Fishing Flies: Personal Fly Boxes
Inside the Box: Gary Merriman
GARY MERRIMAN, who has owned The Fish Hawk fly shop in downtown Atlanta for thirty-five years, considers himself more of a sportsman than anything else. "I grew up hunting and fishing, doing it all. Of course when I heard about the Florida Keys as a kid, all I wanted to do was go down there and fish. I drove my parents nuts with the idea until they finally said 'OK.'" And so began a unbroken string of tarpon and bonefish seasons that has taken Merriman, now in his early fifties, back to test flies and strategies that have won him a place among the important innovators in saltwater fly fishing.
Fly Tying Materials
Fly Tying: Hair Selection
SELECTING THE RIGHT HAIR for a fly is one of the hallmarks of an accomplished fly tier. After years of tying with all sorts of hair, you will start to develop a sense of how different types react on the hook when you apply thread tension. For our purposes here, I will talk about hair from deer, elk, and moose, and calf body hair. Caribou and antelope both have useable hair for fly tying, but I think the only ones who find this stuff useful are the caribou and antelope. These hairs tend to be soft and have mostly broken tips, rendering them useless for wings and collars.
Fishing Flies: Copper John
Tying the Original Copper John
THE COPPER JOHN went through several design changes over a period of about three years beginning in 1993. The early patterns caught fish, but I didn't consider it finished until 1996. After trying numerous hook styles, I settled on the Tiemco 5262, a 2XL, 2X heavy hook. (For those new to fly tying, this simply means a hook with a shank that is twice as long as a standard dry-fly hook, and wire that's twice as heavy.) I tried many hook styles, but the proportions just came out the best on the Tiemco 5262, and it was a good strong hook.
Fishing Flies
Mastering the Hatches
CARRY SEVERAL sizes of the same pattern. Always carry the size that most appropriately matches the hatch; but also carry smaller patterns.
Carry several patterns that match the same hatch. For the most common hatches, I carry hackled, parachute, and Compara-dun style versions of the same fly.
Sink the pattern, if changing size or pattern doesn't work.
Move during the hatch if you don't see risers. Don't be afraid to drive or walk up or downstream. Sometimes fish tend to pod up; other times, water or hatch conditions vary in a stream from one area to the next.
