record. BN: I can’t figure out where we are now, let’s see. Lee Wulff was a lot of help in doing the Federation stuff; he just was a wonderful guy. He stayed with us in Eugene a few times when it had nothing to do with the Federation or anything else. I took him fishing on the Alsea for cutthroat. The way I caught cutthroat there was I would pitch in underneath the brush and stuff and try to get one to come out of there, I thought they were hiding in there all the time, but Lee, he knew what was going on, and he out-fished me about eight to one. He’d even use my fly, and he’d fish the various places he thought the fish were and he had a propensity for knowing that. Did you know that he wrote a book about wading? TB: No. BN: Yes, wading on the rivers. We were fishing on the Grande Ronde and Lew would go down this one point where the water would turn and churn and he’d get out of the water and go back up again because he couldn’t get across the other side there. He’d go back up again to get across the other side and then he’d fish the other side of the river. Lee was backing up to get back up, and he waded the river. He was serious, he wasn’t fooling anybody when he said this is how you are supposed to wade, and he did it, he waded. He did a wonderful job of wading. He was a good guy too, he wasn’t pulling anybody’s leg or anything -- he just was a good guy. TB: He still has some kind of line of I think. BN: Yes, he’s got a company his wife runs and they sell rods and different things and they ship it everywhere. My son visited there, and he had a fly rod that I got for some reason or another, it was awarded to me, remember that rod, that little bamboo rod? AN: Yes. He died a long time ago (1991). His wife married another fellow then later and she’s still teaching fly fishing and things like that. BN: He was getting a recheck on his pilot’s license, and something went wrong with the airplane and it crashed. He was killed. I was awarded a Lee Wulff designed rod, and it was Lee Wulff by Lee Wulff and I gave it to my son. He has a friend that’s a wholesale salesman for fishing tackle, and he said that this is the original Lee Wulff rod. AN: Craig (our son) just happened to bring out that rod to show him and he said, “Oh, you’ve seen this?” The guy almost fainted because it was a real Lee Wulff original. That’s kind of nice. BN: The wholesale tackle salesman told him it’s worth about five thousand dollars now. So, you know, that’s kind of scary. I don’t think Craig uses it anymore. 14 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED AN: He probably doesn’t! He’s probably got it on display. TB: Why don’t you tell me a little bit about how you see the future of fly fishing? BN: Well, I think it’s gaining and I think there’s more people concerned about being able to fly fish than any other thing. I mean there are guides now that live off of fly fishing. TB: But is that hurting the sport? BN: No, I don’t think so. I think if anything, it helps it and most of the guys that I know that guide are very happy to release the fish. We’ve made a tool to be able to release those fish. Should I show her that? AN: Sure, yes, that would be good. TB: Wait, not right now, lets finish the tape part of the interview. I’ve heard some people not being happy with the current etiquette, feeling like there’s getting to be too many people and some of them are pretty rude. AN: I think in all sports and all of society, it’s just much more casual and not very nice sometimes. BN: Well, I know Gordy Swanson says, “It’s too political, the Federation’s getting too political.” There are too many guys that just want to run for office or something. I agree with him, to some extent, but I don’t agree totally. He’s got a good mind and he’s a good guy and everybody isn’t going to be as good as he is, and he’s got to figure that out. End of Side One, Tape Two BN: Gordy has property up on the Stilly. When we have an outing there he just takes care of everybody and does a great job. We have a McKenzie Cup; the McKenzie Cup goes between the two clubs, between the McKenzie Fly Fishers and the Evergreen Fly Fishers. Whoever catches the biggest fish, or I think it’s the biggest steelhead; they get to take the trophy home. I think the Everett guys have really done awfully well and have retained their possession of that trophy. Sometimes we get some pretty good guys here too, don’t get me wrong, there’s some awfully good guys here, good fisherman. Of course that’s not all there is in life, there’s more to association with people that you respect and like and they are easier to find in the fly clubs than they are anywhere else in the country. It seems like these people that are in a fly fishing club have more ability to be semi-polite. You very seldom hear bad language with the guys that are fly fisherman, I’m not sure, but they may be hoping The Lord will forgive them. If they pay attention it comes out that way. It just seems to be that way. I’ve gone to church for a long time and I believe in the Christian way of life, and I try to keep my language reasonable, and some guys, they just, man, it embarrasses me. I didn’t use to be that like before I went to college and was in the Navy, why I heard some strange speaking and I think I responded (but I’m not positive) in some way. There are some good guys in the Navy too, but in the fly club, you’ll find an awful lot of them. There’s something that turns them on to fly fishing, and I think it has something to do with character. It’s hard to find a real jerk in the fly clubs. Most of them are really good people, and its fun to know them. You don’t just talk about fly fishing every moment, you have some other conversations. We hope that we get enough guys with the right attitudes that will be able to present ourselves to other organizations to help save, what we consider to be a wonderful resource, and that’s the fish and the sport. We’re getting to the point now where you have to buy so many licenses and do so many strange things -- like if you want to go crabbing when you’re down there on the bay; you have to have a license for that. And if you want to take … I’m going to get this so I can show you. 15 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED I’ve gotten to a point where I stuff my licenses into one thing here, and I’ll take them out for you, it’s amazing what’s here. That kind of bothers me but if it’s going to save the sport, why then that’s great! I’ll just read them off to you here. Now this is a boating card, and it says “has successfully completed the boating safety course, which meets the standards set by the Natural Association of State Boating Law Administrators.” I have to keep that with me. And here’s a shellfish license so you can get things like clams and crabs, when you’re down there fishing in the salt chuck. Senior citizen permanent license number, hunting/angling license, that’s all well and good, but by the time you’re through adding the other things on here, the cost of this punch card, you think that you’re saving something by being a senior citizen, let’s hope that we are sometime -- no charge down at the bottom, no charge, so you’re getting the hunting and fishing license basically for being an old guy. And all these things, you know, it’s a darn nuisance -because we are tested. Now this has something to do with the guiding, but pretty soon you wonder what’s going to happen. You carry all of this so you’ll be able to fish. I hope it helps them but I wonder how helpful some of this stuff is. I hope it helps all of the agencies that do take care of the fish. And watch out for real bubble heads out there in the water. Anyway, I thought we’d bring that in. Well let’s see, what else can I confuse you with? TB: No, no, I think that’s good. Maybe the only other thing I have a question about is you said you went fishing in New Zealand. Where else have you gone that’s kind of exotic? Have you been to Christmas Island? BN: Yes, I’ve been to Christmas Island several times and also to Mexico, Belize, and to Los Rogues. That’s an island just north of Venezuela. It’s kind of fun to go there and see it. Bone fish is the big thing there. I’ve also fished in Argentina at the south end where the rivers run into the sea. I flew down there with Marty Rathje a long time ago. AN: And Alaska. You’ve been to Alaska several times. I remember fishing “Yes Bay” near Anchorage with a group of friends. BN: Oh yes, we go to Alaska and British Columbia. In fact, every fall for many years, I think back twenty years that we’d go to Tofino, B.C. and there’d be, Dick Padovan and let’s see … John Fabian went with us once. My son and grandson went with us a couple times and others. It was a wonderful group. TB: Well, I think that’s it for my questions. Then maybe you can also show me the release tool. BN: Oh the release tool, yes! AN: You should demonstrate how that works. BN: Oh yes, I’ve got a demonstrator too. TB: Okay. End of Recording 16 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 17 Bill and Audrey Nelson Edited Transcript – May 7, 2007 Fly Fishing Collection ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Title: Denise Maxwell interview--August 11, 2011
Date: 2011-08-11
Description: Avid fly fisher and steelhead guide (Bulkley River, BC). She has been a world champion distance and accuracy fly caster.
