“The Rogue River Recon was tied as a tribute to a friend of mine, Jarod Miller. Jarod was a part of the NMCB 18 Sea Bees in Afghanistan. While attached his vehicle ran over an IED sending him throughout the vehicle. Jarod lived through the explosion but still suffers from a hurt back, traumatic brain injury and PTSD.”

“This fly has become a favorite fly because it was developed to catch wary trout on the crystal clear waters of Utah’s Green River’s ‘A’ section that can be sight fished. This fly can be used to imitate the ultra small midges common on western tailwaters. I use a 5X 9’ leader with a blood knot connection to a 6X ‘dry dropper’ system.”

“The Steelhead Coachman is simple, natural and looks alive in the water. The Streetwalker is flashy without being offensive. It attracts Steelhead at all times of day in summer and winter. The two flies complement each other perfectly. These flies are pure attractors. One is subtle. The other is an attention getter.”

“In 2015 from March to December this is the only fly I used. I only changed the size, from #20 to #4. I caught bonefish, barred perch, snappers, trout, sea run Brook Trout, Atlantic Salmon, Steelhead, King Salmon, and Sockeye Salmon. Only once or twice did I feel I could have done better with a different fly. It proved to me that style of fly or color are not as important as action of the fly and size.”

“Forty-five years ago on my honeymoon I fished with my wife in Idaho and Montana. We were introduced to a local while fishing the Beaver Head River near Dillon, Mt. He gave us a fly that was black with grey hackle and white legs made from the elastic in a ladies girdle. It works.”

“The PMD brought me West, presented in a riddle by a mysterious college anthropology professor. Once I reached the Henry’s Fork, I met Rene Harrop and I count him now as a dear friend and even more importantly, a teacher. His PMD No Hackle is divine in design and lethal in performance.”

“Buggy as hell, easy to tie, floats like a cork, and very visible in the wash. It’s an elk hair caddis variant, but it imitates more than caddis flies. Just an all-around impressionistic pattern.”

“Campbellot’s Beetle is currently my favorite fly because of what it symbolizes. Summertime, long days on crystal clear low water with frightfully spooky Brown Trout, sight fishing, stealth tactics, keen awareness, friendship, “keeping it local,” pushing the envelope, silhouettes on sunny sides of rivers, no bells and whistles, just good presentation, big Brown Trout looking up. This fly is meant to imitate the Japanese beetle.”

“Impressively perched on a ridge surrounded by stately white oaks, Belmead overlooks the James River in Powhatan Co., VA. Rusted but smooth to the touch, the cattle gate leading to the low grounds was the beginning to an adventure on the river. It was quite a walk for an excited six-year-old to steady the gate while Stu inched the ’53 Ford pickup through the posts, not stopping until he reached a spot that seemed much further than necessary. Smoking his pipe and waiting patiently, Dad would mutter, ‘close the gate Pal, it’s almost daybreak.’

“The story about the Yellow Quill and George Croonenberghs is far longer than anything you requested or might consider for your book, but I offer it anyway. It has some elements of the eulogy I gave for him at his funeral and another piece I wrote about him as an introduction to a fly fishing group who honored him at a dinner only a few weeks before his death. But it’s never been pulled together like this and given the focus of the Yellow Quill.”

“A deadly pattern. Durable. Easy to tie, floats well, and is easy to see. Using different dubbing colors it can effectively imitate any and all mayfly emergers – and different hook sizes along with the different dubbing colors. I’ve used it on trout rivers, lakes and streams from Montana to Chile. It is the best mayfly pattern known to man! It imitates an emerging mayfly stuck in its nymphal shuck, an impaired dun!”

“Fishing is a window to the past and when I fish this fly, I remember the young man I was when I first tied it more than forty years ago. I remember the sound of the Madison River as I wound the marabou, the bugle of the bull elk on the island formed by the junction of the Firehole and Gibbon Rivers. And I can still see the trout I caught with it, which was to be a dinner fish (this being back in the day), and so it turned out to be, just not my dinner. I laid it in the grass and when I came back, saw a mink loping away with it. Goodbye trout, hello favorite fly.”

“When it comes to flies, I’m like the man who loves the girl he’s near when he’s not near the girl he loves. My “favorite fly” is whatever works in a given time and place. Favorites have included beetle patterns tied by George Harvey used on George’s home waters in Pennsylvania; a bulkier version of the Warden’s Worry streamer with which I caught my first Atlantic Salmon in Nova Scotia, complementing the salmon I caught a decade earlier in Lord Lovato’s home pool in Old Scotia; a no-name oddity composed of four pearls strung in ascending order of size on a #1 hook that caught sea-run Brown Trout in Scotland, when all else failed; and in 1951, soon after my twelfth birthday, foil from a stick of Wrigley’s Spearmint chewing gum wrapped around a 1/0 hook on which I caught my first Atlantic mackerel on a ‘fly’ using my birthday present: a copper-beryllium fly rod and a Shakespeare automatic fly reel.”

“This fly is my favorite because it elicits intangible aspects of why I fly fish. 1) It imitates an elusive, finicky and massive mayfly that only hatches for a few evenings a year. 2) Causes you to schedule chunks of time for the “possibility” of an hour of unbelievable fishing. 3) Reminds me of the obsession my father passed on to me. The elusive hexagenia limbata mayfly hatches over a few evenings on warm summer evenings.”