James A. Henshall
The father of Tackle Collecting.
By
Phil White.
James A. Henshall was born on
February 29, 1836, in Baltimore, Maryland. He recorded that he caught
his first bass in 1855 in the Little Miami River, Ohio, after his
family had moved to Cincinnati in 1852. He was using a live minnow,
and was fishing with an eight-foot cedar rod that he had made to use
with a click reel.
Henshall received his
medical degree in 1859, and for the next two years he practiced
medicine in Cincinnati. He then moved to Cynthiana, Kentucky where he
learned about the Snyder and other Kentucky reels, and became an avid
bass fisherman. He wrote that while traveling by buggy or horseback he
always carried a hidden rod, either a valise type or a buggy whip that
was used as a fly rod. It’s reported that he carried a click reel in
his pill bag and had a fly book in his coat pocket, which was
disguised to look like a prescription book.
From Kentucky Henshall
moved to New York City, where he took up studying the life history of
the Black Bass. In 1867 he moved his medical practice to Wisconsin.
While living in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, he began operating his own fish
hatchery to further his studies of the Black Bass. During this period
he began to contribute many article to the new Forest and Stream
weekly magazine. He used the pseudonym “Oconomowoc” in his
contributions. Much of his writings dealt with his idea of a bass bait
rod, which soon became known as the “Henshall Rod”. It is reported
that while living in New York City he had tried to sell the idea of
this type of rod to the many rod makers in the area, with little
success. Finally, after many articles were published in Forest and
Stream, Charles Orvis produced and advertised a Henshall type rod. The
rod became an instant success because of the publicity Henshall had
given for such a rod, and many other makers began to produce The
Henshall Rod.
The
Henshall Rod was of fly rod action, eight foot (or a bit more) and
weighed 6-7 ounces. It was distinguished from a fly rod by having a
reel seat in front of the handgrip, and trumpet type guides. These
rods were used with a multiplying “bait-casting” reel. The idea was
that this type of rod would cast minnows or frogs better and was more
sporting to play fish, than the 12-14 foot rods commonly used for bait
fishing. Henshall did not like the shorter “Chicago Style” or “frog”
rods that came into vogue around the turn of the century, claiming
that they were less sporting.
In 1881 his friend, Robert Clarke, of
Cincinnati, published Henshall’s classic Book of the Black Bass. This
first edition was pre-sold by subscription, and was almost completely
sold out when finally printed. After publication, Henshall was
recognized as THE authority on the black bass. Henshall was
subsequently honored with many appointments and positions in natural
history societies, sporting clubs, and the U. S. Fish Commission and
the American Fisheries Society. These appointments took him back to
Cincinnati, on to Florida, Montana, and Mississippi. He finally
retired in 1917 at the age of 81.
During this period he wrote a revised
edition of his Book of the Black Bass, and several other books. By
retirement time, his eyesight was failing, and he had to struggle to
read and write. However, he continued publishing many magazine
articles and updates of his books. James A. Henshall, the Father of
The Black Bass lived a rich and full 89 years. He died in Cincinnati,
Ohio on April 4, 1925.
In 1891 to 1893 Henshall helped the
U. S. Fish Commission prepare their exhibit for the World’s Columbian
Exposition in Chicago, and he spent the entire year of 1893 assisting
at the Exposition. As Henshall reported to the American Fisheries
Society on July 15, 1883 “The western annex of the Exposition was
originally intended to be filled with angling tools and utensils and
accessories, but last fall it was thought desirable to give up a part
of the room to State exhibits. At present, therefore, only about
one-half of the building is occupied by anglers’ appliances.
“While the exhibit is a small one, it is a very characteristic exhibit
of angling goods which are manufactured today, and while it fills the
bill it does not fill the building. In the first place, there is a
collection of split-bamboo rods which I believe is the finest
collection in the world. And they are practical rods, running in price
from $25 to $75, although there are some which, by the addition of
gold and silver, will run up possibly to $400 or $500. I desire to
specially call your attention to two rods made by the inventor of the
split-bamboo rod. Of course, every gentleman here understands the
nature of split bamboo rods. This rod was invented by an old trout
fisherman of eastern Pennsylvania, an old gunsmith, who used to fish
every Saturday of his life, after he was old enough, and who was a
very excellent and fine workman. He used to spend his hours in the
evening in his shop making his fishing rods, Uncle Sam Phillipi, and I
have two or three of his rods…
“We also have a collection of steel
rods which have been brought to a very high state of perfection. There
is also a fine collection of bethabara rods. There is also a fine
display of reels. We have the finest reels made in this country, and
America excels in the world in the manufacture of fine goods in this
line. We have Kentucky reels of modern make, and we have a collection
of old Kentucky reels which are from fifty to seventy-five years old.
There you can see the evolution from the first reel made by the old
man Snyder down to the present reel.
“We have a manufactory there of
fishing lines that is quite interesting and is well worth visiting.