Digital Collection: Fly Fishing Oral Histories
Type of resource: text
Object custodian: Special Collections
Related Collection: Fly Fishing Oral History Program
Local Identifier: FFOH_MaxwellDenise_20110810
Text preview (might not show all results): Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections Fly Fishing Oral History Program Denise Maxwell ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fa
Show moreWestern Washington University Libraries Special Collections Fly Fishing Oral History Program Denise Maxwell ATTENTION: © Copyright Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. "Fair use" criteria of Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976 must be followed. The following materials can be used for educational and other noncommercial purposes without the written permission of Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. These materials are not to be used for resale or commercial purposes without written authorization from Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. All materials cited must be attributed to Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections. This interview was conducted with Denise Maxwell, on August 10, 2011, in Special Collections, WWU Libraries, in Bellingham, Washington. The interviewers are Danny Beatty and Tamara Belts. TB: Today is Wednesday, August 10, 2011. My name is Tamara Belts. I am here with Danny Beatty and Denise Maxwell. She did just sign the informed consent agreement, and we are going to do an oral history. Danny usually kind of leads on this, and then I ask things or try to make notes of what we might want to get better spelling on or whatever. So, here we go. DB: Denise, thank you for doing the interview and certainly for coming to Bellingham. That’s great that we have a chance to interview you here right at the collection. So what we’d like you to do is start with your earliest fishing experience and then work up to, maybe it wasn’t even fly fishing, but work up through the fly fishing, and we have some other things we certainly want to touch on. DM: Okay. Well you are right. It wasn’t fly fishing at first. When I was a kid, I was born in Saskatchewan, which is the middle prairie province, and we had a lake cottage, and we’d go up there on weekends and you know summer vacation, all that. And my dad would go fishing, not all the time but occasionally during the summer, out there rowing around, trolling a spoon, and he took me, I can remember maybe less than six times with him, and I was really happy. The first time I went out there with him, of course he’s trying to be a good dad, so I caught all the fish. So he was busy taking all the fish off my hook, and this went on for, you know, we were fishing for pickerel and jacks, and all that. He took me a couple more times after that, and then I think he decided that he wasn’t getting in any fishing, and I think he did go fishing to get away from the kids and the wife and all that, so I was quite disappointed. But my favorite lure was the red and white spinner, you know, the red and white squiggly one. So I have fond memories of that. And after that, I really can’t remember doing any fishing at all until after I’d got married. My husband Mike was a consulting structural engineer, and he had just come back to fly fishing, probably as a means of stress relief and all that. He’d fished as a kid. DB: Had you moved to Vancouver by then? DM: No, this was in Calgary, Alberta. And you know, being newly married, you expect your husband to come home after work, and it was like well he’s going fishing, so after a few times I thought, well, the Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 1 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED heck with this. I said, well, I like fishing. So the first few times I sort of just went out there and sat in the car or did whatever. DB: Now, was this fly fishing that Mike was doing? DM: Yes, it was fly fishing. DB: And were you on the Bow--? DM: On the Bow River, south of Calgary—a place called the Tree Farm. I don’t know if it’s still there. It was a piece of property owned by one of his business associates. So, he tried to teach me, which as you know it doesn’t really work when a husband tries to teach a wife anything. We persevered for a little while, then decided that we were going to go down to West Yellowstone. My husband had read about the Fenwick Fly Fishing School, which was just south of West Yellowstone, on the road to Idaho Falls. So we went down there, signed up for a course, and both of us signed up. At the time, it was run by Frank and Gladys Gray. DB: And this was approximately what year? DM: This is probably the early 70s. And running around in the background were Tim Rajeff and Steve Rajeff, at the Fenwick Fly Fishing School. So very successful, I learned a lot. I came out a really good caster. We kept going down to West Yellowstone. We’d go down and get a guide and go fishing on the Madison or Henry’s Fork or wherever; so really fond memories of West Yellowstone, fishing down there. I think it was probably a couple years later, we signed up for another fly fishing school, Fenwick Fly Fishing School, but this one was in Northern California. It was there that I learned how to double haul, so milestones in the casting. TB: Maybe could you just describe what double haul is. DM: Double haul is a technique that allows you to cast more line. What you do by pulling, essentially, is you give the line, line speed, and then you can then get more distance. TB: And so you are still doing traditional fly fishing. DM: Still traditional fly fishing. DB: You’re still single-handed. DM: Yes. I was single-handed for quite a few years. I think Mel Krieger was involved in that. So, it was about the same time that we started to go steelhead fishing. We are still in Calgary, started to go steelhead fishing on the Kispiox River. There was a group of Calgary anglers who would go there every year. And a friend of ours, Harry Honer, took us out there. We stayed in the cabins, Olga Walker’s cabins, on the Kispiox, uninsulated cabins, and fished the Kispiox River, mainly with shooting heads, so you needed that double haul. Continued going up there for quite a few years. Caught my first steelhead the first year, it took me a few days. We’d go up for a week at a time, and I think it was probably the Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 2 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED fourth or the fifth day before I caught a steelhead. Our friend Harry was so excited when I caught my fish, he comes running down the bank with his camera, trips over the biggest rock, you could not miss this rock, he trips over this rock, camera goes into the water, but landed the fish; so lots of really good memories out there. DB: And still one, single-handed. DM: Still single-handed, and it was probably just a few years later that Mike started to get into doublehanded rods. DB: Now had he used them in England? DM: He had used them in England when he was a child. DB: So he had some background. DM: His dad was in the military, so they moved around a lot, and he remembered going fishing with the local blacksmith, who was using a double-handed rod. So, one of the reasons that he started going into double-handed rods was because he had arthritis. So he figured that this would alleviate or help with some of the pain, which it did. But at that time, there was nobody who knew anything about doublehanded rods in North America. DB: Now you’re at what year, approximately? DM: Probably, probably in the late 70s. DB: Okay. Had you moved to Vancouver yet? DM: Not yet. He was still— DB: Okay. When you say that, are you familiar with the name John Lynde, from Trail, BC? DM: Yes, I am. DB: He was double-handing. DM: Yes. He was a Brit though. He was British. So he knew what it was all about. In the fishing industry, none of the manufacturers knew anything about it— DB: Oh, okay. But he and his wife— DM: Yes. They did the casting ballet. DB: Did you see it? Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 3 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DM: I saw, yes, I did. I’m glad you brought him up. DB: I wonder if anybody has a film of that. I’ve asked around. That would be so neat to have in the archives somewhere. DM: But if you remember back at those times, there was very little video and film making going on. DB: I know, I know. DM: But I did see it once. They would stand, one would stand here and one would stand--and they would sort of cast with the double-handed rods— DB: They had classical music that they cast— TB: Well Joan Wulff did that too. DM: Yes. DB: It was a beautiful sight. DM: Yes, it was. I didn’t see that at that time. I saw it quite a few years later. I think it was in Kamloops I saw it. DB: Yes. That’s where I saw it. DM: That was really good. I’m glad you brought that up. DB: Okay, moving ahead. DM: Yes, just to clarify. None of the manufacturers and nobody in the industry really knew, unless they were British, and I believe he was casting with the old bamboo or Greenheart rods. So, what happened then was that Mike was talking to Jim Green, and Jim Green produced some of the first graphite twohanders. DB: He was with Fenwick then, wasn’t he? DM: He was with Fenwick. DB: Yes, he eventually went to Sage, but at that time he was Fenwick. DM: If I remember correctly, he made three blanks. One went to the Mike, one went to the Duke of Westminster, and the other went to somebody in France. So that was the early beginnings of the twohanded rods. Oh, let’s see where we are, we moved to Vancouver in 1981. We had a little company, a little fly fishing company in Calgary, but we moved to Vancouver and we started teaching a lot. Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 4 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DB: Is that when you started Gold-N-West, in Vancouver, or had you already--? DM: We’d already started in Calgary but hadn’t done a lot. We had done some teaching in Calgary, but when we got to Vancouver we started doing a lot more teaching, fly casting courses, fly fishing courses. DB: Backing up a little bit and then bring it into your teaching, you talked a lot about when you went to these schools, early schools, near West Yellowstone, and then you went to one in California, and you focused on casting. It seemed that the instructors were focusing on casting. I’d like you to illuminate why that’s so important in fly fishing. Why the casting is so important if you’re going to be a decent fly fisher. DM: Well if you want to go fly fishing, in fly fishing the weight that you’re casting is in the fly line. If you’re spin casting or lure casting, whatever, the weight is on the end of the line, and essentially all you have to do is get going and the weight will take it out. In fly casting, if you look at that fly line, it is just like a piece of big string, and you have to know a little bit about how to get it to go out there so that you can be successful. If you don’t know a little bit about casting, you are going to go out there and get frustrated. You’re going to get line tangles, fly tangles. One of the things that you do not want is a beginner fly fishermen, or fisherwoman, to get frustrated and throw it down and say enough of this. DB: So lead that into presentation of the fly. DM: Okay. Once you know how to form a loop, which is the basic of fly casting, a little bit about line control, then you can learn how to present the fly properly. You can’t just throw the fly down, especially on a river. You can’t just throw the fly down and expect the fish to come to it. So you have to take into account the current, the speed of the current, how you want that fly to approach the fish. So if you’re casting and the current is going that way, you want to put your fly down so that you have the most amount of time that you have a drag-free float, where the current is not affecting the fly. So you learn to cast out, put an aerial mend in, or cast it down, put a water mend in, whatever you want to do, however you want to present that fly, and you present flies in different ways. The dry fly is probably the most important. That sits on the surface of the water. You want that to have the longest time where the current is not affecting it because that gives you the most, I would say it’s the most bang for the buck. You get the most distance out of that cast. You have to remember that when you are fly fishing, you are probably casting hundreds and hundreds of times a day. I’m a fairly lazy fishermen; I like to get the most use out of every cast. I don’t want to cast a thousand times if I can do it in a hundred. So this is one of the things we do in steelhead fishing too, is you cast, do your mends, present your fly on the water, and we’ll actually feed lines so that you get a huge long drift on your fly, and then it swings in. DB: Your education--your background was in education, right? DM: Yes, yes. DB: Did you ever actually go and teach in a classroom? DM: I did do some teaching. I was a substitute teacher for quite a few years. Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 5 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DB: Okay. What I’m leading up to then is, did that background help you with teaching fly fishing and fly casting? DM: Yes. DB: Could you just mention that a little bit? DM: Well you learn how to present your subject, you know, how to involve people, keep their attention essentially. My husband, Mike, was also an instructor, did some teaching in the British Army. You incorporate that into what you’re teaching as well, how to keep their attention, how to test if they’re following you, things like that. You refine it over quite a few years, and, well, that didn’t work, you know, I got to come at it from a different direction. You learn to have, especially in fly fishing or teaching fly casting, you have to have your, what we call, your little bag of tricks. If I’m teaching you how to do something and it’s just not getting through, I have to come at it from a different direction. And that’s only fair because different people learn in different ways, so you have to find a way to teach somebody who doesn’t, who’s not going to learn the way that you’ve presented it. TB: Can I ask a quick question, back to the Gold-N-West? DM: Sure. TB: Was there a storefront for that or you did a lot of classes and stuff but you didn’t have a--? DM: We had a storefront in Vancouver. Probably from 1986 through 1993, something like that. DB: You had a fly shop. DM: Fly fishing shop. DB: Well, didn’t you have that earlier when you came to do the booth at the fly shows? Wasn’t that part of it? DM: I can’t remember at that exact time. We didn’t have a storefront in Calgary though. DB: Didn’t you have your own brand of rods? DM: Yes, we had our own, it was a mail order. It was not a storefront. But in Vancouver, the storefront was essentially a way of having a classroom for our teaching. DB: What are some of your notable fly fishing experiences? It could be people that you’ve worked with, or it could be actually a certain fish or a certain experience. DM: Okay. I think I have been very fortunate that I’ve had a very rounded fishing experience. In the 80s, the early 80s, I competed in the international fly casting games. I went to a couple of competitions, one in San Jose, California, and one in Czechoslovakia. I was fortunate there to travel in the international Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 6 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED casting scene. So I know a little bit what it’s about. Learning how to do the accuracy and the distance was really helpful as well for me. Other than that, I have been fortunate to go saltwater fishing, tarpon fishing in Florida. We went to Cuba fishing. Where else…? DB: Were any of those experiences with people that we’d recognize the names, like Billy Pate? DM: I did meet Billy Pate in Florida. I went to see him at his house. My husband wanted to buy one of his reels, so we did that; a very nice man, a very intense fisherman. DB: Was it at this time, these two world expositions that you were world champion, or