Weber Fly Company

by George Rogers

Article courtesy of PCGazette

City company preached flyfishing gospel in US

I TIE FISHING flies, not well, but once in a while they catch fish. The biggest trout I ever caught on one of my own creations was hooked on one of the worst flies I've ever tied. It was a misshapen blob of deer hair.

I'm not suggesting that to catch big fish you need lousy-looking lures. All I'm saying is that fish, while cautious, aren't always real particular. If they're hungry enough, irritable enough or curious enough, they might hit anything. But when a particular insect is hatching, it's important that your fly resemble that bug and that you present it to the fish properly. "Match the hatch," as fishermen say.

The art of fooling fish with artificial lures goes back to ancient times, and the English eventually became flyfishing fans. A Briton by the name of Joseph Banks is said to have introduced the sport into the New World. He was a naturalist collecting fish specimens in Labrador and Newfoundland, and he used flies. They worked well, he said, especially those that had some gold color. All fishermen have their pet theories.

But for a long time sport fishermen, and especially fly fishermen, were outnumbered by meat fishermen on this continent, especially on the frontier where the next meal wasn't always guaranteed.

Flyfishing, especially for trout, finally caught on in the East and spread to the Midwest, and a Stevens Point man named John C. Frost was one of those who enjoyed it. He got his flies from England until his daughter Carrie began making them in 1896. That was the birth of this city's now-defunct fly tackle industry.

But a lot of people kept on using angleworms, minnows and nightcrawlers. That meant missionary work was needed, so the old Weber Lifelike Fly Co. of Stevens Point published a booklet called "Fly Fishing Instructions," using the "simplified moviegram method," which meant a series of drawings showing how to do it.

There's a copy of the booklet in the archives at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and it has a 1947 copyright. But it was the 12th edition, so the first one must have been published many years before.

In the booklet is a photo of Oscar L. Weber, president of the company. He may have authored the instructions. Or maybe his ace salesman, W.R. (Bill) Cook, did. Or both of them.

Weber entered the tackle business here in 1920, and his company made Stevens Point "the fly tackle capital of America." His 1950 obituary in the Journal said, "Mr. Weber and his associates, backed by practical fly fishing experience and an authentic knowledge of American conditions, introduced many innovations, promoting the value of these changes in nationwide demonstrations and instructions."

The late Gordon MacQuarrie, outdoor writer for the Milwaukee Journal and a member of the Wisconsin Conservation Hall of Fame, once wrote, "Weber has done much to pioneer the flyrod game in the United States. His annual catalog for years has preached the fun to be had with the flyrod."

During his travels for Weber, Bill Cook often put on flyfishing seminars. He once said he had taught more people to flyfish than any other person alive. Cook claimed just about any fish could be caught on a fly. One photo shows him holding a flyrod and a muskie. And in 1946 in Florida, Oscar Weber's daughter, Helen Faust, caught a 92-pound tarpon on a six-ounce flyrod.

To induce people to take up flyfishing, the Weber Company had to convince them that it wasn't difficult. That remains a challenge to this day, and admittedly flycasting's not as easy as fishing with a cane pole or a spinning rod.

"But," said the Weber flyfishing instruction booklet, "it is definitely not true that the sport demands long and discouraging practice, and that it can be mastered only by a favored few with special talents. Anyone can learn it - easily and quickly - and enjoy its countless thrills."

One piece of advice to the learner was to avoid borrowing someone else's equipment, because "good fly tackle is the kind which is jealously prized by the owner and any request to borrow it is an unfair imposition." Oscar Weber or Bill Cook may have lent a fine rod to someone who returned it with a broken tip.

A few of the booklet's suggestions are slightly obsolete. For example, leaving the rod in a damp place was a definite no-no. That's because flyrods in those days were almost always bamboo. You'll still find bamboo flyrods today, but not many, and a good one costs an arm and a leg and a few fingers. Now, nearly all flyrods are graphite, fiberglass or boron.

Finally, the booklet comes down to the real issue: how to catch fish with your fly tackle, explaining the difference between dry and wet flies and how to find trout and other fish. Weber products aren't specifically endorsed, but the company certainly didn't produce the booklet for its entertainment value.

The local fly tackle business went down after World War II because of competition from the Japanese and from spin fishing.

Flyfishing is now enjoying a resurgence, but fly tying in Stevens Point is dead, except for individuals who tie their own and a few who tie and sell to tackle shops. The only survivor of the companies that put Stevens Point on the fishing map is Worth, which made a successful transition to other products related to fishing. But it doesn't tie flies.

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UNTIL THEY STARTED making them out of nylon, the leaders used by fly fishermen were cat gut. "Cat," meaning caterpillar, not the family kitty.
The old Weber Lifelike Fly Co. of Stevens Point explained the process in its 1937 catalog:

"American climatic conditions are not suitable for the culture of silkworms and all the finest gut for leaders is produced in a small territory surrounding Murcia, Spain. It is from this caterpillar beginning that the term 'cat gut' comes from. Here the worm is carefully fed on tender mulberry leaves until it emerges into its adult stage.

"After certain chemical treatment, the dexterous fingers of experts take the fine silk glands from the body, elongating and shaping them into strands averaging from 12 to 18 inches long. ... The cost of the leader is not all in the gut but in the process of expertly selecting and inspecting the raw gut and in the final rigid inspection of the finished leader."

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