Day 37 - Little Treasures

While in the garage yesterday searching through boxes for a long lost book, I came across some little treasures. Besides finding my lucky yellow hat (described in yesterday's post), I came across two things which caught me off guard.

Buried among old bills, business ethics papers, and old faded receipts was two pieces of paper stapled together and folded in thirds. Curious about their importance, I opened it up and found to my surprise it was a fly recipe pattern. The pattern I believe is the Rainbow Warrior, the pattern which Lance Egan used to place 2nd in ESPN's 2003 Western Flyfishing Qualifiers. I have no idea how I found the fly or to what original purpose I had for it in my fly box. By evidence on the date on the bottom of the page (2/26/2007), I am left to conclude that I was getting excited for early season Wisconsin trout opener. (Did I print this off because I was in a meeting with a fly vendor who told me they were going to introduce this pattern?) For the complete history of the fly and recipe for the Rainbow Warrior click here (you really gotta love the person who thought it was a good idea to print of URLs on the bottom of the page).

The second find was a box full of Fly Tying magazines. It was a venerable treasure chest of fly fishing lore. They went back at least 5 years if not more. Spread amongst the titles were old issues of Fly Fusion, American Angler, Fly Rod & Reel... to my perspective it is treasure. Maybe that is why I still have them. I think I'd like to go through that stack of knowledge and scan through the articles one more time. Just recently I found out that I had picked up a magazine that was over a year old, and that I had reread an article that I had forgotten (it was the one about the hooks).

As I sit and reflect upon these little treasures, I wonder what other treasures I have forgotten about. I mean until I ran across the Rainbow Warrior pattern yesterday, the pattern would have stayed lost in my subconscious. I vaguely remember other patterns that I have tied and seemed excited about, but I have either misplaced the recipe or the fly or both.

So what does this mean? A) Yet another piece of evidence of me and my Quest for the Holy Grail of Flies. B) That I need to have a better catalog system for my fly patterns. C) That when I sit down at the vise and start showing the artistic/creative side of my personality, I should do so with a pen and paper by my side so that I can document the patterns and my reasoning.

As always, I'm curious. This time I'm curious about you the reader and what kind of little treasure you would like to share with me. If you would like to give up your secret weapon pattern to me feel free to leave a comment.