was that later? DM: That was probably—they sort of overlap, so they would have overlapped. DB: Okay, so do you think that you have adequately explained the difference between single-handed and double-handed casting? DM: No, good point, Danny. Single-handed fly casting; you’re using the one hand to cast the rod, the other hand helps with the line control. The difference when you’re actually fishing, the difference between the two styles is the double-handed rod, of course you cast with two hands, which shares the load, you also learn to cast both sides, and your fly is in the water far longer than with the single-handed rod. So single-handed rod, you cast, mend, duh de duh de duh, then you have to retrieve your line in, you have to false cast, false cast, false cast to get your fly line out again, put it down, etc. My husband and I used to fish—I would fish single-handed, he would fish double-handed, for steelhead, on the Bulkley River, and we’d do a test; I could cast as far as he could with my single-handed rod, I would catch fish, but his fly was in the water longer than [mine]. The double-handed rod allows you to mend easily, and many times he would catch more fish because his fly was in the water longer. So the double-handed rod is useful for keeping your fly in the water. One of the reasons it was so popular in Europe and the UK was on many of the rivers there they pay for their fishing. They pay a lot of money to fish a beat, a certain section of river. And back in the day, they would keep the fish, the Atlantic salmon. Sometimes they would sell it, it would help pay for their fishing. So it was important for them to have their fly in the water as long as possible to up their chances of catching an Atlantic salmon. DB: So, Britain is the main area for this, but it was also on the continent, but Britain is the one we hear about the most. DM: Yes, you hear the history— DB: So, double-handed casting is also called Spey casting, isn’t that correct, or is there a difference? DM: Spey casting is a relatively new term. It was coined by Mike. DB: How did that term, and where did it come from, and how did that develop? Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 7 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DM: Okay. Double-handed fly fishing is what it is called. Double-handed or two-handed fly fishing is what it’s called in Europe. Or salmon fishing is the other term. Now when you get to North America, salmon fishing is something entirely different. So, you can’t call it salmon fishing in North America and mean the same thing if you’re talking about two-handed fishing. So Mike—we searched around for a term, and he remembers fishing as a kid in, or running through the Spey, River Spey, in the UK, and so we decided to call it Spey fishing or Spey casting, Spey fishing. (The River Spey, I think it is in Scotland). DB: Flows north through central Scotland. DM: In North America, you know, the term Spey casting and Spey fishing has stuck, and it has even migrated over to the UK now. DB: Do you think that Mike was the one that got the term started here? DM: You bet. DB: Okay. That’s good to know. Is that historically written somewhere? Because that’s important with this interview that we know that. We wanted to get some things about Mike while you’re here, so— DM: Yes. We published a book called The Art and Science of Spey Fishing, and Mike talks about all of that in there, so I’ll have to see if--I should send you a copy. I don’t have many copies left, but I have some limited editions. I’ll send you one, free of charge, you can put in your library. TB: Terrific! DB: So, Gold-N-West was at one time a small fly shop, but it’s now gone to guide service basically, right? DM: Yes. We closed the store and concentrated on the guiding on the Bulkley River, which is what I do now. DB: Do you also have some teaching along with your guiding or are they separate? DM: I think a guide is always teaching their clients, but most of my teaching now is done through the Federation of Fly Fishers, through the casting instructor program. DB: Okay. You hold the highest level, I know that. DM: I’m a member of the board of governors, there are thirty of them, and we administer the casting program. DB: And last, a year ago you were given a very prestigious award for that. You might talk about that a little bit. DM: Okay. I’ve been a member of the board of governors since 1996. So it was started in, I believe, ‘92-‘93. Mel Krieger came up with the idea, and I think the first meeting was in 1993. At that time I Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 8 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED couldn’t join, but I did join in 1996. Recent developments, we have a committee called the International committee. We have been working to take our certify instructor program beyond the boundaries of North America. So we’ve expanded into worldwide actually, and I’ve been fortunate I’ve been able to travel to a lot of these international certification events. In June I went to Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur, and we had a fantastic event. They are absolutely nuts there about fishing, about fly casting and fly fishing. I’ve been to Japan several times. I was in Korea. I went to, let’s see, Scotland, Hungary, Denmark, where else, Italy. That’s just off the top of my head there; a lot of places. DB: A lot of them. This is a good person-to-person type operation too, isn’t’ it? DM: It is, and they’re all--one of the great things about these events is you meet these people. We’re all casting junkies, so you learn lots of new things. You see what their fly fishing experience is. It’s interesting, you go to like Belgium, the Netherlands, they don’t fish for trout, they fish for pike. You go to Scotland, they fish for Atlantic salmon, yes, but they also fish for other types of fish. One of the things that I try and do is educate our members in North America that not everybody fishes for trout. Trout is the ideal fish, but people in different parts of the world fish for different, way different fish. DB: So, tell us about this award though. DM: Oh, the award. DB: 2010. DM: The Ambassador Award. My friend, Dan McCrimmon, who started the international event, the International Committee, and organized, the whole program, and I each received an Ambassador Award, which is a fairly prestigious award from the Federation of Fly Fishers. DB: Yes, and it’s been given to all sorts of people of various backgrounds in terms of fly fishing. DM: And it’s not given every year. So, that was very nice. DB: Yes. Are you the first fly caster that’s gotten it? DM: I am not sure. That’s an interesting question. I am not sure. I think we are the first members of the casting instructor program that have received it. DB: That’s what I mean, right. Okay, let’s see. So, you talked about your involvement with the Federation of Fly Fishers, mostly North America, but you’ve expanded this into the world really with your going to these international events. DM: Yes, we have a strong international--DB: Yes, so let’s bring it back a little closer to home and talk about the BCFFF. I know you’re involved a bit with that, or you were at one time. Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 9 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DM: I was involved with the BCFFF. The BCFFF started off as a part of the FFF, and then they sort of broke apart. I don’t know the whole part about it, but the BCFFF is still functioning at a reduced level. I’m not—a lot of things went wrong with the BCFFF, but I think they focused—they didn’t operate as a council does. They operated more on a political level, writing letters, and trying to get our government to do things. There were no regular meetings. Essentially, your membership got you your membership, and that was it. DB: I go back with the BCFFF to people like Rex Schofield and—and Yonge, last name is Yonge. DM: Bill Yonge. Yes, Bill Yonge was a friend. DB: Is Rex still alive? Last I heard he was up around Williams Lake or something. DM: I have not heard about him for years. DB: Jim McDermott, does that name ring a--? DM: Jim McDermott, yes. DB: And Peter Caverhill. DM: I know Peter Caverhill, yes. DB: Those are the people from years past that— DM: Art Lingren— DB: Yes; they were involved with trying to improve the fisheries of British Columbia which affects what you’re doing up in the Skeena drainage. DM: Yes, yes. I was involved with the BCFFF. I got involved a little bit more with them about five years ago, and then I realized that I didn’t have enough time to do—if I take on a job I want to do it well. So I didn’t have the time to devote to the BCFFF, as opposed to the casting instructor program. But, I have been involved politically. I was a member of the Pacific Salmon Commission for six years, in the early ‘90s, and that was a federal organization that dealt with the salmon fishery. DB: It was international, wasn’t it? DM: Yes, it was US and Canada. DB: I think that was the one Bruce Ferguson was involved— DM: So I was on the north coast one. It’s divided into three, the north coast, the south coast, and the Fraser River, and I was involved on the north coast. There are sport representatives, there are Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 10 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED commercial representatives, there are government representatives, and it was an extremely good political education on what happens with government and the fisheries. DB: Okay. So, we’ve pretty much touched on the things that I have written down, but there are certainly probably things that we can—Tamara, you were going to— TB: Well, I was interested—you are the first woman that we’ve interviewed. So could you just talk about some of the challenges you faced as a woman, starting in the 70s, getting into fly fishing? DM: In the 70s, certainly in Canada, there weren’t any women fly [fishers]. In the US, there was a small group, mostly out of California, Gladys Gray, Jim Green’s wife, very few though, and mostly associated with husbands who fly fished. You’re correct getting waders was a phenomenal exercise. At that time they didn’t have the good waders, so I ended up with a pair of men’s boot foot waders in size 7, and those things must weigh 30 lb. So, the equipment was always a struggle. Things improved; new things. Now it’s like a dream. You can buy women’s waders, in all kinds of sizes. You can buy women’s rain jackets, women’s boots. You can buy everything for the woman fly fisher, but that’s only come about because of sort of pressure and increasing number of women fly [fishers]. DB: Maggie Merriman kind of started some of that. DM: Yes, she did. There have been some pioneers, and you have to give them credit. They persisted, and I mean the market for women’s fly fishing gear is not a huge market. As you know, the big push or interest in fly fishing came about after that movie, A River Runs Through It, which was early 90s. That was part of the reason the casting instructor program came about. Mel Krieger had this wonderful idea that--of course everyone’s interested, all of a sudden you’ve got all the recent experts, who don’t have the credentials, so he thought that we should have some kind of an instructor level where you take the test and you’ve reached a certain level where you can cast and you might know a little bit about teaching, and this came about because of that movie. So not only were men interested, but women started to be interested as well. I remember my dentist—he was looking for, well-established dentist, looking for a wife, a partner, but he wanted someone who was interested in the outdoors and interested in fishing, etc, etc. So, I said, well, you know, they don’t come ready, you can’t get them off the shelf. You’ve got to go out and find some good raw material and work with it. So he had this girlfriend, and he sent her to our course, and you know, she did well, and apparently he was in the bushes checking on her casting. DB: The Federation has always been involved with the fly casting at the shows, and teaching and classes, but it was Krieger then that started focusing on a more international level in terms of getting people all over doing this. DM: Well his idea was a good one, to have some kind of a level; you pass this you’re a reasonable instructor, so if you’re going into a fly shop, who knows, you don’t know what that guy is teaching and whether it is any good or not. You have some reasonable expectations that you’re going to learn something out of that shop. Then the Federation as well did some early forays into the international scene, and which were not successful. So, I believe there is a time for everything. Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 11 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DB: I’m sitting here trying to remember names, having a little trouble, but there was a couple from the Los Angeles area that was always at the shows. DM: Oh, Alan and Barbara Rohrer. DB: Rohrer, Barbara Rohrer. She was a caster. DM: Oh, yes. She was a phenomenal caster. DB: So there were a few that got things going, and I remember Maggie Merriman putting on demonstrations and some teaching at the shows and so forth. DM: Yes. DB: So there were some, and of course Joan Wulff is always one we kind of think about. DM: Oh, yes, Joan. She was quite unusual for her time period. DB: In 1951 when she was an international— DM: She was casting in the 40s as well. I’ve seen some pictures. DB: That was her path. TB: Well talking about her, I’m curious, because one of the things that she equated with her ability to cast so far was actually her background in dance. So do you have any other—was there another background besides your fly fishing that helped enhance your casting? DM: I don’t think there was—I’ve always been athletic and outdoorsy, but I don’t there was anything like dance in my background, but I think you’re having good instructors also helps you a lot. So at that time, you know fly casting was not as detailed in how it happens and whatever, but just having good examples of fly casting to see. Like if I can see it and have a little bit of instruction, I can do it, and just the opportunity to practice, the opportunity to go fishing a lot has really helped my casting. DB: You mentioned people learn in different ways, visual, auditory and tactile, and fly fishing is kind of all three of those put together. DM: It is. Yes, it is. DB: You can tell somebody about it, but until they actually pick up the rod and they actually feel it and then see it— DM: You can’t talk someone into fly casting, but one of the things that a good instructor should do is provide a good visual of what fly casting is. So in the program, there’s an emphasis on being a fairly good caster, having what we call a show cast, a presentation cast, so that people can see it. And once Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 12 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED they’ve seen it, they may learn with slightly different ways, but that first visual is something that you have to give a student. DB: I’d just like to ask you about a student that might come to a class, kind of myself here back many years ago, that had learned things wrong or had started wrong. How do you get that turned around? DM: Well, usually a bad habit is very much ingrained into a student. You can show a student or caster the visual, you can tell them what’s wrong, you can show them how to correct, but it all comes down to their willingness to change, willingness to practice. That’s something that an instructor, you know you go around and if you see a lot of resistance to change, you eventually come to the conclusion that that person is not going to change. You hope to make some kind of a small impact on them. DB: There was, to me, a very key word in that explanation, the word practice, and do you have to always practice on water? DM: No, you can practice—most of our teaching was done on grass. In fly casting, one of the things you’re teaching your students is how to make that nice loop, that nice U-shaped loop, and sometimes introducing