The Backwards Fly
The first time my dad showed it to me, I turned my nose up like I had smelled a long dead piece of roadkill. No way would I fish that, I thought to myself. The fly was all wrong, constructed completely backwards to traditional intruder style flies that we fish on our steelhead rivers when the water temperatures drop and a sink tip presentation is needed.
Apparently, steelhead don’t have the same opinion.
Fay Mills, my father, is known mostly by his nickname, "Old Man River." OMR for short. He’s a guy who just exudes fishy juju and has a tendency to be a bit of a fish vacuum on the river. If at all possible, don’t fish behind him because watching him hook and land fish will get old pretty quick. I’ve seen it happen way, way too much.
Like I said before, his bug, dubbed "OMR’s Dancing Lady," was all wrong. Imagine a typical sink tip steelhead fly and you’ll see about 99% of them with what we call a three section construction. The rear section, which consists of a small silhouette, a section to give it length in the middle and the front section that gives it the bulk, action and form that steelhead key in on. Beyond that, there’s something else that bite on steelhead flies. Steelhead fishermen.
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You have to consider the aspect of bin appeal. The visual presentation that gets people to buy flies completely factors in on what you see in production flies. If the fly looks the part, it sells. Some of the best flies have zero bin appeal at the shop, in turn they don’t sell, and out of production they go.
OMR’s Dancing Lady falls into the category of zero bin appeal. It’s backwards, with the bulk of the silhouette occurring at the back and the front consisting of small silhouette of hackle and guinea all constructed on a tube. All wrong, right?
Wrong, the fly crushes.
The first day on the river for the Dancing Lady was a cold December day in the sagebrush canyon of my favorite steelhead river. While I stuck with my normal offerings, OMR deployed his new secret weapon into the water.
First run, OMR hooks two and lands one hatchery buck. I touch nothing.
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Second run, I draw the honor of leading us down, OMR picks my pocket twice. Two more runs, he hooks two more and I continue my anti-hot streak. I’ve changed flies about 20 times; he continues to stick with the same Dancing Lady. In the last run of the day, my father hooks and lands another fish. I lost it. How could it keep happening? Six fish to hand for OMR, nary a tip, tap or bump for me. Swear word, swear word and swear word!
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All day long, he had asked me if I wanted one of his new flies. Time after time, I declined, but I could no longer do so. In the fading light on my first cast with the backwards fly, I was crushed by a 7-pound native hen. Standing there, mouth agape at what just happened, I became a believer in OMR’s Dancing lady.
It’s been a couple of years since this happened and the fly continues to produce, on both the summer runs and the fly shy winter cousins up and down the pacific coast. This fly will probably never be a production fly. It will continue to draw scorn of anglers who see it for the first time. It’s built all wrong and backwards-..
Who cares, it catches fish.
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