The Lighter Side of Fly Fishing

 

How The Ultimate Bass Fly Was Created

 By Dennis Kreutz

My Dad was a great experimenter. And he made sure that everyone in the family got a chance to participate in his search for a better way to skin the cat, which wasn’t one of his experiments by the way. Probably because our dogs chased the cats away…

While I was growing up there were four “official” members of the family living in our house, that being my Dad, Mom, my brother Jim, and myself. The “unofficial” family members lived outside the house and consisted of an assortment of dogs (usually 3-5, but sometimes there’d be a litter of Weimeraner pups waiting to be sold, and then the dog population could get up to 15), and the occasional snake, owl, frog, or magpie we’d managed to catch.

We all got to participate in Dad’s experiments, with our dogs plus all of the neighborhood mutts being unwitting partners in the Ultrasonic Silent Dog Whistle Range Tests. Dad got the biggest kick out of standing on the front porch, blowing silently into the whistle, and listening to all of the dogs within a half-mile started howling and barking once he got the whistle tuned in just right. That was in the 1950’s and there was a lot of talk about aliens and spaceships, and I’m pretty sure that all of the neighborhood dogs howling at midnight caused plenty of stories to get started in our little town.  Our own dogs were the recipients of Dad’s own home made Dog Feet Warmers for winter pheasant hunting, which seemed like a really good idea to me, but the dogs had other plans for the Feet Warmers. I never did figure out what the other plan was, because we could never find any of the Feet Warmers after we let the dogs out of our sight while they had them on.

 

Tastes Like Chicken…

Then there were the experiments that us kids participated in. There was the Meadow Larks Look Like Quail So They Probably Will Taste The Same Experiment. Even though Jim and I figured out the answer right away, Dad had to make sure it wasn’t true by serving it fried, broiled, creamed over toast, boiled, baked, and barbequed before he’d give up on that one. We did a lot of Bass fishing on the Columbia River, and one summer Dad decided that he could make better lures than those commercially available. So for a couple weeks that summer we did a scientific study, with Dad using the commercial lures and me using The Next Great Lure Design, which meant something with a treble hook tied on, or attached with a split ring. Among other things I fished with Chrome Can Openers, Bottle Caps, a Lincoln Log whittled into a fish shape, a Rubber Snake which sunk like a brick, and a dyed red-yellow-and blue eagle feather from my Indian Chief Headdress toy set. The whole thing ended when I threw all of the Next Great Lures away begging to use something that really caught fish.

 

The Big Surprise…

All of this culminated in the Ultimate Bass Fly, but in order to understand that experiment first you are going to need a little background on my Dad’s Christmas Present Plan. Dad’s Plan was pretty simple actually. Part of The Plan consisted of him getting my Mom a present each year, that she had become wise enough to pick out herself, then she’d make sure he knew where to pick it up a couple weeks in advance of Christmas Eve.

When Dad picked up the present Mom had put on hold at the store for herself (Christmas Present Plan Part A), that’s when Dad implemented the Big Surprise (Christmas Present Plan Part B). The Big Surprise was the other present for Mom from Dad. Now, you also need to know that my Mom, although she was raised in the mountains of Idaho and had hunted and fished during her childhood, I never knew her to go hunting or fishing with Dad. Every year when she opened the Big Surprise, she always seemed really genuinely surprised, perhaps even shocked as I recollect the moments, at getting a case of shotgun shells, or new hip-waders (in Dad’s shoe size of course). Then there was the year of the Really Big Surprise, a complete Fly Tying Kit ordered from the Herter’s Catalog.

 

The Fly Tying Kit…

Now this wasn’t your run of the mill Fly Tying Kit, this was the deluxe version, complete with a whole collection of feathers from birds I’d never heard of, deer hair, seal fur, yarn, and hooks of all kinds. A tying Bobbin bigger than my fist, with six different colors of thread, all of which were packed inside the case, and surrounding a for real Tying Vise. That Christmas Eve I remember Dad setting up The Vise and getting all of the tools and materials out of The Kit, while Mom went into her room, probably to contemplate how lucky she was to get something much nicer than a case of shotgun shells that year.

Dad treated Fly Tying just like everything else, a chance to experiment. Soon The Kit was filled with furs and feathers that he thought were better than those Mr. Herter had sent him. He had an entire Ring-necked Pheasant cape which made great trout flies, the iridescent  feathers from a Blue-winged Teal which the Crappy seemed partial to, dark brown fur from a Beaver we trapped in the river behind the house, the swirled feathers from a Duck’s… well, from the South end of North bound duck, which worked great for Bass, and yellow feathers from the breast of a Meadow Lark which made the best Blue Gill jigs I ever used.

But Dad had an idea, and was looking for a special donor for the Ultimate Bass Fly Material. Dad’s idea, and the Perfect Donor, came together about five months after he got the Fly Tying Kit for Mom, and just in time for prime Bass fishing on the Columbia River. Here’s how it happened.

 

The Perfect Donor…

Dad and I were downtown, on Main Street, checking out the new fishing equipment that had just been put into the general store’s windowed display area. There were a pair of entrance doors into the store, about eight feet apart but they were inset into the building about four feet and separated by the display area, so you couldn’t see one doorway from the other side of the display area. While we were standing there a woman walked up, stopped in the other doorway, and looked intently at the new refrigerators being displayed in the next area over. In her hand was a leash, and at the other end of the leash was the Perfect Donor, the Keeper Of The Ultimate Bass Fly Material. Not just any ordinary material, we’re talking about something bright enough that fish could see it even in murky water, so bright that I bet it could be seen for a hundred feet in clear water, tough and durable, naturally wavy so it would undulate when retrieved, floated like a cork, and was free for the taking! The Perfect Donor? A snow white French Poodle complete with gem studded collar engraved “FiFi”. The Donor was on our side of the display area sniffing at the building corner, in total disdain of our presence, couldn’t be seen by it’s Owner, tail straight up in the air, and at the very end of the tail was a large ball of hair…oops, Ultimate Bass Fly Material.

With one eye watching in the direction of the woman, the other on The Donor, Dad snaked his pocket knife out of his front pocket, and then with surgical precision and in an action that was almost too fast to be seen by the human eye, he removed nearly all of the ball of hair from the tip of FiFi’s tail. He straightened up, dropped the knife and hair into his pocket, turned away from FiFi, who was now staring in disbelief at her naked tail, opened the store door and pushed me through it. As we walked across the store, towards the side door, I heard a faint scream coming from behind us, but Dad didn’t seem to notice.

 

The Ultimate Bass Fly…

That night Dad got out the Fly Tying Kit, and made three Ultimate Bass Flies.  One was a streamer tied on a hook with only yellow thread for adornment, the second used a lead headed jig hook for fishing deeper holes and runs, and the third had a cork body to be fished as a surface popper. Over the years well over a hundred fish were caught on those three flies, Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass, Blue Gill, White Fish, Trout, Crappies, numerous huge Carp, and even a couple of Steelhead that nearly got away with the Ultimate Bass Fly used to catch them. And every one of those fish that was caught brought on laughter from Dad and I, and usually a retelling of a part of the story behind the Ultimate Bass Flies, either the stealth and quickness Dad used, or the surprised look on the Poodle’s face, the woman’s scream, or wondering if FiFi had grown enough tail hair back yet to provide material for another three flies, and did the lady still take her for walks down town…

 

About The Author 

Dennis Kreutz is a life long fisherman, newly reacquainted with Fly Fishing, but trying his hardest to catch up on all those days he didn’t have a fly rod in his hand. For more information visit the extremeflyfishing.com web site, or contact him at dennis@extremeflyfishing.com