This article can be discussed at TalkFlyFishing.com John Shewey was kind enough to participate in a Q&A session for the site. Aside from being a great Steelhead angler and fly tyer, John Shewey is also an author, editor, photographer,bird hunter and more. I truely appreciate the time and effort he put into this. It was an honor and a pleasure. Thanks John. Q What influenced you to start tying spey and dee flies? A Like a lot of other tiers, I marveled at the works of Syd Glasso and Walt Johnson that appeared in Trey Combs' first two books, published in the 1970s. Those images served as my first introduction to the style; shortly thereafter I was fortunate enough to be given a set of Ed Hass flies, among them several of his version of the Lady Caroline. While his version hardly resembled the typical Spey fly, I was nonetheless awed by his sleek and graceful designs. Not long after, around 1980 or so, I first met David McNeese and within a few years was working for him at his shop. My association with Dave drove my own fly tying to new avenues and new heights. David is a remarkably gifted artist with a talent for envisioning finished patterns in all their complexity before ever sitting down at the bench. From David I learned much about materials and much about artistic fly dressing. In retrospect, I have realized that those bygone days at McNeese’s Fly Shop were a major and defining period in the evolution of artistic Steelhead flies and I was lucky to have been immersed in it. During those years I also met and befriended the incomparable Walt Johnson. He defined the idea of a gentlemanly outdoorsman, and we enjoyed a wonderful friendship during which I truly realized and benefited from the depths of his intellect and the superb craftsmanship in his fly designs. Walt was one of a kind in many ways and many a pleasant afternoon did I spend just chatting with him in his living room, laughing and trading stories and lamenting the downturn in the quality of many of our cherished fisheries and the erosion of traditional steelheading etiquette. Some years ago, when Northwest Fly Fishing magazine asked me to pen a new column titled “Innovative Fly Tier,” I immediately decided Walt would be the subject of my first installment and as I was gathering my thoughts, Walt passed away, never to see the finished product. This was one of the saddest moments of my professional career as a communicator, but to this day I ask myself, in all my endeavors in steelheading, would Walt have approved? And if the answer is yes, I feel I am living up to the standards I set for myself and those Walt valued. More recently—say in the past 10 years or so—my Steelhead tying, including Spey and Dee flies, has been influenced at times by contemporaries and even by tiers comparatively new to the genre—there are just so many talented fly dressers now! I could list dozens of people whose work with steelhead flies—especially “fishing flies” I always enjoy seeing: I have a special affinity for fishing flies and just here in Oregon the list of those whose flies I’d like to take for a swim includes Rich Youngers, David Barlow, Brad Burden, Joe Howell, Al Brunnel, Randy Stetzer, Dave Potts, Aaron Ostoij, Dick Jones and lots of others. . .and that’s just Oregon. I’m simply amazed at the number of truly great steelhead fly tiers. 25 years ago when I was first discovering artistic steelhead fly tying, there were but a handful of such truly talented steelhead tiers throughout the entire Northwest. Q What is your favorite fly to tie? A I don’t really have any one favorite and I don’t have lots of time for tying flies. In the 1980's I dressed tons of flies, including innumerable Spey and Dee styles, Steelhead flies, and full-dress flies; it was easier then, when I HAD to tie lots of flies to make a living and when I spent most days in the shop (and most evenings on the river.) So when I tie flies now, I usually do so with purpose: I’ll sit down a few times each spring and summer to ready my Wheatley for the summer/fall season and then hope I can make it all the way through! Usually by season’s end my fly box is pathetic because I end up giving too many flies away. If opportunity presents itself when I tie at shows, I’ll sneak a fly or two into my box, but more often I give them all to those people who express enough interest to sit down and patiently watch an entire fly being tied. I’m a firm believer that flies should be given and traded when anglers meet; in this measure I don’t place too much value on my own flies; I use them as examples to be given and traded—not just examples of styles and patterns, but also to exemplify the idea that something as simple as a fly can gap bridges between people and spark conversations between anglers who happen upon one another during a day on the river. I suppose all this is a long-winded way of saying that my favorite flies to tie are those I intend to fish—I used to tie and fish a lot of full-dress flies and I still fish lots of Dee and Spey styles—all of them (full dress, Dee, Spey, etc.) are simply too wonderful NOT to fish with! I am always saddened to hear any tier exclaim that “this fly is too valuable to fish”, or something along those lines because I feel that a steelhead, being such a remarkable creature, deserves the respect of being angled for with our best efforts—and that includes our best efforts at the tying bench. I will, from time to time, sit down and dress favorite patterns for auctions, gifts, or articles. For such situations I often dress the Carron, Purple King, Gardener and a few others; for classic steelhead flies, I like to donate Golden and Silver Demons, Brad’s Brats, and Cummings Specials, and likewise I like to teach these patterns at demos and in classes. Q How about to fish? A