Gallery

Rods from the F.E. Thomas company of Bangor, Me. From left, a 9 1/2′ Browntone Special Light Salmon rod, a 9′ Special Streamer rod, an 8 1/2′ Special trout rod, an 8 1/2′ Dirigo trout rod and an 8′ Special Wet Fly model.
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Special and Dirigo with a W. Dingley trout reel and a Meisselbach Expert 17.

Fishing on the West Branch of the Ausable in the Adirondacks.
There’s a saying that “trout don’t live in ugly places.” Trout live here.

A pair of Denver-made fly rods, a mid-1930s Goodwin Granger Special 9050 (9-foot, 5 oz.) and a late 1940s 8′ Phillipson Paramount.

An 8 1/2-foot Phillipson Paragon from the late 1940s and a Thompson 100 reel, made in San Francisco.

Rainbow trout from the Fryingpan River in Colorado, caught on a Phillipson bamboo rod.

Same day, same river, same rod.

Beautiful wild brook trout caught with an 8′ Heddon Black Beauty, one of the longtime Michigan tackle company’s most popular fly rods.

Hardy fly reels from the Golden Age: a 3 1/4″ Bougle and a 3 1/8″ Perfect.

Leonard rods from the first half of the 20th century: left to right, an 8 1/2′ Model 50 1/2, an 8′ Model 50 Dry Fly, an 8′ Model 40 Catskill, a very early 7’11” Fairy Catskill and a 7 1/2′ Model 49. The company was in business for more than 100 years, and the quality of its rods, though always high, varied over the decades. Collectors value the rods made before 1964 the most. A fire that year destroyed the factory, though the company remained in business another 20 years and made excellent rods right up to the end.

An 8′ Leonard 50DF (for dry fly) with a Milward Flycraft reel made in England by the J.W. Young firm.

A rainbow caught with an 8’6″ Phillipson PowrPakt, made in 1951, is released back into the Fryingpan River in Colorado.

A lineup of Phillipson Peerless rods with their distinctive “nosecone” winding checks. The Peerlesses were impregnated with a resin that helped protect the cane from moisture. The Phillipson company, located in Denver, was owned by Bill Phillipson, the former head of rodmaking at Granger and one of the major  rodmakers of the century.

A Garrison 212, at top, made by Everett Garrison, and a Gillum heavy trout model made by Harold S. Gillum, two of the premier rodmakers of the 20th century. The reel on the Garrison is a Bogdan trout reel; the Gillum is wearing the last reel model sold by the Leonard company before it closed its doors in the 1980s.

Fighting a big brown trout on the West Branch of the Ausable River near Wilmington. N.Y. The rod is an Orvis from the 1960s.

Two rare U.S. Net & Twine Kosmics from around 1895. The reel seat is made from ivoroid, an early plastic. The ferrules are the patented Kosmic “potbellies,” with celluoid inserts that Kosmic used to get around the Leonard ferrule patent. The Kosmic rod was a sensation in the Gilded Age.

The same rods, with reels: at top, a 10-foot Kosmic with a Philbrook & Paine (Payne) marbleized reel from 1877.
Below, an 8’9 Kosmic with a Leonard Bi-metal reel, also made by Philbrook and Paine. Francis Philbrook and Ed Payne assigned the patent for their revolutionary reels to Leonard.

A Goodwin Granger 8642 Favorite from the 1930s, with a Heddon Imperial 125 reel from the 1920s.

A rare 4-piece pack rod made by the H.L. Leonard company.