… of Dillon MT at the Grizzly Hackle in Missoula today.
Had the rare opportunity to watch Tom tie this George Grant style fly during the annual Grizzly Hackle / Simms turkey sandwich day festivities.
Tom was a personal friend of George for many, many years and learned to tie this style of fly from George. I’ve seen a George Grant style fly tied only one other time, about five years ago, by Barney Kohler of Idaho Falls. These are not overly complicated flies to tie, but do take a lot of patience, and a bit of skill to do the woven ( elk mane ) hackle.
Tom was kind enough to present this fly to me at the end of the demonstration. Tomorrow, I’m going to present it to some trouts. Stay tuned for pix of the best part of a century of fly tying history stuck in the jaw of a modern day wild trout.
John,
I corresponded with George Grant before his passing. I have some of his flies. I think I have about everything he wrote, including his little pamphlets which preceded his book. He was a very nice and helpful man.
What is the name of his book?
Never mind. Wikipedia:
[ul]
[li]Master Fly Weaver (1971); special edition reprinted in 1981.[/li][li]Montana Trout Flies (1972); special edition reprinted in 1981.[/li][/ul]
Exactly! Big hard cover books. In addition, he had a series of small pamphlets. I think the Big Hole Foundation may still sell some of his books and perhaps some of his flies. I know that he donated money-making things to the Foundation for fund raising.
Tom mentioned that George sold these flies in the 1930’s for 35 cents. Back then a dozen regular flies cost 35 cents.
Today, you would expect to pay at least $25, and more likely about $50, for a fly tied in the authentic Grant style by a competent tier. It’s probably been a long time since one of these flies was actually fished. Stay tuned.
Originals tied by George Grant, if you could find any for sale, would be worth BIG BUCKS.
I believe that in the fly fishing section of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman there are some Grant style flies tied and donated by Barney Kohler, of Idaho Falls.
Having done a little research I can see that style of body working, really like it. The hackle, however, seems like a lot of unnecessary work. Cut and stack the hair, spin it round the hook shank tips forward, and fold it back. Without taking a razor blade to the fly, I’d defy anyone to tell the difference.
Last year at the Federation of Fly Fishers International Fly Fishing Fair, they had a class on tying George Grant style flies. It was well attended. I don’t know if they are going to be offering that again this year but it would be a good class. By the way, this year the event will be in Spokane, WA on July 12/14.
This pattern was the featured article in the Winter 2004 edition of Fly Tyer. It has really good pictures and step by step info for weaving the hair and tying the nymphs. It mentions that Grant liked useing badger, so I’m guessing that it must have been the english variety since it has the very stiff hair. These look like they would work really well on bass around where I live.
The air temps were up, the flows were down, and the fishing was pretty slow. I fished very conservatively since I did not want to lose the fly.
However, there were a number of cooperative fishies who wanted to pose with the legendary Grant style fly. Here are half of them - evenly split between browns and mountain whitefish.
I had hoped to catch a native and wild westslope cutthroat to celebrate the fly. That was not to be. I did catch a couple, but on another pattern.
Perhaps if I had been a bit more aggressive, the fly would have done better. But this creek eats nymphs so I rigged it for higher in the water column than I normally do. Of course, that didn’t help when I snagged something on a backcast and ripped the fly off. Thought for sure that was the end of it, but I walked back down the shelf ice about twenty feet and, would you believe it, there it was laying in the center of the 12" shelf, 6" from some water where I never would have found it and 6" from some streamside vegetation where it would have rotted before I could have located it. :roll:
