Memories Of Paul Young

An Au Sable Icon

Chauncy Lively

World War II brought about a drought of fishing tackle that touched virtually all anglers. Production of all recreational equipment had ground to a halt, as had most products not connected to the war effort. By 1945 those few who could still manage an occasional day's fishing often did so with tackle held together with bailing wire and a prayer. But eventually the war came to an end and in due course new rods, reels, and accessories began to magically reappear on store shelves.

I had built up a mighty thirst for a new fly rod - not just any run-of-the-mill stick but one of which I could be proud. After all, I had spent fifty-four months in the service of Uncle Sam's army and earned the prerogative of pampering myself a little, right?

I began browsing in stores for my dream rod, determined to take my time and avoid making a hasty decision. In those days the typical tackle shop had no place where one could actually test a rod by casting. So I would pick up a prospect from the rack, flex it and waggle the tip, note its weight, and examine the finish for flaws. Then I'd seek the opinions of friends and any advice I could muster.

After a painfully long time I made my choice. It was an 8 1/2 foot, three-piece split-cane rod - a top-of-the-line model from one of the best-known production rod companies. It was said to possess "modern dry fly action" - whatever that means - and required an HDH (five-weight) line to balance it properly. It came in a hammered brass tube with a threaded cap and suede bag. The rod itself had brown silk windings tastefully trimmed with gold, and the varnish was glass-smooth with a deep patina. Very impressive, indeed.

But alas, I was soon to discover that the rod's appearance was its biggest asset. On the stream it was pleasant enough to use for short casts - the kind of flick- flick-flick casting employed in pocket fishing. Its flexible tip and stiff butt - the norm for the day - made it suitable for short-range casting. But unfortunately, when I wanted to reach out beyond forty feet the soft tip simply folded up, making pinpoint accuracy impossible at that distance. It was a disappointment, of course, but I figured the rod was probably better than most and I'd work around its shortcomings.

Not long afterwards a Paul H. Young ad appeared in Field and Stream, announcing that he was tooling up for production of new rods and inviting inquiries. I was not familiar with Young rods at the time so I wrote him requesting information. Within a few days I received a booklet called The Story of Your Rod. It was a revelation: fully illustrated, its fifteen pages gave the most detailed description of bamboo rod-building I'd ever seen. It meticulously covered the entire process from the selection of cane to the rod's final coating of bakelite-base varnish. It described the use of everything-proof phenolic resin glues developed for the military during the war. It related rod tapers to rod action and described how a rod's vibration frequency translated into its action. I was so impressed with the honesty and thoroughness of the booklet I read it several times from cover to cover.

By now my wife Marion was able to take enough time away from motherhood duties to think about fly fishing and we decided she should have a new fly rod. Naturally, the new Young rods were the first to come to mind. Cautiously (we didn't know anyone who owned one of these rods), we made a selection - a mid-grade, 7 1/2 foot, three ounce, two-piece model with medium dry fly action - and sent off our order.

When the new rod arrived I hastily joined it up and flexed it. They say a rod's "feel" is indefinable, but I immediately recognized that this rod felt unlike any I'd ever had in hand. The tip felt delicate without being soft and the rod's action extended all the way to the cork grip.

We quickly rigged up with reel and line and went outside to christen the new rod on grass. The first few casts had me shaking my head in disbelief. The little rod cast rings around my so-called "prestige rod," which was twelve inches longer, two ounces heavier, and twice as costly.

Marion was ecstatic about her new rod and her experience on trout water the following weekend only strengthened her enthusiasm. I wrote Paul Young to congratulate him for a fine rod and thus began a wonderful correspondence - and friendship - which lasted until his death in 1960, and which continues with Martha Marie, Paul's wife and business partner. (See story in The Riverwatch, Number 18, July 1994.)

Paul was the finest kind of correspondent. He was never too busy to respond promptly and in detail to any inquiry or to exchange fishing experiences. I wondered how he could find time to communicate with his many friends all over the world but he somehow managed - and in fact, seemed to relish "keeping in touch." He was so personally involved in every rod he made it was almost like sending an offspring out into the world when he shipped the rod. Though he loved to hear about his customer's experiences with their new toys, I doubt he ever sold another rod to a customer he'd heard abused or misused one of his rods. In fact, if someone came into the shop to discuss the purchase of a Young rod and in the course of conversation mentioned he sometimes used spinners or lures, Paul would lead him to a rack of ready made fiberglass rods in another part of the shop.

He had a low opinion of fiberglass rods, even though he stocked them. Once he made this observation in a letter: "Every day I feel more like a jackass with glass rods on the work bench and in the catalog. It's a disgrace - it's like selling rot-gut liquor - but some insist on this brand of goods."

Paul Young's business encompassed the complete spectrum of fly fishing, from fly-tying materials to accessories to rods. He was always open to innovation, in hooks as well as rods. Since Paul was a major dealer in Mustad hooks, over the years he commissioned several special models for his shop. (In those years, Mustad would duplicate any hook - in lots of 10,000 or more - on condition a prototype was provided.) Paul had always admired the profile of the Hardy mayfly hook and tried to purchase a supply from the English company. However, when he learned that Hardy refused to market its hooks he stripped a Hardy dry fly and sent the hook to Mustad for duplication. The result was Mustad's hook known as model 9579A.

Not long after we began corresponding, Paul and I would occasionally exchange favorite fly patterns. I was into barbless hooks at that time and the flies I sent were dressed on hooks with the barbs squeezed down. Paul seemed to like that and a few months later I received a package containing several boxes of needlepoint barbless hooks which he must have com- missioned Mustad to manufacture. In any event, he was the first U.S. dealer to stock Mustad's #94818 and #94845 and he enthusiastically endorsed their use. The needle point barbless proved much superior to the only other barbless hook of that day - the Jamison barbless - which had a kink in the wire behind the point.

Paul's (and Martha's) favorite stream was the Au Sable and when they first began driving to the north country it was on gravel roads from the edge of Detroit. The grayling were gone from the river by that time but Paul recalled his father telling tales of watching men catch grayling on nearly every cast - sometimes two and three at a time. They would toss the fish on the bank behind them until the pile reached shoulder height. Then they would select several grayling for their creels and walk away, leaving the rest to rot or be consumed by animals.

Eventually, the Youngs purchased a cabin on the Holy Water and it became their base of fishing operations. Their teenage sons, Paul and Jack, spent their entire summers on the river, to be joined by their parents on weekends. I've seen photos of some of the catches made by the boys and I can certify the river gave up big browns that would make Montana anglers envious. But as the river became more popular, new cabins appeared all along its banks. One such was directly across the river from the Young cabin and the owner began to remove any sweepers and bank cover that impeded the operation of his outboard motorboat. Disgusted, Paul and Martha sold their cabin and thereafter relied on commercial lodgings for their trips to the river.

After the boys were discharged from the service following the war, both married and their parents anticipated becoming grandparents. Paul's letters reflected a joy in looking forward to the patter of little feet and finally, the big news came. Young Paul's wife had given birth to twins! Paul was obviously delighted to make the announcement and in his droll way, added, "Looks like Paulie was using a dropper."

When Paul and Ted Williams met they discovered a shared love for big fish fly rodding - for Atlantic salmon, salt water species, etc. The two worked together to help develop fly fishing for bonefish in the Florida Keys; in fact, they were regarded as pioneers of the sport.

Bob Doerr, a team mate of Ted Williams, also became a friend of the Youngs and introduced them to steelhead fishing in his home rivers of Oregon. Paul subsequently designed and built a powerful nine-foot steelhead/salmon rod which he called the Bobby Doerr model.

Paul's shop on Grand River Avenue in Detroit was just a few blocks from home on Ivanhoe Drive. He and Martha often walked to and from work. When the Red Sox played in Detroit it wasn't uncommon on their homeward walk for the Youngs to find many youngsters in their front yard. As they came nearer the reason for the crowd became apparent. Seated on the porch would be Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr, waiting for their friends to come home.

I eventually acquired a Paul Young rod, then another. In those days Paul's top rods cost $65. He would write from time to time to describe new rods he was developing and they were hard for a rod nut to resist. Marion felt she couldn't live without a Driggs River Special (named for a stream in the U.P.) and when she began to fish with it she found she liked it even more than her 7 1/2 footer. At 7 feet 2 inches and under three ounces, it was a potent little stick and she began to use it for all her fishing.

During that time the Pennsylvania trout season ended on July 31, after which we turned to bass-bugging for smallmouth on the Allegheny River. Marion used her Driggs for this fishing, too, and had a circus with roughneck bass on the little rod. I reported this to Paul but he never commented on it in return, which I thought was unusual.

