| Fly fishing, flies, wadable/floatable rivers, bamboo and carbon fiber
fly rods all occupy a special place in my mind. I had the great fortune
of growing up on the Main Boulder, 30 miles south of Big Timber,
Montana in the 1950s and 60s. This is where they filmed the movies "A
River Runs Through It" and the "Horse Whisperer". I fished the great
Yellowstone River and most of the tributaries that ran into it,
including: Boulder, Clark's Fork, Big Horn, Stillwater, and Rosebud.
Now, understand, I hold no grievances with bait or lure fisherman, and
a bass is probably just as good to eat as a carp or catfish. But, it is
the wily cutthroat, brown and rainbow that hold my fascination. It is
the streams and lakes of the Rocky mountains in which I inhabit. I
acknowledge the great traditions of fishing in New England and the salt
water flats of the tarpon. But, those are the places I only visit and
am as ill at ease as a newcomer. It is the Rocky region where I am
grounded and at home and fell competent.
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| A day spent fishing does not subtract from the time allotted to a man on Earth |
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How Fly Fishing Caught Me
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| Learning to Tye Flies |
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| I grew up in a family that fished to eat fish. My grandfather, dad, and
uncles used bait and fished, primarily, for white fish in the winter.
We would use hellgramites, worms and maggots and were disappointed if
we didn't exceed the legal limit and bring home a gunny sack of a
hundred or more. One day, my dad and I stopped at my Aunt Bea's house
in Laurel and while hanging around I discovered my cousins fly tying
bench down in the basement. It mesmerized me and I began to self teach
myself to tie flies the way my dad taught himself to be a taxidermist.
Soon I was selling flies and plying the waters of the Boulder River,
where we had a home above the Natural Bridge. My first fly rod was an
antenna off an automobile that my grandfather welded guides on to.
Pretty rustic stuff but the fish didn't know the difference.
I pretty much put fishing on the back burner when I went to college in
1968. I affixed my total attention on trying to stay in school to avoid
the draft. a strategy that later failed me.
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| Wayne Luallen, Tyer, Van Dyke Jones, Art, Fran Miller, ShadowBox, $9,500 |
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| Wayne Luallen, Master Tyer |
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There is a handful of professional fly tyers in the US who are capable
of doing Salmon flies. Paul Schmookler, in Long Island, NY is the
foremost tyer and his onetime apprentic from Visalia, CA is another.
Wayne tied 25 classic salmon fly patterns for me back in the 1980s.
Another friend of mine, VanDyck Jones painted up a salmon. I designed
and executed the shadow box and here it is. These flies are one of a
kind and if purchased, will be hand delivered by overland
transportation for an added cost.
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| 100 Montana Trout Flies, George Grant Fly Patterns, VanDyck Jones Art, Fran Miller, Shadow Box |
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| Spruce Fly Streamer |
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In the early 1980s, two books were published about the 100 most
effective trout flies for Montana water's and a taxonomy of George
Grant, the inventor of the woven hair body wet fly. I set about tying
up the flies in the books and the shadow box at the left is the result.
It took three years and the road-block was mastering the art of tying
woven hair bodies. This shadow box comes with the two first edition,
hard bound books that were published at the time.
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