Email sent on September 1, 2008
Ric:
There were many rod builders in Michigan when I was growing up, not only Dickerson but also Heddon, Young and others. My Father preferred Denver-made Goodwin Grangers, particularly "Aristocrats" and I chided him as to why he didn't buy something built closer to home. He never gave me a clear-cut answer, but I suspect he liked Grangers because they were readily available and inexpensive. Remember, we're talking "Great Depression Years" and lots of people were working hard for one dollar a day.
I did not spend a great deal of time at Dickerson's as you apparently thought. I helped Jerry Stein a little bit with his 1991 book "Dickerson, the Man and His Rods", for which I was generously rewarded with an acknowledgment in the book and a limited edition copy signed by the authors. I remember being in Mr. Dickerson's shop a couple of times with my Father and "Uncle Fred" during my early teens, but I was less interested in the final product than in the building process. The same was true of the other makers we visited, although from each I learned something and formed "opinions" which, right or wrong, I later incorporated or rejected in my own rods. For example, I thought Dickersons were too stiff, too fast, and lacked delicacy, but I liked his "measure mark" wraps on the butt sections, so incorporated them into my Legacy Series rods. I have never cared for "swelled butt" tapers either, prevalent on many Heddons, and most Grangers and Leonards, because the flex stops and the line will simply collapse when the rod action reaches a point just above the swell. I have an expensive swelled-butt planing form and have built a few, but still don't like them much.
Paul Young favored so-called "Parabolic" tapers, a concept that very few fishermen like or can master successfully. Even "Payne" parabolics never appealed to me and today are sought largely by collectors who seldom actually fish! "Paras", in my opinion is a flawed concept foisted upon the inexperienced by a then celebrity figure, Mr.Charles Ritz and his Pezon et Michel Rods.
Anyway, my personal opinions aside, I learned to respect Payne tapers years later when I was doing many Payne restorations. They did what I thought a fly rod should do, so back in the early eighties I began using them as a starting point for my own rods, tweaking them a little through the years to make a particular model just a tad quicker or slower to accommodate slightly different lines and/or individual casting styles and preferences. Thus evolved the Legacy " I, II, III, etc." designations.
Enough! I tend to get carried away with this stuff!
I must get back to work.
John.
PS:
I expect Dr. Knuemann would enjoy seeing this, so I'll include him as an addressee.
A few pictures of John's work. Would love to have others post stories about, emails from, and pictures of John's work.
