Fisherman’s Reel is a 2026 Maine Fiddle Camp Tune. Here’s the MFC link from the MFC web page: Fisherman’s Reel (Reel De/Du Pêcheur)

Here you can find slow and fast recorded versions plus sheet music. The tune is French Canadian, in B Flat Major. It’s normally played in standard tuning, AABB. Strictly speaking, the tune is a creation of Lachine, Québec, fiddler Joseph Allard (1865-1947), (who incidentally taught the tune to a young Jean Carignan, the famous Montreal fiddler who made the tune more popular.) The tune is a variant of “Democratic Rage Hornpipe” which dates back to the mid-19th century, and is also known as: Crème de Menthe, Democratic Hornpipe, Gigue des Boîteux, Leddy’s Hornpipe, Loup Garou, One of the Boys, Reel de la Grenouille, Reel de la Paix, Reel de la Pointe Bleue, Reel Victoria, Set de Vaudreuil.

Here’s Allard playing “Fisherman’s”

A few words about the author: Allard’s birthplace is reported both as 1 February 1873 in Woodland, Maine, which is now Lery, Quebec, but also as 1 July 1873 in Châteauguay, Quebec. Regardless, Allard had a strong Maine connection. Allard’s father was a fiddler, and when Allard reached the age of nine he was instructed in fiddling. Allard remained in Quebec until the age of sixteen, when he moved back to the United States, where he began to enter fiddling competitions throughout New England, winning competitions in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode island and Connecticut. Apart from playing traditional tunes, Allard wrote around sixty tunes of his own.

The original tune, Democratic Rage Hornpipe shows up in Howe (1000 Jigs and Reels), 1867; pgs. 57 & 72 (appears as both hornpipe and reel settings) and MANY places after that! It’s in “Ryan’s Mammoth Collection”, (1883 – which grew out of “Howe’s” (above), Miller & Perron (New England Fiddlers Repertoire – we used to call that the “little fiddle book”), 1983; No. 104, and in the first Portland Collection by Sue Songer (1997 pg. 60).

Here’s Fiddle Camp’s own Leland Martin playing “Democratic Rage Hornpipe”! Leland recorded and videoed all the tunes from Ryan’s.

Read about Leland’s project HERE.

See y’all next month! – bill