Dry flies and bamboo

Yesterday I fished the Yellowstone with my old boss, Glen Blackwood, from Great Lakes Fly Fishing Co., and good friend and bamboo rod collector Tom Clark. It was one of those rare wind free, no clouds, early September day in the Paradise Valley with no other fisherman in site. We hit the water at about 11:30am and the guys started beating the water with wood rods and grass hoppers. The trout were a little more willing to eat the big bugs early in the day, but once it warmed up they would rise to the fly and just bump it with their nose. When this started to happen I switched the guys to the B.A. Spent Hopper and fooled a couple more fish. The B.A. is great late season fly that sits in the river's film like a dead hopper, sometimes convincing a suspicious trout to open his mouth and eat. Soon the fish turned their attention to the few Caddis and Baetis flies that were coming off in small numbers, so we switched to smaller bugs and found that trout would eat the Para-Adams, Purple Caddis, and a Royal Wolf. Yeah, a Royal Wolf. It's not that it's an unusual fly to throw. It's just that when I heard Tom say "This is Tom Morgan's favorite fly." and tied this classic fly to the end of a rod that most people would only handle with white cotton gloves, I got feeling a little nostalgic. 

Ty Webb