OK. Here are two of three promised pics, of Dan Gard dry flies. Dan retired last fall, after guiding on the Missouri near Helena/Great Falls Mt for the last 19 years. I drifted the river yesterday with Dan and Chuck Tuschmidt, who also just retired last fall, after 29 consecutive years of river guiding in Montana. I doubt I've ever had a single day of fishing where I learned as much--in one day--as I did yesterday. I've been drifting the Missouri since the early 1980s. And I have my ways. But where I tend to fish is not necessarily where they did. I'm not sure it's Kosher to reveal what I learned about where to look for the extra-big "toads" we where (dry fly) prospecting for. All I'm going to say on that score is I've been ignoring a lot of good dry fly water for a long long time.
There were clouds of Tricos here and there, a fair number of Yellow Sallies and few PMDs. But not enough bugs anywhere to get the rainbows to pod up in the slicks. So it was more of a prospecting day than a sight fishing day. But we did well. And we chose the one float too that was not so insanely crowded on the 4th of july. On top of that we started early--before everyone else. So we basically had the river to ourselves. Which--on the 4th, was a minor miracle in itself. We fished Dan's Juicy Lucy, which is a big #12 Elk Hair Caddis with a trailing, twinkly shuck. With a tuft of pink on top so it's easier to see. Off that we trailed a variety of small flashy beadheads and soft hackles. In general the browns ate the big dry fly and the rainbows ate the trailing nymph. But I did jump and lose one 20" or so rainbow that took the elk hair. Later in the afternoon we fished Dan's Bubba, which is an odd foam (giant) ant with extra-twinkly wings made from wide bands of Flashabou. You can see that fly twinkle back at you from as far as you can cast. They ate it too. Dan gave me a streamer of his named the Gold Finger. I didn't fish it yet. I'll photograph that one after I actually fool a fish with it. The Juicy Lucy below is about to unravel. I fished it for half a day. I'm going to try to pry some better examples of Dan's work soon. He's a hell of a fly tier. The trailing shuck on the Juicy Lucy below started off a lot longer. But it lost a fair amount of Lucy's tail after the first half dozen or so fish. Dan did say the Bubba was an adaption of someone else's fly--some East Coast fly tier whose name I've forgotten. Dan added the strobe-flash plastic wings I think.
Reply With Quote