Streamers, a "Dreadful Scourge"

This week on MidCurrent Paul Schullery looks at the strange history of streamer flies and their authorship in “A Dreadful Scourge.” If anything, it seems, streamer patterns have excited what Thomas McGuane calls the “self-aggrandizing ardor” of fly fishers to take credit for various patterns, something only a good history can sort out.