For many years my top-producing Steelhead pattern has been the Spawning Purple (my version, not the older Spawning Purple Hairwing by McNeese—the story of how the names came to converge explains the situation but I’ll not bore you with it here.) I catch perhaps 75 percent of my steelhead on this one pattern—almost assuredly because I fish it 75 percent of the time. I change flies because I’m bored with the Spawning Purple and wish to hook a fish on something else. In those instances, I rely on a broad variety of flies. Just this past summer season, on my home river, I vividly recall the fish that came to hand on a Gardener, the fish that ate a Redwing, and a feisty little 6-pounder that destroyed my carefully dressed Purple Heron (a Glasso knock-off with a purple body and white wing). Last summer I took quite a number of fish on a double Maxwell’s Purple Matuka (I’ve used this pattern for many years) because I was killing hatchery fish for the BBQ—a double hook pretty much guarantees that a fish hooked is a fish cooked; I didn’t have time to filet Steelhead this past summer because I have a new Weimaraner pup at home and had to limit my fishing to one or two pools each early morning. Last season (or was it the one before?) I was lucky enough to have my camera in tow when a fine 10-pound buck ate a 3/0 Tricolour and I really enjoy looking at that photo from time to time. One thing I have always done—since the early 1980s—and which I think probably separates me from many other tiers of Spey- and Dee-style flies, is fish my concoctions. If one of my Spey-style or Dee-style flies appears in print somewhere, you can bet it’s spent ample time in the water. I used to keep a journal of new flies I was inventing and a record of their catches (I’ve since lost that journal and haven’t had the heart to start it anew having lost all that fun information.) If there is one thing I wish more tiers would do it would be to fish their fanciest flies—the joy of hooking a Steelhead on your best fly is something that cannot be described. You simply must experience it. I’m not saying that you should dress a salmon fly with all the expensive feathers (Asian Kingfisher and Blue Chatterer feathers turn gray when wet anyway!) and then risk destroying or losing it, but substitute a few feathers as needed, and fish the fly! Q Do you plan on doing another book? A Most people don’t realize that I’ve actually penned something like 15 books! Dave Hughes, a prince of a man, advised me many years ago, after my first book was published, that if I wanted to earn my keep as a writer, I needed to “keep ‘em in print!” So yes, I do have other books planned and have just completed a new book on tying classic Steelhead flies. It is scheduled for release next year. I wanted to present the flies artistically as I hope I was able to do in the Spey/Dee book. There is nothing wrong with the old “12 flies on a blue background” fly plates, but I think they’ve been done to death. . .and I want people to see the fly as art—up close on a nice background, in intimate detail. I want people to marvel at the best parts of the fly and I want people to notice mistakes I made in tying the fly. In short, I want people to look at a fly close-up and decide for themselves if the fly itself is art, and if the photo likewise is art. This new book will also include something like 53 step-by-step sequences and perhaps 160 or more patterns. I was not writing a pattern guide, nor a historical text—both have been well done with regard to steelhead flies. So this is a technical tying guide reflecting mostly my own tying style, but also including many flies by other people. Q If so, will it be a Spey/Dee book or possibly a classic Salmon? A Of the Spey/Dee book, I do in fact plan on an expanded 2nd edition in about 2 years. I left a lot of material “on the cutting room floor” so to speak on that book, and I want to add all of it—that includes some previously excluded tying sequences, artwork, and photos. Meanwhile, my historical research has continued and I feel dutibound to present my findings to readers. I have never been the most intricate and exacting tier, so the flies in that book are not the part of which I am most proud. There are many other tiers who are capable of dressing a prettier Spey or Dee than I, because I am a pragmatic tier—get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. Good enough is fine; they needn’t be perfect. But I am a stickler for research methodology and the part of that book of which I am most proud is my original research. In every other modern text that purports to talk of the history of Spey flies, the ONLY sources used by the authors for writing of the history are other fly tying/fishing books. So if one such book is wrong, so too is the next—and there is plenty of wrong information floating about in modern books that talk of the history of Spey flies. I did a lot of original research by seeking “outside” sources and much of what I found was theretofore unpublished and/or unknown. Certainly I made mistakes—there are a few things in my history sections that were poorly worded and poorly authenticated by me and these things will certainly be redressed in the next edition—I owe that to my readers. But historical research is dynamic and I have continued to refine my research methodology. The results have been a substantial amount of additional information about the old Spey flies and tiers that I think will fascinate and perhaps inspire those who love not only these flies, but also their unique history. Somewhere down the road I’ll also write a book of humorous and outrageous stories deriving from my days at McNeese’s Fly Shop. So many absurd, unlikely, ridiculous, humorous, crazy things went on at that shop that after a