American Museum of Fly Fishing’s Top 50 Objects #2: J. R. Harris Flies

December 5, 2025 By: American Museum of Fly Fishing Staff

King’s Fisher Fly variation from The Harris Collection of Irish and English Fly Patterns (1991.020.015).

For more than 50 years, the American Museum of Fly Fishing has been preserving the history of fly fishing across two physical locations—in Manchester, Vermont, and Springfield, Missouri—and through their award-winning quarterly journal, The American Fly Fisher. This year, AMFF and MidCurrent have teamed up to count down the 50 most interesting objects in the museum’s permanent collection, which currently includes more than 25,000 objects in total. Each month features historically significant items, with brief descriptions from AMFF curator Jim Schottenham.

We’re down to the final two objects and we’ll be revealing the top object nest Wednesday! If you missed the first eight installments, be sure to check them out (Part 1: #50—#36, Part 2: #35—#26, Part 3: #25-#16, Part 4: #15-#11, Part 5: #10-#6, Part 6: #5, Part 7: #4 and Part 8: #3).

That’s Jim in the video above, giving even more in-depth info on this month’s object. Start the video, and then scroll through the images below, allowing Jim to serve as your guide.

#2
The J. R. Harris fly collection
Gift of Dorothy Downs (1991.020.003-200)

Colonel William Trench fly from The Harris Collection of Irish and English Fly Patterns (1991.020.033).

These are some of the oldest documented flies in our collection, with the earliest dating back to 1789. Arranged chronologically, they span more than a century, ending with a group of salmon flies tied ca. 1916. In between are wet flies, dry flies, and salmon flies of various sizes and colors, representing more than a hundred years’ worth of fishing. They hail from the British Isles, particularly Ireland and England, and most are in excellent condition. However, what makes these flies so meaningful is not just their age, but the documentation accompanying so many of them. More than three-quarters of these flies include some form of paperwork—usually either a bill of sale or a letter—identifying the year the fly was tied. Having that kind of provenance for such a variety of fly types provides us with valuable historical insight into the evolution of flies, hooks, and leaders from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth.