TIPPITS: Remembering a Fly Tyer

In a small room of the house I grew up in, my father would toil away the short days and long nights of a Wyoming winter churning out an endless supply of flies—between 12,000 and 15,000 every off-season, filling orders for local fly shops and private clients, as well as making sure his own boxes were full. As a small boy, I would follow the heavy smell of head cement into his tying room, where I’d watch him work amongst the piles of deer hair and stacks of hackle, an unfiltered Camel dangling from his lips and a constantly filled cup of coffee sitting off to his left—out of the way, yet within easy reach of his non-thread hand.

One night during the winter of 1981—no one knows exactly when, but I like to think it was on one of those nights I was watching him—my father completed the last fly of an order of 50 dozen Joe’s Hoppers for Jack Dennis’ shop in Jackson, Wyoming. He immediately began switching his materials so he could start in on an order of Humpies—his favorite fly and the one for which he had the most orders. But as he finished that first Humpy, he realized that he’d neglected to switch his hook from a size 8 to a size 10. He was left with a Humpy tied to a half-empty hook.

It was a simple mistake at the tying vice and almost anyone else—myself included—would have looked at this fly and simply thrown it into the trash with the clippings of deer hair, hackle and, peacock herl. My dad didn’t. Instead, he took a look at his “mistake” and squeezed another Humpy body onto the hook. The following spring, he distributed a handful of these new flies to his fishing friends and guides on the Snake River. It was incredibly productive—more so, I am told, then any other fly on the Snake had been for years. By the end of that season, my dad’s new pattern had a new name: the Double Humpy. The same Double Humpy that has been written about in dozens of fly fishing books and magazines and is now a staple of fly shops all over the West.

A horrific car accident in the mid 1960s left my father’s back in constant physical agony. Within a decade, the pain got so bad that he was forced to give up skiing altogether— a difficult decision to make in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But it gave him plenty of time to tie flies. And despite the pain, he never gave up rowing the river or guiding his many clients that returned year after year. Unfortunately, more than anything else, the accident impacted my father’s relationship with friends and family—including me. As he grew older, he tried to fend off the agony with alcohol and painkillers and it almost destroyed my bond with him. We argued about everything from politics to money to basketball, even the direction flyfishing was beginning to take—new boats, new rods, slot limits, and tackle restrictions—it all became issues of contention between us. But there was always flies and fly tying and as time passed our fly tying discussions became the salvation of our relationship.

My father died of a heart attack last summer. Ironically, he was on a little stretch of trout water called Flat Creek, a stream he grew up on and no doubt held his earliest fishing memories. His funeral was attended by several local legends of fly fishing and river-running, people like Jack Dennis, John Simms, Tom Montgomery, Charlie Sands, Dave Hansen, and Paul Bruun, just to name a few. Bruun helped deliver the eulogy, and when he eventually got around to talking about my dad’s flies, he produced from his pocket a Double Humpy that was among that first batch distributed on the Snake River in the spring of 1981. He had been one of the recipients. When the funeral was over, Paul approached me and gave me that fly—an incredible gesture and one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received.

As you might guess, that fly has never been used, and never will be. It rests in a small plastic fly box my father gave me when I was nine years old, a box buried amongst the mounds of material now collecting in my own tying room. It contains other flies tied by the likes of Jay Buchner, Howard Cole, Bob Jacklin, and my grandfather. When I look inside this box, I see that Double Humpy sitting among other classic flies tied by classic tiers. It’s one of the best ways for me to remember the importance of this fly in the history of the Snake River. And it is the best way I can think of to remember a fly tier.

Boots Allen is a writer and a fishing guide from Jackson Hole Wyoming.