When Paul developed his Midge, his most diminutive rod at 6 feet 3 inches and 1 3/4 ounces, it caused quite a stir and became a very popular model. Paul mentioned several times that a customer was using a Midge for Atlantic salmon and he fussed and fumed about it; it worried Paul because the little rod was not intended for such heavy-duty work. Of course, the customer, whose name Paul never mentioned, was Arnold Gingrich, publisher of Esquire, and distinguished author. Gingrich eventually acquired a whole battery of Midge rods.

On Paul's first visit to Pennsylvania we sat around our dining room table exchanging fishing yarns, talking about rods, and swapping bits of unusual fly tying materials and fly patterns. Then he wanted to see Marion's Driggs and the bugs she used for bass. He joined the rod together and sighted along its length as he slowly rotated it. When he was satisfied it was still perfectly straight he nodded his approval. Then I showed him the tiny hair frogs I made for Marion - dressed on fine wire, size #12 hooks - and he seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

Paul's annual catalogs, which he dubbed More Fishing, Less Fussing, not only listed an impressive stock of tackle, they were also chock-full of valuable tips and fascinating fly fishing experiences. One could not browse through these catalogs, or read his book, Making and Using the Fly and Leader, without coming away with great respect for the man and a feeling that here was a giant in the world of fly fishing.

His writings constantly stressed curve-casting, a skill easier to discuss than to execute and we were anxious to see him in action.

On this, his initial visit to Pennsylvania, we first fished a couple of scenic mountain streams not far from home and then headed to Spring Creek for a few days. At that time Spring Creek was one of the finest trout streams in the eastern U.S., incredibly rich in aquatic insects and crustacea - and of course, trout. Tragically, a few years later it was jolted with a slug of pollution and continuing enrichment from which it never fully recovered. But in its prime the stream could be extremely difficult if not intimidating. It certainly was unfriendly to anyone not willing to painstakingly learn its whims.

We met George Aiken in Bellefonte and drove out to a favorite stretch where we found a good trout rising steadily at the juncture of several current tongues. Paul urged George and me to try for him. We complied, taking turns to no avail. The trout was in a tough spot, sitting in a slow-water pocket surrounded by faster currents. Regardless of how much slack we threw, the fly would quickly begin dragging. The trout seemed to know it had an advantage; it would appear under the fly and drift along until the drag began. Then it would disappear. When Paul's turn came he crossed to the opposite side of the stream, made one backhand curve-cast and caught the brownie. It looked embarrassingly easy.

Curve-casting was almost a religion to Paul. He designed his leaders and flies to "lie back" and cause the line to bow upcurrent of fly and leader. It is, basically, an underpowered cast executed sidearm and it is very difficult to control accurately, particularly in breezy weather. But Paul did it with perfection and I think it had much to do with his great success as a fly fisher.

Paul was a knowledgeable naturalist as well as an expert angler. He could readily identify a bird from its song and knew much about trees and wildflowers. On the stream Paul carried a flat grass creel which he used mainly to hold special gear such as a large aluminum leader case of the old style with felt leaves. But instead of carrying leaders he saturated the pads with Preen, a fly and line dressing he developed, and used it to apply floatant to his dry flies.

At Spring Creek Paul asked if the whirling cranefly was indigenous to the stream. "The wings look like grizzly hackle tips," he said. I told him there were plenty of craneflies here but none to fit his description.

A couple of hours later we met again and Paul told me he had something to show me. He opened his leader case and separated the felt pads. There between the pads was a perfect specimen of the whirling cranefly - grizzly hackle tips and all!

Paul hooked a heavy twenty-inch brown on Spring Creek (on a #16 nymph, as I recall) and landed it after a long battle. He then did something unusual - something I'd never before witnessed. After he released the trout he shook his rod vigorously for about ten seconds. He explained that "the power fibers of the cane become stretched in one direction during a long fight. Vibrating the rod allows the fibers to relax and slide back into place."

Later that summer we had a further opportunity to observe Paul's curve-casting in Michigan where I became convinced he got drag-free floats back along the sweepers that no other mode of casting would produce. We often fished together, wading side by side in the middle of the river - he, casting backhand to the left bank and I to the right. It was pleasant, companionable fishing made possible by the Au Sable's friendly currents and riverbottom profile.

Among Paul's friends were several Texans with whom he fished in Montana and Wyoming. One was the owner of a railroad along a famous river in Wyoming where he had constructed special sidings leading off the main line to the best pools along the river. He also owned a motorized caboose equipped with bunks, cooking facilities and the works. Paul related they would cruise along in the caboose, pull off onto the siding of their choice and scramble down the bank to fish near-virgin water.

