05/08/2026
When I saw the first page of Pop’s notebook, I thought, “This is interesting.” When I saw this, the second page, with a drawing of a fly and all its parts labeled, I thought, “This is incredible!”
I had no idea what was ahead, in the notebook, nor on this journey.
I distinctly remember thinking before I moved on from these first couple of pages, “Why would my great-grandpa, a great fly fisherman and fly tyer, write down these most basic details?” I continued my inner dialogue, “Did he do this for me?”
I wasn’t thinking me, like, just me, but me as a part of his family, who he wanted to leave something behind for.
Legacy.
The word comes up over and over when I talk and write about Pop’s flies. It comes up in the things people say and write back to me.
My dad, Pop’s grandson, knew him really well. They spent a lot of time together when my dad was a child and stayed close throughout Pop’s life. My dad says Pop was a tinkerer and did a lot of things in his retirement in the 1960s to keep himself busy.
He left behind some whirligigs made out of beer cans, a wooden frame that he made that features 10 flies that he tied, a mobile fly tying cabinet, and several other things, including…
A little black notebook that on the first two pages has a drawing of a blank hook and a drawing of a fly with all its parts, both of them labeled as if he were teaching the basics to a new fly tyer.
My dad gave me Pop’s notebook a couple of months after I started tying flies, and through it, Pop has taught me and inspired me. Pop died in 1972 when I was two years old, so I didn’t really get a chance to meet him. But I feel like I know him.
Legacy. It can start with the simplest of things.
Pop, aka Harry K. Cameron (1894-1973), Colorado Springs, Colorado.
