I was thinking back about my good fortune of being able to have met so many famous fly tiers. One of them, Gary LaFontaine, I met at our conclave many years ago. He was “on tour” with Jack Dennis and Mike Lawson as one of the “Traveling Fly Fishers”.
Anyway, Gary was so friendly and bowed to myself and a few other guys’ request to demo his Sparkle Pupa. Such a great guy and so much to offer to have passed away so early in life.
Anyway, thought I would try one of his flies today. I think they look so simple and yet they are sometimes difficult to tie.
I think there’s usually some partridge feathers on each side if imitating the deep sparkle pupa or a deer hair wing on top and a short shuck if tying the emergent sparkle pupa.
I have always had trouble getting the bubble evenly around hook/body.
A lot of people out there who say the bubble doesn’t really exist.
Even while he was very sick, GLF (I guess through proxies) answered an email question of mine - having to do with Brachycentrus caddis. I printed out the emails and have saved them.
You got that right; this was always a tough fly for me to get right. Even though my poorly tied ones caught fish, I was never really happy with what came off the vise. I switched to Craig Mathews Iris Caddis and Wally’s Clacka variant and have been happy with the results; fish seem to like them, too. You were very lucky to have met Mr. LaFontaine; just watching some of his videos, it was clear to see how much he loved being out on the stream.
Here’s an old attempt at a Sparkle Pupa:
Kinda beat up, most of the antron shroud is gone; I think I remember fishing this on either the Madison or Soda Butte back in Y2K. Shame on me for not mashing the barb (hope the statute of limitations has expired and the Park Rangers don’t bust me next time I visit).
Yes, Gary was an interesting guy. Byron, he was at Bennett Spring many years ago when the folks down there had a flyfishing/ flytying conclave every year. I think Charlie Reading sort of ramrodded them. Gary was the featured speaker at one of the early ones and put on a couple of interesting programs. It’s a shame ALS took him so early in life.
Dave,
I happened to be there fishing that weekend. Went into the dining lodge that evening and saw Charlie and a bunch of guys having dinner with him. Charlie invited me to the table. Where do you live?
I live in Mexico, MO. I’ve fished Bennett for over thirty years and try to make it down a few times a year. I thought I had read somewhere that you grew up in Lebanon and fished Bennett a lot.
I posted this one in another thread. I do think that most of the ones you can buy are too big but I would hate to have to tie the small ones for a living. The head shouldn’t look too neat. I roughed this one up with a strip of velcro on a stick.
Dunno if I’ve ever fished a standard Sparkle Pupa since my preferred subsurface pupae are soft hackles, Lawson’s Partridge Caddis Emerger, and SCHWAPFs of various sorts, but I just want to note that I too was once a Bennett Springer and my dad still is. He reported catching something over a hundred last weekend on scuds, with wonder of wonder not much competition. Even the C&R season was intolerable the last time I went there.
St. Louis. My grandpa had (and dad still has) a trailer at Weaver’s.
One thing about those fish… when they switched to real food and you wanted to do it on dries, you really had to work at it. I know somebody who works for Mike Lawson is also from the Ozarks and I think there are a few other Missourians out here. Spring creek fish are spring creek fish, even if they were stocked originally.