while, even on days when I nor Forrest Maxwell were not scheduled to work, we almost always showed up at the shop in the afternoon for fear of missing something good if we didn’t show up. And generally, we would indeed miss something if we didn’t get there by about 4 or 5! Those crazy days simply must be recorded. . . Q Would you consider doing a coffee table book like the Schmookler books? A Paul’s books are remarkable and I could never duplicate his photography because I use 35mm and a lighting studio that I built for a total of $50! He and Mike Radencich use larger format photography and are FAR more knowledgeable studio photographers than I am. This is a great question, however, because an honest answer requires me to admit that I would truly enjoy doing a coffee-table book of my photography on a wide range of subjects. Ultimately I dream of doing such a book about Southeastern Oregon, using photos of all kinds of natural and man-made wonders to really illustrate the flavor and natural history of this remarkable corner of the Great Basin West. Of course it would sell about 12 copies. . . Q How is you new magazine doing? A After 20-plus years of freelancing, I think the time was right for me to be in the editing end of things, so I am now the managing editor of Northwest, Southwest, and Eastern Fly Fishing magazines. They are doing quite well and Eastern Fly Fishing, the new title, has rapidly gained a tremendous following. I often tell the story of my meeting with the magazine people at their downtown Seattle office when they were interviewing me: After offering me the job, they said something to the effect of, “Okay, John, you basically have two choices—you can move to Seattle and work out of the. . .” Before the sentence was finished, I said, “What’s option B?” I could never live in a city that big even though Seattle is reasonably nice as cities go. So I remain a work-out-the-home editor, and I truly enjoy working with Steve Probasco, the Editor-in-Chief. The one struggle is that I sometimes wonder if certain waters need the exposure, but I’ve been around this game long enough to know that generally speaking, a magazine article by itself rarely sends hordes of people to some small stream, and that there really aren’t many secrets out there anymore. As a writer for all those years, I always carefully considered the possible ramifications of writing about destinations and I simply didn’t write about certain places. But by the 90's, when the Internet took over the world, and when the number of fly anglers increased dramatically, it became apparent that things were changing fast, and information was far easier to obtain than ever before. On some waters, what would have been intolerable crowding just 20 or 25 years ago, is now quite the norm and quite accepted because so many of the anglers that comprise the crowd have not been in the sport long enough to know the difference, so in that way it’s a simple matter of perspective. As an editor of destination-specific magazines, I try to encourage writers to use their stories as a platform for publicizing potential problems that might befall a fishery or current issues that already concern a fishery. That kind of publicity simply cannot be a bad thing I would think. Q The photography in your books is fantastic- do you do your own pics? A Yes. As I mentioned above, I use 35mm and a lighting studio that I built for $50! Someday soon I’ll make the leap to digital, but for now I sure love the results I can get with Fuji Velvia and Provia. Q Do you plan to attend any up coming shows? A Nothing on the books right now, but I imagine I’ll end up attending at least one or two shows in 2006. The “show season” is troublesome for me because the January shows are competing with my chukar hunting and I have two pointing dogs to keep happy. I’m terribly dedicated to hunting them, especially with Jake turning 9 this year. He is and has been a remarkable bird dog and constant companion for all those years during several major changes in my life. I’ve never enjoyed the travel to and from the shows, nor all the logistics, but I surely enjoy face-to-face meetings with people and I am constantly humbled when people are kind enough to take the time to stop and talk with me about something I have written. Q Where do you see the future of Spey and Dee tying heading? A Spey and Dee style flies enjoy a remarkable popularity now and I think the basic trend is for tiers to increasingly expand the definition of what constitutes a Spey fly. The great thing about that is that it demonstrates that there is still ample room for original thought in fly design. Strictly speaking I would argue that to be a true Spey fly, a pattern must not only conform to the classic 19th-century style but must also derive from Speyside during that period. But that is just nit-picking, though it partly explains why I prefer the term “Spey-style” fly. Although I recognize and perhaps even insist on the strict definition of what truly is a Spey fly, I nonetheless like the idea that tiers are calling many divergent patterns “Spey flies” because doing so demonstrates a certain respect for and even reverence for the style. So if a tier creates something Spey-like and then calls it a Spey fly, perhaps that name alone will be enough to propel that tier into further studying the old Spey flies and the people who created them. In that way, those Speyside tiers of old—Geordie Shanks, Major James Grant, John Cruickshanks—remain alive to us, for their contributions should no more be forgotten than should be the contributions of Haig-Brown, Jim Pray, and Glasso. Q Do you feel the classics may become lost as more people start tying Spey and Dee flies? A I hope not. Certainly, the trend is for tiers to lend their own