"California Nugget"

By Ernie Harrison
California, USA
Photo by the Author

I find it interesting how a chance encounter can have a major effect on the way you do things. I was in San Francisco for a training class and started talking to another student at lunch. I don't know how the conversation about fly-fishing got started, but this fellow started telling about meeting Jack Horner at the San Francisco Fly-Casting Ponds. Jack was sharing his knowledge in an area of the ponds known as Horner's Corner. He tied a fly called the Horner Deer Hair and he certainly pulled out a plum when he stuck his thumb into his bag of fur and feathers to tie it. The fellow said Jack was very specific about using six evenly spaced turns of thread to tie the abdomen. I wish I could ask Jack about his fly and why exactly six turns of thread, but unfortunately he is no longer with us. My memory of Jack lives through a chance encounter with someone he so graciously shared his knowledge with. Jack also created the Humpy. The story goes that a Horner Deer Hair became worn and the thread forming the six body segments was broken as was the deer hair forming the lower part of the body. The broken hair swung back into a tail and the upper body hair puffed up into the now familiar hump. I like to call the revised version the "California Nugget" because when the sun is low in the Western sky the fly glows like a golden nugget and I never fail to strike it rich on California's "Mother Lode" trout streams. ~ Harrison