When Vince Marinaro's book, A Modern Dry Fly Code was published I sent a copy to Paul and from time to time he would write to remark that he admired the ethics and was enjoying the book. But when he came to Vince's statement regarding the lack of justification for a hook larger than size #16 for any dry fly, Paul sent me a Pteronarcys stonefly nymph case. Collected at Moose, Wyoming, it was almost two inches long. "Ask your friend to dress one of these on a #16," he wrote.

Early in 1955 we began to lay plans for Paul to come to Pennsylvania again in June but this time he wanted to extend the trip to fish the Beaverkill in New York as well. In an article about the nation's fly tiers in Fortune magazine, photos of Paul and Harry Darbee appeared side by side and the two wanted to meet. Paul's friend Russ Malone in northeast Pennsylvania, also a friend of Darbee, would act as our guide.

When June rolled around our plans had become quite elaborate. Walter Weber, of the National Geographic staff, wanted to meet us on the Brodhead in Pennsylvania and Paul's friend Charles Kerlee, of Esquire magazine, invited us to fish with him at his camp on the Neversink river in New York. But Weber had to cancel because of an assignment elsewhere and at the last minute Kerlee wired that he had to fly to Cuba. (Castro had not yet taken over.) Kerlee wanted us to fish at his camp without him. "Just identify yourselves to the gatekeeper and make yourselves at home," were his orders. However, we decided to pass up the chance since he couldn't be with us. We found out later that Kerlee's camp was the historic former Hewitt camp on the Neversink.

With our plans changed, Russ Malone took us over to the Lackawaxen River in Pennsylvania where we had several days of good fishing. On our way to the Beaverkill we enjoyed a pleasant visit at Harry Darbee's place on the Willewemoc. Harry directed us to a stretch of the Beaverkill below Cook's Falls. This was my first time on the Beaverkill, too, and I found it similar to several big freestone streams in the East, scattered through the mountains.

We began fishing in mid-morning. When we stepped into the stream the water didn't seem very cool. I checked its temperature; my thermometer registered seventy degrees and rising. There was no visible activity on the river. Though eventually we started to catch smallmouth bass on big stonefly nymphs, it was nearly dusk when we finally took trout but they were thin, colorless hatchery browns. We began to wonder about the Beaverkill mystique. We were disappointed, knowing full that judgement should not be based on a single day's fishing. Still, Paul and I agreed we would not trade a single bend on the Au Sable for the entire Beaverkill.

The following year Marion and I journeyed to the Au Sable again to fish with the Youngs. This time Paul tried to time our trip to coincide with the Hexagenia hatch. Unfortunately, Michigan had a cold spring that year and the hatches were behind schedule. We missed the hex but hit the brown drakes dead on and had a week of exciting fishing.

That was the last time we fished with Paul. His heart condition worsened and he had to be hospitalized from time to time. But through it all he continued to correspond; his letters were almost always upbeat. He and Martha still managed occasional short visits to the river - usually to the North Branch - and although they did a modicum of fishing, the main purpose of the trips was just to be there.

My friend Jean Larouche, the Pittsburgh Casting Club's premier tournament caster, became interested in Young rods. In April, 1959 he and I drove to Detroit to spend a weekend with the Youngs. Paul looked thin and frail but he was in good spirits and it was obvious he hadn't lost his sense of humor. We had a fine visit, met with old friends, and Jean tried out rods to his heart's content while Paul nodded approval to his selection.

About a year later, on April 28, 1960, Paul passed away. Significantly, it was during the weekend of Michigan's trout opener.

Paul Young was regarded as one of the Stradivari of cane rods and it is a reputation well-earned. Not only was he a fine craftsman, his fly casting skills and great knowledge of fly fishing translated into uniquely designed tapers which produced superb casting tools. He was both meticulous and thoughtful, always mindful of the individual requirements of his customers. For instance, he knew Marion had narrow hands and for her rods he would make cork grips with smaller diameters and a thumb indentation in each. Furthermore, her rods always had what he called a "ladies ferrule fit" which made them easier to take apart after use. He was a perfectionist (he called himself a "crank") whose standards were painfully high.

He lived and breathed fly fishing; it was a way of life to which he devoted much energy and thought. At the funeral home Martha told us that when he lapsed into a coma shortly before he died he would repeatedly bring his cupped hand near his mouth and blow, "poof- poof." That was his characteristic way of blow-drying his fly after landing a fish.

... Ever the fly fisher.

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