The Barbarian Blast, 07 January 1996

Once upon a time, in a town not too far from Toronto, there was a party. The guest of honor was Conrad "the Barbarian" Black, a listmember visiting from New Zealand. With skillful hosting by Sheldon Seale and his IWFFC cohorts we gathered for fly tying, drinking, and eating at a lovely rod and gun club. (There was precious little fishing to be done in the dead of winter...although Blake and I did fish the Niagara River that morning just for the hell of it). And a very good time was had by all.

Attending the party were:

(top,left) Dan Mulvihill, Ken Geddes, Conrad Black, Sheldon Seale, Blake Werner, Paul Schlote, and Don Skelton.
(bottom, left) Gerry Barbe, Trevor Thompson, Luis Nasim, Chris Knight, and Stephan Ezras.

The Moose didn't have clean fingernails, so Conrad gave him a little help

The highlight of the gathering, besides Sheldon's energetic bit of dinner theatre, was the unveiling of the Fiery Barbarian. Mike Boudreau of Montreal, a professional tyer of salmon flies, tied a special fly just for this occasion. A VERY special fly, in a beautiful shadow box. Being the idiots that we were, this is the closest photograph any of us took of it, so I guess it will have to do for now:

That would be Conrad on the left, me on the right, and the Fiery Barbarian in the middle. Luis "Mad Argentine" Nasim got cropped out of this one, to spare sensitive viewers.

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