Dr Schwiebert was the first fly fishing legend to grace the threshold of the Little Lehigh Fly Shop / Springhouse.
He honored Big Jim Leisenring by participating in our first Leisenring Memorial celebration.
Ernie crafted the inscription for the memorial and presented the keynote address AT NO CHARGE!
His clout enabled us to acquire an impressive display of Leisenring memorabilia and his keynote address guaranteed a successful event despite dreadful weather.
He enjoyed the Pig Roast, autographing books and mingling with some of Jim’s cronies.
His vsits to the shop were not uneventful. The first Rohrbach / Schwiebert debacle occurred when the plaque was delivered with Schwiebert spelled incorrectly. The error was corrected before he arrived. Whew!
His second visit got off to a rocky start. I contracted him to do a school at the shop. My standard procedure was to pay speakers their fee to conduct a seminar and provide me with two flies. One for my collection (now on display at the Catskill Fly Fishing Center) and one to raffle for charity. When Dr Schwiebert arrived I was about to hand him his check as I asked him for the flies. He responded saying, Oh. I don’t give flies away to anyone. I told him that wasn’t the deal. I was cancelling the event. He sat down and tied two beautiful flies using the fur of his Siamese cat. The seminar proceeded.
Another debacle occurred with our cuisine.
Steve Stallard, an accomplished chef and fly fisherman arranged to have Artic Char flown to us from his fish farm in Iceland. The Char which swimming in Iceland in the morning and became Gravad Locks of Arctic Char with Classic Garniture in the afternoon.
Steve presented this sumptuous repast to the good Doctor with a generous supply of fine Cognac. I was charged with placing this culinary treasure in the refrigerator, I delegated my responsibility to another piscator who put it in the freezer instead of the refrigerator. So much for the
Gravad Locks of Arctic Char with Classic Garniture. Ernie reacted as the gentleman he was, Chef Stallard, not so much.
One hot summer day Dr Schwiebert called me from his club, the Dream Mile. He was entertaining an associate from Princeton. The heat and drought was killing the fishing. Knowing the Little Lehigh was a limestoner he wanted to know how it was fishing. I told him to come on down.
It turned out Ernie’s associate was a colleague of the late Albert Einstein. He looked just like Albert E.
Schwiebert got his friend into some fish, I got to meet an interesting man..
Life was good
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