Friends: show

On May 26, 2005 Don Colman lost his fight with cancer. The salmon fly tying community has lost a good and long time friend. Words cannot describe what our friendship has meant to me. Sadly this will be the last the last posting on his page. I truly miss him.

Don Colman (pictured at right in the Keough Booth Somerset NJ Nov. 2004) found me a few years ago when he was looking to buy some Kori bustard. He called me out of the blue one day telling me he had been a Salmon Fly tyer but hadn't tied in a while due to a vision problem he described as cataracts. He said he had a surgical procedure that corrected the problem and wanted to renew his interest in tying. This led to more and more frequent phone conversations as we had been very much kindred spirits following parallel paths in garnering fly tying materials from the same sources. We had even saved the same catalogs dating as far back as the early 60's. We both still have a lot of the stuff that we bought lifetime supplies of at the time.

Don Colman is more than a FRIEND. He has been an Inspiration, Copy Editor, Sounding Board, Materials Bird Dog, Color Processor and the list goes on and on. More importantly he's always been there when I needed him. I doubt this site would be anything close to what it is now without his help. Words really can't express my appreciation.

The words "I can't" are not in Don's vocabulary. I asked him to share some of his knowledge on tying Salmon Flies with others who might visit this site. Click HERE to read and learn how to make you own wing setter also known as The Charlie Chute Wing Tool or HERE to read his quest for Indian Crow and their substitutes. These and all future articles by Don can be found in the EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES section of this site

Since I've known Don he has altered his tying from what he described as "Casually Elegant" meaning he would finish the fly as soon as humanly possible, come Hell or high water. His approach was that of a commercial fly tyer, trying to get as many done in as short amount of time as he could. When he retired and sold his business (Skyline Displays Miami) he finally had time to stop and smell the roses so to speak. Not that there was anything wrong with the flies he used to tie I just think they now have much more grace and style. See for yourself, click on the thumbnails below to see the larger images.