Inside the Box: Gary Merriman's Saltwater Flies

This week on MidCurrent we take a look inside the fly box of shop owner and saltwater fly innovator Gary Merriman. Merriman’s name isn’t immediately recognizable to many anglers. But his now-famous tarpon Toad fly gained him cult status among guides and anglers who’ve used it for the past fifteen years to fool tarpon.
Although he’s been fly fishing the Keys since the early 1970s, it was Merriman’s use in the early 1990s of neutral-buoyancy flies that swam — rather than classic patterns which rose and fell in the water column — that changed the sport for him and for the many anglers and guides who later picked up on the idea.