I have known Leigh Shuman (Pictured at left holding a huge Brown Trout from Pennsylvania's Spruce Creek) for a couple of years, both as a friend and a customer.  I have also had the pleasure of meeting Leigh at the International Fly Tying Symposium in Somerset New Jersey. As you will see in the fly pictures below he not only has been a serious student has also become a top notch Fly Dresser.   

Leigh was kind enough to supply his biographical information. Read his words below:

            It is hard to explain how I came to be such a passionate fly fisher and fly tier. No one in my family, indeed, no one I knew was interested in the sport. My early fishing experience was drowning minnows and bits of squid for flounder and sea bass at the New Jersey shore, where my family spent every summer. I liked that fishing, but I remember getting book after book out of the school library about freshwater fishing (I was a insatiable reader), so I must have read something about fly fishing that peaked my interest. Two events, though, really lit the fire. The first was my father taking me to the Philadelphia Sportsmen’s Show one winter day (a rare effort on my father’s part to support my interests) and seeing Ed Koch tying flies. He tied me a #28 midge on one of those old, gold, Mustad #28’s. I lost that fly, but I knew I wanted a fly-tying kit, which I got the next Christmas. It was one of the Noll kits that were around in those days, with a worthless vice and cheap crap for materials, but I soon got a Thompson A and the fun began.

            The second experience that got me going was watching a movie short (Remember those? Before you watched a movie you didn’t see 10 previews of movies you’d never want to see, you saw a 10-minute short film about some topic of interest. Those were the days!) Anyway, there was a movie, made by Lee Wulff that featured he and his wife fly fishing for Atlantic Salmon in Canada. One look at that fly line in motion, and I knew that was for me. In an embarrassing footnote, I met Lee Wulff and his wife some years later at a banquet, and rustled up the courage to go up to Joan Salvato Wulff and tell her how much her little movie had changed my life. “Oh,” she said, smiling sweetly, “That was Lee’s first wife in the movie.”  Needless to say, I crept away, totally mortified!

            My teenage years were spent hanging out at the 2 local sporting goods stores that sold fly fishing stuff, the owners of which were kind and supportive, especially when they saw I spent every available dollar at their shops, and getting my parents to take me to any possible destination that included fly fishing. My home water was probably the Little Lehigh, near Allentown, a wonderful stream to this day. My mother, a saint and still alive and kicking at 93, took me at age 14 on a few day’s jaunt to the Mecca, Roscoe, New York, where I got to fish the Beaverkill and Willowemoc while she sat on the bank and knitted. More to the point, I spent every evening sitting in the fly tying parlor (it was in their house) of Walt and Winnie Dette. My mother and Winnie would talk, and I would watch them tie their incredible flies, one exactly like another, with an old vise, no bobbin, and hackle they grew in the backyard. I was too young to absorb much of their teaching (I wasn’t the Rist brothers!), but I knew enough to recognize genius when I saw it. I tied and tied and tied, and would return on a few occasions to show them my flies, which they said nice things about, although the flies were crap.

            Once I could drive, it was hard to keep me down, and I began to haunt the limestone streams of south-central  PA, the Letort, Yellow Breeches, and Falling Springs (my fave). I got to meet and even fish with the likes of Charlie Fox, Vince Marinaro, Ed Koch, and the best tier of the lot, Chauncey Lively. It seemed like nothing unusual at the time, but was, of course, an incredible gift to be around the giants of our sport. A high school buddy and I formed the Idle Hour Fly Company; he was the business acumen, I was the tier. One big order from Orvis later, I had learned 2 valuable lessons. One was that I wasn’t a very good or consistent fly tier, especially not where speed mattered, and the other was that it was easy to ruin a wonderful hobby by trying to make money at it. Commercial tying was, for me, sheer drudgery, and the business did not survive the high school years.

            College, medical school, and residency pretty much wiped out the next 14 years from a fishing and fly tying perspective. Oh, there were a few days of sneaking off from med school in Baltimore up to the Yellow Breeches, and some good times tying with friends in Houston, where I was a resident, but they were pretty sparse, and the warmwater fisheries in Texas didn’t excite me as much as trout did, while the saltwater fishing there was just getting started. Once I returned to practice in the Baltimore area, I began to fish more, and took a few trips to Montana and elsewhere to indulge the need to fish. I moved to Lancaster, PA in 1992, which has put me within 1-2 hours of some excellent fishing. I was invited to join the Henryville water in the Poconos, where I fished for a number of years. More recently, I have had access to water on Pennsylvania’s famed Spruce Creek and other Central and Northeastern PA streams, plus trips to Montana once each year. Before you drool too much, though, my practice and family obligations mean I fish, on average, 12-15 days per year at most, and with 2 kids getting ready for college, that will probably be the norm for some time to come.

            Fly tying was pretty much something I did to keep me supplied with flies for fishing, and to make me feel better that I wasn’t fishing. About 7 years ago, though, I got to know Don Bastian, the guru of the classic wet fly, and began to take his classes and acquire materials. This was my first venture into tying for itself, not just as a means to get flies for fishing (though I do fish some classic wets). From there, it was discovering the Fly Tying Forum on the web, which had just begun a Classic Wets and Streamers page under the leadership of Paul Tidroski and John McCoy, both of whom I got to meet at one of Don Bastian’s wet fly classes. I found myself wandering over to the page about classic salmon flies, and gazing at the incredible work of people like….I’m not going to name names. There are too many and I’d miss someone whose feelings would be hurt. Suffice it to say they are an incredible resource, and with some help from the likes of Dave Carne and Matt Inman (both of whom actually sent me stuff! Free!) and materials from the inestimable John McLain, I began to try some classic salmon flies. A lesson from Tim Trexler made a huge difference as well, and I would urge all who want to tie these wonderful flies to try to find someone to sit with for a while. It really helps.

            There is still a long way to go to tie these flies really well. At 54, I hope I can begin to slow down at work by 60, and have more time for fishing and tying. My kids will be out of college by then as well, though both will probably go on in school. I find that many of my flies are rushed, because I know I have a short period of time to tie. Just as fishing improves when you know you have all day, so does the tying. I would urge those interested in this addiction to learn the classic wet flies first. Many of the skills cross over, and the materials are cheaper and more available. Find out if you like taking 20-30 minutes to tie a fly before you take on flies that take you 4 or 5 hours.  Get on the FTF. It is a tremendous source of information and encouragement. Talk with the host of this website, who is a great resource as well.

Have fun, above all.

Leigh Shuman

To view a larger image just click on the thumbnail pictures below: