Fred Klein
Fred Klein‘s primary focus on the art and history of fly tying. He ties framed fly plates for display as well as flies for the waters, from oil paintings in classic books by Charles F. Orvis, Mary Orvis Marbury, Carrie Stevens, Herb Welch, and Ray Bergman as well as many patterns that he has developed in the old tradition. With his website on fly tying history, grizzlykingfly.com, as well as an active presence on social media, he hopes to carry on the tradition of fly tying and fishing with wet flies, streamers and dry flies from this golden era of fly fishing.
Author Articles
Tying Classical Flies from Illustrations
Fly Tying the Classics: Resurrecting Painted Flies The art of the fly has been presented in literature through oil paintings for many hundreds of years. They leap off the pages adorned in bright silk, shiny tinsel, and feathers in all the colors of the rainbow. The photographed fly would not appear in low resolution until well after World War II, which...
The Four Horsemen of Classic Trout Streamers
A Long-Hook Odyssey Streamer Fly: feathers and fur bound by thread to a long fish hook portraying the appearance of a minnow, the preferred prey of large trout. “And so big trout,” the old angler continued, “have inherited the ability to use a minimum of energy to acquire a maximum of food. They specialize to concentrate on one type of food to the...
The Professor: A Fly History
Beginnings in Scotland Two centuries ago Scottish angler John Wilson, a highly acclaimed Scottish professor, author, poet and outdoorsman, ran short of flies, and to create something of a fly like appearance, he fastened the petals of buttercups on his hook, adding bits of leaves or grass to imitate the wings of a fly. This arrangement was so successful...
A Fly Fishing Chronicle: The Coch-Y-Bonddu
On the Waters Late summer mornings are a magical time along the woodland trout stream that flows behind our Pennsylvania home. A short walk brings greetings of misty ferns, painted lady butterflies and a wood thrush singing with joy as the days of summer grow shorter. Evening showers and cool nights offer a welcome relief from the sweltering heat, and the...
The Tomah Jo: Favorite Fly of a Maine Indian Guide
Tomah Joseph, an Algonquin Indian from the Grand Lake Stream area in Maine was a fly fishing and hunting guide in the 1800s as well as an elder of the Passamaquoddy indian tribe. He was written of in Charles Stevens's book Fly Fishing in Maine Lakes- Camp Life in the Wilderness (1881). Stevens wrote that Tomah would accompany him on fishing trips and noted...
The Beauty of Classic Wet Flies
My journey in pursuit of trout with the fly began over 40 years ago with a new fly rod and instructions to cast and drift a fly. What a gift that was. The woods and waters of Pennsylvania, the Appalachian Mountains and beyond have brought a life of admiration for the wilderness, forests, wildlife, and a thirst for “what lies beyond the next bend in the...