There is a very fine exhibit of baits and trolling spoons, and with
this exhibit you have the first trolling spoon that was ever made. In
addition to the multiplying reels, we have an automatic reel which is
fancied by some fishermen.”(2)
Later in his report Henshall
mentioned a part of the exhibit that should make lure collectors
salivate, “There is one thing I did not speak of, a very ingeniously
contrived glass cylinder for inclosing a live minnow. The cylinder is
surrounded by a chevaux de frise of hooks, and of course the
glass does not show in the water. In other words, it is carrying your
bait in a bottle.” Remember this was 1893.
Henshall’s collection has been
subject to much speculation over the past 100 years. About 10 years
ago, Malcolm Clark related that he believed he had a Sage fly reel
that was possibly from the Henshall collection . His contention was
that Henshall’s reels had been given to friends over the years until
entirely disposed of. (1).
In 1996 The Reel News reported on the
gold and silver decorated rod and reel that Abbey & Imbrie exhibited
at this Exhibition (3). According to the A&I information this rod and
reel were worth quite a bit more than the $400-500 estimated by
Henshall. They reported that the outfit cost $2500 in 1876, when it
was made for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. A&I estimated
its value at $5000 in 1928, when it last surfaced. No one seems to
know where it is today.
All modern reel collectors owe a
great debt to Henshall for recording his thought and beliefs on
fishing reels in Book of the Black Bass back in 1881. The book
should be in all reel collector’s library. In that first edition he
reviews the types of reels available, and their uses, along with the
manufacturers of the day.
In the 1904 revised edition of
Book of the Black Bass Henshall updates his reel section, and has
many illustrations of current reels. He also provides a 16 page
section called “Evolution of the Kentucky Reel”. This section is a
reprint of an article he wrote for Outing magazine in 1900, and is
based upon the collection of reels that he displayed at the Columbian
Exposition in Chicago in 1893. In this section Henshall has many
drawings of Snyder reels that he saw during the time he lived in
Cynthiana, Kentucky. An excellent examination of the reels mentioned
and Henshall writings is provided in Fishing Reel Makers of Kentucky,
by Vernon & Stewart (4).
James
A. Henshall gave us a great deal of information about 1800’s fishing
reels, and left his name on a type of rod that has seen increased
popularity with modern day bass fishermen, the long flexible casting
rod. However, he also teamed up with a talented Kentucky Doctor/reel
designer, William Van Antwerp to design the Henshall-Van Antwerp Black
Bass Reel. The two doctor/bass fishermen collaborated on the reel
design, and then turned the design over to Thomas Chubb to
manufacture.
This rare and highly collectible reel
was produced in the 1880s and 1890s by Chubb, of Post Falls, Vermont.
Chubb was also the maker of many fine Henshall Black Bass rods.
Thomas Chubb held the patents on the reel (May 22, 1883, and September
27, 1887), and marketed it The reel went through at least three
versions, before dying a quiet death in the 1890s. The most notable
feature of this multiplying reel was a brake, or drag, that moved from
the headplate side of the reel to the tailplate.
This brake has been subject to some
speculation as to whether it was meant to be used while casting, or
fighting a fish. Henshall explains the purpose as follows, “The
automatic drag was designed to meet the requirements of those anglers
who can not educate the thumb to control the rendering of the line in
casting the minnow. For my own use I prefer, as does any expert, a
very rapid multiplier without click or drag of any kind, in bait
fishing; but there are good anglers who can not, for some reason
successfully acquire the knack of thumbing the spool in a satisfactory
manner, and the line will overrun and snarl, and the spool backlash in
spite of their most patient and persistent efforts. To meet this
difficulty the automatic drag acts in the place of the thumb, as the
amount of pressure brought to bear upon the spool can be regulated,
automatically, by a sliding button on the side of the reel, and
overrunning or back lashing be prevented; or the pressure on the spool
can be regulated by the lever-drag, or thumb-piece, which operated the
same spring as the sliding button just mentioned. With this
thumb-piece any amount of tension can be brought to bear upon the
spool, when casting, or the line stopped, simply by the pressure of
the thumb; or when a fish is hooked the tension can likewise be
regulated by the thumb-piece from a free running spool to a light
drag, heavy drag, or a complete stop.”(5)
The original Henshall –Van Antwerp
reel was not the typical reel to come out of Kentucky in the 1880s,
and had a different look to it, with it’s narrow spool and unbalanced
crank. By its third version it had a more conventional appearance.
Fishing reel collectors owe a great
deal of gratitude to Henshall for his interest in historical and
contemporary tackle, and putting his views and recollections down in
print. On site reporting is always wonderful to read, even though it
may not always be 100% accurate. Thus it was with Henshall, he lived
and participated in the development of modern fishing tackle, and took
the time to record his observations.
___________
Footnotes:
- NFLCC Gazette, Volume 15, No 48, p 13.
- Minutes of the twenty-second Annual Meeting of
the American Fisheries Society, July 15, 1893.
- The Reel News, Summer 1996, p. 6
- Steven K. Vernon and Frank M. Stewart, III,
Fishing Reel Makers of Kentucky, Plano, Texas 1992.
- Henshall, J.A., More About The Black Bass,
Cincinnati, 1889
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