creative toolings to the style, and in doing so we collectively continue to stretch the definition of a Spey or Dee fly. I have been as guilty as anybody—perhaps more so because of my history of published works—at rather haphazardly applying the word “Spey” to my dressings. But, I think as long as we maintain a solid record of the classic old Spey and Dee flies, people will naturally be drawn to them. And I might add that the Pacific Northwest tiers especially, and North American tiers in general, are far more interested in—and adept at tying—Spey flies than anglers and tiers living Speyside. Visiting the Spey River to dig up information about the classic Spey flies is a highly challenging endeavor! Also, I think that the incredibly bright, striking, superbly dressed Pacific Coast-style Spey and Dee flies are often so stunning that they cannot help attract new tiers to the genre, and if even a few newcomers then develop an interest in the roots of these flies, the classics should remain alive and well. Q What are a couple of good starter patterns for the beginning Spey and Dee tyer? A As for classics, I would suggest that tiers try their hand at both the “heron-hackled” Spey flies and the rooster-hackled patterns. Of the former, two of the nicest are the Lady Caroline and the Carron; use Blue-eared Pheasant rump in place of Heron. Of the latter, I like the Gold Purpy as a starter fly—straightforward and simple. Use natural brown Schlappen or Coque (side tail) for the hackle. For Dee flies, I think the Tri-Colour is a nice starter fly (in the Scottish brogue, by the way, it is pronounced “trickeler”—took me a while to figure out what my Scottish friend was saying when I first heard that!). Of course, the Mallard wings always present a challenge for most tiers until they get the hang of it—I could have done a better job illustrating the techniques in the Spey/Dee book, so I made sure to shoot a much better step-by-step sequence that will appear in the forthcoming book on tying Steelhead flies and in the next edition of Spey Flies & Dee Flies. I might add that for anybody who runs into me at a tying show (Eugene in March, for example)—please just ask for a Bronze Mallard demo—seeing it first-hand is better than looking at photos. As for Northwest patterns, Glasso’s Orange Heron is a wonderful fly and even intermediate tiers can achieve great results with just a little practice. The great thing about these flies is that by and large they require only a minimal investment in materials. Granted, those materials are often specialty items and certainly you must get the highest-quality materials you can find, but take the Gold Purpy for example: purple yarn, 1 or 2 sizes of gold flat tinsel, small gold oval, brown schlappen, bronze mallard. That’s it! Q How did you get started in freelance writing? A As a high school kid I had a great teacher in journalism and got involved in our little school paper; that teacher got me a column (outdoor stuff) in the local weekly newspaper in that small town. So when I headed off to college I was aiming for journalism as a course of study and during those college years sold quite a few magazine articles while studying public relations in the journalism department. That planted the seeds. After college I had to decide: Go to work 9-to-5 style for a P.R. firm, or try to make it on my own as a writer; luckily, I had also spent my college years tying flies, seemingly by the ton, for a number of commercial accounts and I continued to do that and to work for the fly shop. So, basically, I decided I could make it as a deadbeat slacker if I worked hard enough at it. Not until I reached my 30's was I self-sufficient, but indeed I was— I was able to drop the shop work and the commercial tying (though I did start up a successful, albeit small, mail order business specializing in materials for Salmon and Steelhead flies). I learned very early on that the critical thing in becoming a successful writer is simply to never take the time to pat yourself on the back for a job well done (or just done, for that matter). The minute you start writing to see your name in print is the minute you lose the competitive edge that forces you to continue cranking out the work and to continue selling, selling, selling yourself and your ideas to editors and publishers. Most freelance writers in the fly fishing genre are what I call “hobby writers:” they have real jobs and real careers and have no need of trying to support themselves through writing. Very few of us have been able to make it as true full-timers and those of us that have learn to stay very busy selling articles, ideas, photos, etc. to every outlet that offers a paycheck. Over the years I sold articles to something like 30 different magazines, ranging from general outdoor rags, to wing-shooting magazines, to wine/food periodicals. And, as Dave Hughes advised me a long time ago, I’ve also “kept ‘em in print” by trying to be constantly working on a new book. For anyone thinking about outdoor writing as a job or just as a “hobby”, professionalism is key: deliver exactly what the editor/publisher wants, exactly how he/she wants it, exactly when he/she wants it. Now that I am on the editing side of things, I am constantly amazed at the lack of professionalism. Just today I answered an email from a photographer who wanted to sell us a “cover shot” of a huge brown trout. Yet if you look at every cover we have ever done on all three magazines, none have ever been fish photos—we do scenics! The first step in professionalism is to look at the magazine! Now I am ranting, of course, but my point is that there is always room for writers and photographers who can conduct themselves professionally. 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