Finishing The Tying Camp & THE ONE

My fly-tying bootcamp is seeing its end. Majority is completed, as I planned and wished. Of course, I keep tying through the fishing/guiding season as I find needs.

With the acquisition of this inspiring book the other day, I worked on one of my tying heroes, Jack Gartside patterns.

This year, I will be fishing with these classics.
First of all, I will keep improving the deer hair handling and shape of the head. With that in mind, here's his famous Gartside Pheasant Hopper.

 I did varnish pheasant feathers with Polyurethane!! I like the procedure and the end result!!

And here's the variation: Pheasant Salmonfly!!

I can't wait to cast this for the highly expected hatch on Madison River, Yellowstone River, etc in my area!!

Elk Hair Ant. Great addition into my terrestrial box!

 Cinnamon

 Mr. Jack's secret color pattern!?

 His Elk Hair Termite and accompanied story inspired me to modify my own S.C.Ant. I know this will work!! - all I need is hit the "swarm"!!

I varnished different sizes and colors of pheasant feathers. Here's Pheasant Caddis.

 This is Mother's Day Caddis version!!

Speaking of M-Day Caddis, as I was scouting along the Madison, I fished the Lower Madison four days ago in the evening. It was warm and I was wishing to see very end of caddis hatch. I was fishing at a nothing-particular-non-descriptive section (= some might claim most of Lower is non-descriptive if not featureless!!). I just say it was barely knee-deep. Caddis were scattering just as I predicted. I had only a few rises of small trout by then. I went on. Suddenly, a huge head swam up to my fly and took it. Just before my "tying camp", I had hooked and lost a couple of nice trout. So this time I was alerted. But I noticed at once that this would be much larger!! It was one of the most memorable run & chase scenes I ever done!!

This will be on the wall!!

 The ONE Fly was Unnamed Caddis, which is as nonchalant as the spot I was fishing at!!

It has become a cool and wet (rainy) spring. This is affecting run-off and our summer-flow predictions. I keep you posted!!