water at the very beginning can confuse the student. They get focused on the water, and they have to deal with the water. We didn’t have water available without traveling a lot. So depending upon what’s available for you to teach is how you structure your lesson. Some instructors teach the roll cast first, they’ll pick up and lay down, but, personal preference. DB: You mentioned Jim Green. Many, many years ago he came to Anacortes, and it was just a few little comments about how the cast made a difference, in terms of controlling the line. DM: Yes, and it helps as well to—if you practice alone, sometimes you are just practicing your mistakes, so sometimes it helps to practice with another person who knows what’s going on, or you can video yourself, get someone to video you, and then you look at the video and say, What?! TB: I have some more questions back to the woman part. DM: Sure. TB: Well just getting into it, did you have any trouble at all being accepted, or you just kind of went along with Mike and nobody paid too much attention? DM: I was fortunate I didn’t have any resistance or very little that I knew about. Mike was very, he wanted a partner who’d go fishing with him, so we did a lot of fishing together. The really nice thing about that was you could travel some place to go fishing. We went to a lot of shows, which was great. I think I’ve been in every prime fly fishing show in the U.S. which was interesting. Certainly in the US I didn’t have any resistance. Maybe a little bit in Canada. There weren’t very many women fly [fishers} at that time, so you know, you just don’t let it bother you. TB: You’re cited so often as being the first woman guide in BC. Does that bother you--? Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 13 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DM: No, heavens, that was a great accomplishment. TB: --or were you conscious of it too? Were you conscious of that? DM: I wasn’t so much conscious about it, but I applied for a guide’s license on the Bulkley River, and there are a limited number of licenses, and there was one available, and they wouldn’t give it to me. They didn’t want to issue the license, for whatever reason, certainly not because I was a woman. So, a friend of ours who is a lawyer, a big labor lawyer in BC; he said he’d represent me for free if I just paid his expenses, so he took it up with the province. We went to a meeting over in Victoria, and as a result of that meeting they decided to issue me the license. But it was just about that time they knew that the Classified Waters system was coming, so I don’t know for whatever reason they didn’t want to issue the license, but that’s how I got my license. TB: And what year was that? DM: That was 1993, I believe. TB: Okay. And also, did you look to other women as inspiration or mentors, or you just did what you were doing and---? DM: I just did what I was doing. I looked to everybody as mentors. I’ve been fortunate I have met a lot of the big names of fly fishing, fly casting, Mel Krieger, Gary Borger, Joan Wulff, Alan and Barbara Rohrer, Jim Green, you know, Steve Rajeff; I’ve met most of them, so I’ve been very fortunate. DB: You mentioned Borger, and in A River Runs Through It, that was his son that did the wonderful casting in that. DM: That’s Jason, yes. DB: I haven’t seen Gary in a long time. I used to see him at the shows too, but I don’t now. DM: I haven’t seen him for awhile, but he’s still active. DB: Are you going to be in West Yellowstone at the end of the month? DM: Yes, I am. A very quick trip though. The date is so late; I have to leave early so I can go up north and guide. DB: Yes, it’s going to almost butt up against your guiding. Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 14 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DM: Yes, it will be. At first they were going to have it in the middle of September, and I went, Aaahh! You can’t do that to me! TB: What about the Bulkley River? How did you get started up there? How did you choose that to be your spot? DM: Well, as I said, we went steelhead fishing with our friend from Calgary. We went up to the Kispiox and just loved it. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve been able to fish some of the rivers like the Bow, the Kispiox, and the Bulkley, when nobody else fished it; so some really good memories there. So we started looking around, wanted to build our retirement home or a cabin or whatever. We started looking on the Kispiox. The Kispiox is a little dreary at times of the year and far away from civilization. Mike had a business associate who owned a piece of property just outside of Smithers, and he wanted to sell it, so we bought this piece of property, which just happened to be on the Bulkley River, and built a house there and had it ever since. TB: So when you’re up there, you’re a guide. You don’t actually have your own camp. I mean you have your own place that you live, but you don’t have a— DM: No, we went through that exercise and decided that because it was such a, not an urban area, but close to an urban area that it would be foolish to build the accommodation, which is a huge expense, and then you have to hire the staff to run it, etc, etc. So, what we do, we’re essentially a guide service. We pick up our customers in Smithers, take them fishing, like any guide service, and the nice thing about that is our anglers can stay where they want, high end, medium, low end, wherever they want to stay. They can go eat wherever they want to go eat, and they can eat with whomever they choose. TB: But you go out for five or six days at a time or six days at a time. DM: Our usual trips are six days. I will take people for less if I have the space. TB: So just tell me a little bit about how that works. I don’t know, I guess I just find it fascinating that you could spend eight weeks up there going out six days at a time. Do you just pick them up every morning and go out fly fishing for the day? DM: Yes, we go out to different areas of the river, we try and mix it up. We also have the ability to go to a [different] section if the lower section is dirty or high. We take them out; pick them up usually at 7:30 in the morning, depending where we go. We’re fishing by 8:30-ish. So, they fish, we have coffee, tea, drinks, whatever, have lunch, make them lunch, fish the afternoon. Usually we quit about 5:00 in the afternoon, depending on the time of year. I mean if somebody has got a fish on or a fish is there, we’re not going to quit at 5:00. But generally we have them back at their hotel room by 6-6:30 in the evening. TB: So then the rest of the year you’re doing these fly casting—you do like—you have your own school then as well? Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 15 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DM: I don’t do a lot of teaching anymore. There are a lot of teachers now. When we were doing most of our teaching, there weren’t any teachers around. So it’s nice to know that there’s a lot of opportunity for people to learn now. TB: Okay. Do you have other ideas of other women specifically that would be good to interview, to add into our collection? DB: In the northwest. TB: Yes. Or if you think of one, just let us know. DM: Yes, there’s a few— TB: Or even men, actually, in BC. With this huge budget thing [right now], I don’t know if we’re going to do anymore, but if we did, we haven’t really done anybody [in BC]. In fact, you are the first person we’ve done from BC. DB: That’s actually fly fished. We have one other woman that grew up on Pass Lake, it’s a fly fishing only and so forth, and that was just a historical thing about Pass Lake [near Anacortes, Washington]. DM: Oh, my gosh. TB: She’s also though the first Canadian. We interviewed like Bill Nelson, who I think was really up in Alaska more than Canada, wasn’t he? DB: No, Bill Nelson? No, he was in Vancouver, Quadra Island. TB: Okay, okay, so we did do Bill Nelson. I did do Bill Nelson. DM: He’s one of the originators of the FFF, right? And he was in Oregon at that time. He moved to Canada. TB: Well, yes. He did that temporarily for retirement. DB: Bill has always lived in Oregon. TB: No, well he had a house up at April Lodge, April Point— DM: April Point, yes. DB: His residence was Eugene, but he spent a lot of time up there, yes, because he had that [guide] business. DM: Oh, I’ll have to think of some names for you. Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 16 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TB: Yes, just if you do. DM: I’m not sure about that many women. TB: I’m not necessarily big on interviewing women just because they’re women, but— DM: I know, but it’s extremely nice that you are thinking of women because I think women have a place in fly fishing, and it’s never going to be as great as the men because there’s a lot of women that may start out fishermen, and then they get married and the kids come along and the job, and there is no time for fishing. So, unless you’re involved in the industry somehow, you’re not going to stay in the industry full time. Have you interviewed Carol Green? TB: No. DM: Carol Green; Jim Green’s wife. DB: Oh, well she’s close by. I assume she still lives at Quilcene. DM: No, Jim and Carol moved to southeast Washington, and they sold that, so I am not exactly sure how to contact her. DB: That’s right; over east the mountains, over by the Grande Ronde. DM: You could find out where she is through Al Burr. DB: Yes, that’s right. I forgot. DM: You might want to contact Al Burr, who is a protégé of Jim Green, very big in the two-handed teaching. Who else? Carol Green... Out of BC, you might want to contact Art Lingren. TB: We have had contact with him. DM: You have been? Okay. DB: Oh, out of the men, I have a number of [suggestions]. I would include Pete. DM: Pete Caverhill? DB: Yes. DM: Yes, Pete Caverhill worked for the province in fisheries for years, got lots of good information. Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 17 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DB: The group that wrote BC Flies, that was part of the BCFFF. And there was a fellow from up in Kelowna or Vernon, up in that area, that did that. DM: He did The Gilly. DB: Is he still around? DM: Davy. DB: Yes, Alf Davy DM: Alf Davy. Now we did a—Mike and I each did a section in The Gilly. DB: Is he still around? DM: I don’t know. DB: We’ll have to found out. DM: I have a couple of older friends, fly fishermen, who keep me up to date with this stuff. They are members of the Totems. DB: Yes, those are the ones that I remember, that are my age or older. DM: But you know, Danny, the thing is that a lot of these guys are reaching that age where they’re dying, they’re not around anymore, which is scary. DB: I used to go up when BCFFF had executive meetings at a Legion Hall or something. That was on the way out to Hastings, on the road that went up to the park, out to the PNE area. DM: And that was part of the period when they actually had some meetings, and they had a newsletter that came out that Richard Mayer did. DB: I go back about 35 years. DM: Well, that’s probably in the ‘90s. DM: I’m starting to feel old here. TB: One more question. We’ve used this several times in our campus history program. Okay, we’re not able to interview Mike, and could you tell us a little bit about Mike and his fly fishing? DM: Sure. Mike was born in India. His dad was in the British Army, and he went out to India. His mom came out and married the dad, so Mike was born in India and lived there for probably the first ten years of his life. He was born in 1924. Then they came back to England, which was a big culture shock, and his Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 18 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED dad was still in the British Army, and they moved around a lot. So as a kid, he had a lot of freedom, saw a lot of the country, remembers, as I said, he remembers being taken fly fishing by the local blacksmith. He went with the son of the blacksmith, and they went out fishing. But it wasn’t really until he got to Canada that he started fly fishing. Mike was in the Second World War. He was in a tank. After that, he went back to school, became a structural engineer, became a British civil servant, which is quite an accomplishment. Then in the mid-50’s decided that, I guess like a lot of men, took a look and saw the rest of his life unfolding before him and decided that he wanted more. So he searched around where he could go and ended up in Canada, in Calgary. There he worked as a structural engineer for a couple years and then started his own company, did a lot of pre-stressed concrete, a lot of warehouse-type buildings, very successful. Then got back into fly fishing from there; just an avid learner, a compulsive teacher, you know, wanted to know everything. So, what else can I tell you? TB: Well, whose idea was it to start to kind of make it a career or profession? DM: Mike was still working as—at first it was part time, rather than me going and getting a job, which would have sort of tied us down a bit more. We sort of started this as a part-time thing that I could do, and then it just—I don’t know if you remember the economy in the early ‘80s. There went the retirement, and so the fishing became more of a necessity, certainly in the Vancouver area, so we did this to help with the effects of the economy. Mike owned, we owned a lot of commercial real estate that went belly up because of that, and so it became a necessity. And it was nice. Fly fishing and fly casting, all of this is a great lifestyle. You’re never going to get rich, but you’re going to have a nice lifestyle. TB: Well, is there anything that we haven’t asked you, about anything, you, Mike, anything that you’d like to get recorded? DM: I don’t know, a little bit about the guiding. I’ve been guiding for 15 years or whatever, and that’s something I really enjoy. I like taking people out fishing. I like seeing them catch their—help them catch their fish. As I’ve said before, I’ve been fortunate that I’ve done a lot of fishing, trout fishing, on the Bow, among other places, Montana, West Yellowstone. I’ve been tarpon fishing, bonefishing, steelhead fishing, which I love. I think I’ve caught my share of fish. I’ve been very successful. And to me, I don’t really care if I catch another fish, but I do like helping other people catch fish. Last year, I got to go steelhead fishing for maybe three days. I went out with one of my guides. I can still do it. TB: How many people work for you, then? DM: I have two assistant guides that help. We have a very short season, very compact season. TB: Okay, I don’t have any more questions. DB: Yep, that’s it for me too. I liked your comment, it’s fun to watch somebody else hook a fish. I have focused on casting. We should have had some other parts in there. Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 19 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DM: What I was going to tell you, Mike did fly tie courses for many years, and we put it all on DVD. He went through trout, nymphs, everything, and did an Atlantic salmon DVD as well. But his signature flies were the two steelhead flies. One was the Telkwa Stonefly, which is a very large dry fly, and the other is the nymph form, which is called the Telkwa Nymph, which is a great big black nymph version of the stonefly—on the Bulkley there are stoneflies that we see at that time of year. So those are the two flies. What I was going to tell you is that when you brought up fly tying, I was just up north at our property there, and a couple years ago I put on an aluminum roof, so it’s been a great learning experience. This year it took out the phone line, so you call up the telephone guys to come and fix it, and the guy that comes, he likes to come and see me. He is an old student of ours that took a fly tying course from Mike, and we figured out it was probably 25 years ago. So that was one thing, you meet these people everywhere. The other one was this certification event in Malaysia, there were at least 20 candidates taking tests there. And the one fellow comes up to me, says, I was a student