Voices from the Past: Robert Page Lincoln (1919)

As many of you know, one of my all-time favorite writers is Robert Page Lincoln. A multi-talented writer, he was also a gifted poet. The following poem, entitled The Angler, was published in an anthology of fishing poems called Fishermen's Verse in 1919. 

How happy he, who by fine cultured art, 

Plies him a line upon a silvery stream— 

Takes him therefrom a newly ventured theme,
And fair to speak hath change of mind and heart!
        Whose gentle wrist shall to a fly impart 

         Semblance to living—being so, shall seem 

To the brook eyes, nor fancy, nor a dream—
And so beguile by crafty counterpart!

He shall of faith in ample store be given;
Wedlock to peace—the hand of darling joy,
Sunshinest mood—the cleansing spirit of heaven,
And so betimes due gracefulness employ.
For him the gods shall favor and repay,
Make life and death, all one, a golden day!

-- Dr. Todd

The Robert Page Lincoln "Bob Lincoln" Fly

The Robert Page Lincoln "Bob Lincoln" Fly

So it's Robert Page Lincoln week here on the blog. For those who've read Bill Sonnett's great piece on the Robert Page Lincoln spoon last Saturday, you know that this popular casting spoon was named after Lincoln. As the advertising copy from Superior Door Catch noted, "no greater tribute could be paid to a fishing lure than to have it recommended by a sportsman as famous as Robert Page Lincoln."

As an aside, having grown up in Duluth, Superior Door Catch Co. was in my back yard. K-B spoons were so common you could not buy a tackle box without finding a half dozen K-Bs inside. You can find them with different stampings--for a brief time they were made in Duluth and stamped as such, and later ones are stamped Mankato--but the lure itself was made on the same stamping press. They also caught fish, which is why they are still being made today, eighty years after their introduction from old Ben Gallinger. My brother works with the grandson of the founder of Superior Door Catch so one of these days I'll get an interview with him and set the record straight about this interesting company.

But we're talking Robert Page Lincoln today. Noted collector and historian Doug Bucha sent in an email after Bill's article ran and brought up an interesting fact. Doug wrote:

Saw your clip from Bill today on items named after Bob Lincoln so I thought you might like to see one more.  Edith Nieboer was noted for the development of two flies, the Max Sandy and the Bob Lincoln.  This is a page from her 1933 catalog and a photo of one of the flies. The photo of the fly is from her MASTER FLY SET.



Edith Nieboer was a wonderfully gifted tier and probably best remembered for tying all of Paw Paw's flies, which come in the great "Indian Head" boxes. Doug recently penned a fascinating article on Nieboer in the NFLCC Magazine.

This was a popular fly for its time and its name is a bit of a play on words -- A bobolink is a common bird that is sometimes referred to as a "Bob Lincoln." It has almost receded from memory that the only google reference I could find to the fly was a lone Northwestern fly tier looking for a recipe to tie it, and getting no response.

Robert Page Lincoln is well worth remembering today as one of the leading outdoor writers in American history, and the namesake of both a casting spoon and a dry fly.

Thanks to Doug Bucha for sending in the pictures!

-- Dr. Todd

==========================================

UPDATE

==========================================

Count Bill Sonnett as another fan of Robert Page Lincoln. He sends in one of his favorite RPL quotes, from the article “Daybreak Fishing” by Robert Page Lincoln in Sports Afield, April 1945:

“Several advantages obtain to this early morning fishing. First your bass hit hard and without any canvassing as to whether the lure is 'Vittles' or hardware. Second, as in night fishing the light is poor and it is difficult for the fish to size up the lure. Therefore it strikes first, aiming to make out afterwards if it is friend or foe. Third, and most important of all, is the fact that many fish are inshore, more probably than you would dream possible. Therefore the competition is hot and heavy, the law of nature being everyone for himself, the devil take the hindmost. When you get more than one fish heading for your lure at the same time as you often do, you can rest assured you are not going home fishless.”

Voices from the Past: Robert Page Lincoln (1918)

Bill Sonnett's nifty piece this past Saturday on Robert Page Lincoln got me thinking about this legendary outdoor writer. Growing up, there were only a handful of fishing writers my father felt were "worth their salt." They numbered Dixie Carroll, Ray Bergman, Jason Lucas, A.J. McClane, and Robert Page Lincoln. They did NOT number Bob Becker (for reasons I will one day relate).

What's not to like about Lincoln? He was knowledgable, prolific, and very funny. Perhaps this is why he's been featured so often on the blog, like here and here and here.

The following tongue-in-cheek piece was run in the August 1918 American Angler magazine, and shows off his sharp wit. It was featured in the same issue as a detailed article he wrote on black bass fishing, one of his favorite pursuits. It's a nice biographical wrap up of the first part of his writing career.

The Autobiography of an Angler

By ROBERT PAGE LINCOLN



"ROBERT everybody knows you!"

Robert H. Davis, the great Waltonian sage, and Director-in-Chief of the Munsey publications, is the author of the above. He dedicated the line to Robert Page Lincoln, alias, myself. Elsewhere he has stated that: "Mr. Lincoln has a rare familiarity with everything that swims, and flies, and walks." I like the ring of that. It's tingling. Since "Bob" Davis wrote that I have read the Munsey publications vigorously, with the most reckless abandon, giving myself over freely to a determined perusal of the delightful and wholesome stories found within those gilded covers constructed at 280 Broadway, New York. I recommend the Munsey magazines cheerfully.

I have for a long time suspected that I am well known. I live, though, just the same. A fisherman living in the year 1960 will pick up his magazine on the news-stand and will turn to the most recent article by Robert Page Lincoln and will read about how to use the dry-fly on the carp; or, "Spinning for Bull-heads."

I write on angling, not to cause men to go out and butcher huge quantities of fish. It is the spirit of angling that I hold foremost. Let the joy of it permeate your blood; repress your cave-man emotions; catch a fish and surround it with a world of fascination and charm and you have found the key to the greatest pleasure that ever descended like manna from the heavens. (What manna is I refuse to know.)

I have fished variously all over the country. My home State is Minnesota, the Fisherman's Paradise. I know a lake in Minnesota where no one fishes. The muskies go to thirty-five pounds in that lake. I am going there again.

I have contributed for years to the outdoor press of the United States, Canada and England. I was with David Edley Allen on "Trapper's World" to begin with, in my 'teens. Since then 1 have spent most of my days writing on outdoor life; studying every nook and cranny of it.

My biggest trip will go into effect next spring the situation permitting—and when it is printed I will prove that for interest (as to locality and the wide variety of fishing and scenic splendor), it cannot be equalled. This trip, if written down in detail, as I hope, will be my second book. My first book appears next spring and I want everybody to buy it--Otherwise I will have to go back to my old trade with the shovel.

-- Dr. Todd

Voices from the Past: Robert Page Lincoln

Here is one of my favorite poems from a great outdoor writer, Robert Page Lincoln. Lincoln was a diverse and accomplished angler and a top-notch outdoor writer who was deeply involved in the tackle industry, so much so that a famous spoon was named after him. It was manufactured by the Brainerd Bait Company of Brainerd, Minnesota.

IZAAK WALTON

Him did High Virtue perfectly endow,
Clean-wrought for living — Nature's gifted sage;
Uncoverer of Beauty on Time's gilded page,
Fine Priest of streams, of leaf and drooping bough;

Keeper of gladness, Faith's own solemn vow, —
Eschewing Gain and Competition's rage,
Measuring Life by Heaven's wiser gauge,
And breathing hope and blessedness enow!

Oh I have been much in delight to think,
How well his days were chosen to be spent.
And by the pools of Stafford, 'proached the brink
Of Paradise — and comfortably lent,

Him to sweet Themes of chaste divinity,
Kind songs of hope on skyward wings set free!

-- Robert Page Lincoln

-- Dr. Todd