of yours in Vancouver at the store. This must have been, this is like 20 years ago. I was like, Oh! The interesting thing about most of these candidates in Malaysia, they were all fairly educated, they were doctors, lawyers, professional people who had been away to school, so he had been over here going to Simon Fraser and working, and he took our course and did a lot of fishing, and then he went back to Kuala Lumpur. So those are the two most recent cases of your past coming back to visit you. TB: Any more comments about the dry fly? And this is probably where I show my ignorance, but I know that you and Mike were very big on dry flies. Is that just because that’s the very best way to fish the Bulkley River? I mean I know it’s a philosophical wet fly/dry fly thing [debate too]. DM: It is a philosophical thing, and it’s an extremely—dry fly fishing for steelhead is very nice, and that would be my preferred way of doing it. You have to show a lot of line control. Your fly has to float because what you see, you actually see the fish come up and either roll on the fly or take the fly and run away. So it’s a visual thing that you see, very much like tarpon fishing. If you’re fishing on the flats, you see the fish come and take it. The only problem with that is that as the pressure on the river has increased, as the number of anglers on the river has increased, it has an impact on the steelhead. They become less willing to take a dry fly. They get fished over now from the mouth of the Skeena, all the way up the Skeena, all the way up the Bulkley. So unless they’ve been rested for several days, they’re less willing to take the dry fly. And when you are guiding as well, many anglers they want to dry fly fish, but anybody that is dry fly fishing is going to catch less fish than they do on a wet fly or a nymph. So they will fish for awhile, and then they’ll switch to the wet fly, or they will catch their first fish, catch a fish on a wet fly, I’m going to dry fly for awhile. So, we sort of made our reputation as steelhead guides on the dry fly, which is when you think a steelhead comes up, a 40-inch steelhead will come up and take the dry fly, it’s pretty exciting. TB: I can see that. I can see that. Yes, Trey Combs definitely talks about that. DM: Oh, yes. Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 20 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DB: The development of fly lines, then, has that been with your Spey, your double-hand—what do you call it now, double-handed or Spey? DM: Any—two-handed probably is the—two-handed. DB: The fly lines for that, the development, has that been important to your business? DM: Yes, it has. In the beginning, you get the rods, so you get a blank, you get the rod blank, and then you’re looking around at what’s available in the lines, and there really was not a lot available. So we ended up using double tapers, and what we would do is splice on a section of a—like if we were using a double taper 10, we would splice on or loop on a section of double taper 8, 15 feet of double taper 8. So that gave you that long extended taper that would turn over your fly. Like a straight double taper, your fly won’t turn over properly. So from that, so you have your two sections, and then if you wanted to nymph, if you wanted to get down, there really weren’t any sink tips available. There were shooting heads available. So Mike thought up the idea of taking that 30-feet shooting head and cutting it into three sections, 15 feet, 10 feet, and 5 feet. So with the loops section, you could loop on a section of 10foot sink tip that would take you down. I remember in the early years, Jim Vincent coming up, Jim Vincent of Rio Products coming up, and he did a lot of fishing on the Kispiox River. He came to see Mike, he wanted a lesson in two-handed rods, etc, etc. Now at that time, Jim was a, or he started as a professional photographer, so he made his living selling his footage to, his photos were in Fly Fisherman, a lot of hunting magazines, so that’s how he made his living. And then he got started researching lines, and he did a lot of his research work on lines and took Mike’s idea into his product, where he does the 15-foot sink tips and the loops and all that stuff. DB: This was for the double-handed. DM: This is for the double-hand. DB: So the development of the double-handed and these lines kind of went in sequence. DM: Yes. DB: And then your dry fly fishing for steelhead went along with all this— DM: Yes, everyone sort of tumbled over each other and grew as we went along, but now if you look at the variety of lines available for the two-handed rods, it’s absolutely mind boggling. I can’t keep track anymore. Which is good, you know. DB: Now they’ve gone to systems, line systems. DM: Yes, where they sell you this much, and it costs this much, incredibly expensive for a piece of string! DB: Yes, I’m glad you got started on the tying and your dry fly fishing because that got me thinking about the lines. Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 21 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DM: Well there are literally so much that’s gone on that it’s hard to remember it all. TB: Do you have any specific—sorry, going back to the woman thing, which really isn’t my thing—but do you have any advice to young women who want to get into it? Is there anything special or something that [they] need that you could tell them? DM: Well, yes, but first I’d like to start by telling all the dads out there that don’t just think about taking your boys fishing, take your girls fishing, because in many cases the girls will be more avid fishermen. I think there has to be more introduction of fly fishing as a recreational activity at the lower levels, like kids, teenagers, stuff like that. It’s spotty, around the country what is offered. But any woman who is interested in fly fishing, the advice is to go out there, get some instruction, go fishing. Don’t wait for a guy to take you. It’s great, there are women fly fishing clubs now. You can always find someone to go fishing with you. If not, hire a guide, go fishing. There shouldn’t be anything that holds you back. The equipment’s there, the instruction’s there, the guides are there, the fish are there, and the good times are there too. TB: Is there any difference between men and women fishing? I know that they have a rod that’s built more for women. DM: No, not really, not really. Men can, just because of their physique, can usually cast farther, but that doesn’t really have anything to do with fishing. Women learn, or women are better students because they listen to you. The guy thing or the macho thing doesn’t get involved. So they learn, and all you have to do is show them what to do, and they don’t have to be able to cast 75 feet to do it. Trout fishing, I mean, you’re barely casting in some places. You just have to present the fly well. So there’s all kinds of opportunities out there, opportunities to travel, opportunities to make new friends. Fly fishing is not just going fishing. Fly fishing is the books, the teaching, the DVDs, the shows you can go to, the people you meet, the conclaves you can go to. There’s a lot of the social aspect to it as well. DB: You meet a lot of neat people. DM: You meet a lot of neat people, you do, very nice people too. I always tell my students, if you need a lawyer, find one that’s a fly fisherman. If you can find a doctor who’s a fly fisherman, go for it. It’s just that fly fishermen are such unique, neat people. My doctor is the daughter of a friend of mine, who is a fly fisherman. DB: Over the years, the Federation has had a lot of dentists. DM: Yes, my dentist is a fly fisherman. Yes, several lawyers [are] fly fishermen; all good people to know. TB: Okay, is that it? DM: Unless we think of something else. TB: Well, okay. [Thank you very much!] Denise Maxwell Edited Transcript – August 20, 2011 Fly Fishing Collection 22 ©Western Washington University Libraries Special Collections ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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