During the long winters we have up here in Aroostook. A fly man has to find things to do to keep from getting cabin fever. The obvious thing is to spend all your free time at the bench. But that can get old. So I tye some, write some and read all I can every day. Just so I can be a better angler.

The long cold days of winter are the perfect time to huddle on the couch reading a good book. Or surf the web looking for new patterns and ideas. Or surfing through my favorite sites helping other tyers and anglers sort out the facts of angling.

The way of the fly …… is more than just a fishing method. It’s a study in how to look at life and a science of devotion. The way of the fly is in the details. Its not like worming, or minnow drowning. The way of the fly teaches us to push our skills. Easy is not how we are wired.

The trick to getting through the winter is research and resurrection. Researching new flies and resurrecting lost moments on the rivers. By creating the patterns to lead to success in the new summers to come. This is a trek I take each winter and one I enjoy all year.

Endless hours spent recreating the hatchlings of summer to repopulate my fly box. Plus experiments and new patterns galore. The hours filled with fly swaps and projects. Meeting new people and making new friends is all part of it. Teaching classes and showing others how we tye are exhilarating. The techniques and the styles of the flies we use. Dressing fancy salmon flies for donation, or just muddling through the muddlers.

Preparing now in the snow for the great contests of summer. The tools of the trouter and the bass man are so similar and yet so different. The elitist attitude baffles me. No matter what your angling method or species, we must join forces. We must all team up to preserve the art and the love of fishing. Mostly, we need to keep our waters clean and accessible.

So if the winter is getting to you……..tye!!!!!

Atlantic Salmon 28 lbs 1 oz Undisclosed Howard Clifford 10/9/1980
Black Crappie 3 lbs 4 oz Sibley Pond Wayne S. Morey Sr. 9/12/1986
Blueback Trout 4 lbs 4 oz Basin Pond Merton Wyman 1958
Brook Trout 9 lbs 0 oz Square Pond Mark Collins 5/15/1997
Brown Trout 23 lbs 5 oz Square Pond Robert Hodson 3/6/1996
Chain Pickerel 6 lbs 8 oz Androscoggin Lake Joseph Arsenault 2/11/1992
Cusk 33 lbs 4 oz Perkins Cove, Ogunquit Kenton Geer 10/11/2002
Fallfish 3 lbs 12 oz Sibley Pond Wayne S. Morey 9/12/1986
Lake Trout 31 lbs 8 oz Beech Hill Pond Hollis Grindle 1958
Landlocked Salmon 22 lbs 8 oz Sebago Lake Edward Balkely 1907
Largemouth Bass 11 lbs 10 oz Moose Pond Robert Kamp 1968
Muskellunge 26 lbs 8 oz Glazier Lake Allen Dufour 3/22/2001
Northern Pike 31 lbs 2 oz North Pond Lance Bolduc 3/1998
Smallmouth Bass 8 lbs 0 oz Thompson Lake George Dyer 1970
Splake 10 lbs 3 oz Mount Vernon Daniel R. Paquette 5/8/1993
Sunapee Trout 4 lbs 10 oz Lower South Branch Pond Wayne Dillon 6/1989
White Perch 4 lbs 10 oz Messalonskee Mrs. Earl Small 1959
Whitefish 7 lbs 8 oz Sebago Lake Neil Sullivan 1958
Yellow Perch 1 lbs 10 oz Worthley Pond Chad Mostats 8/1989

If you look at the list as it is……some of these records were set in the winter. That means right now is your best chance to get one of these monsters. Yes…this not flyfishing. But I am no purist.

So go out to your favorite lake or one of the ones listed and try your luck. You never know you could break the record.

Good luck and god bless!!!!!!!

(Courtesy of the NSFA)

Frank Hornberg was the creator of the Hornberg Special. While the fly is familiar to many, relatively little is written or known about the man. He was born February 27, 1882 in Wisconsin. In 1920 he became the first game warden assigned to Portage county Wisconsin and served there until his retirement in 1950. Frank Hornberg was a classic example of an old-time game warden and a colorful public figure. He died June 15, 1966 in Santa Rosa, California. It was during the 1920’s he developed the fly that bears his name.

The standard Hornberg as typically described in current flyfishing literature and as sold commercially has a few salient features. It is tied on a 2 X long streamer hook. The shank is wound with silver tinsel. Yellow calf tail or small hackles are then tied in as an under wing. The wing consists of two gray mallard flank feathers tied parallel and vertically along the shank. Jungle cock eyes are attached so that the second eye shows. The front is then wound with grizzly dry fly hackle. Hook sizes usually range from 10 to 6.

Frank Hornberg initially designed the Hornberg Special as a dry fly. Several sources claim that he designed this pattern in the 1920’s. Then in the 1940’s the Weber Tackle Company helped him develop the fly for commercial production. The 1940’s were the golden age for domestic fly production and Portage county was then the home to five tackle companies. Of these the largest was the Weber Tackle Company. The Hornberg Special became one of the flies listed in their catalogue. It probably was this catalogue listing that contributed to the widespread distribution and usage of the Hornberg Special.

The Hornberg can be fished as a dry fly dead drift or fished as a streamer below the surface of the water. Alternately a combination approach can be employed. It can be cast out upstream and drifted until the fly swings below and dangles. Then the fly can be pulled under the surface and stripped in as a streamer. Fished as a dry fly the Hornberg is suggested to represent a caddis or stonefly. When stripped subsurface it is intended to represent a baitfish.

The Tye:
Material
Hook – dry fly 2x long size 6 to 16
Thread – black
Wing- yellow hackle barb and mallard flank
Body – flat silver tinsel
HACKLE- Grizzly and brown

Wrap the shank with thread from bend to eye and back again. Ending at the bend, tye in the tinsel and wrap the hook shank,forward to the 2/3 position.

Then tye in the yellow barbules at the 2/3 position. Extending them back past the bend.

Add the twin mallard flank feathers over the yellow underwing . Wrap them into the vertical position, tight against the shank.

Adding the grizzly hackle, Brown and Black for good contrast. Be sure to wrap the hackles thickly, but keep the head as small as possible. Whip finish the head and lacquer.
This fly is intended to be fished dry, so keep it well hackled as shown. It will mimic caddis flies and several other species as well.

I’d like to thank my friends over at NSFA for allowing me to use their picture. ( The instruction being for the most part in my own words.)
Any question? mailto:aroostookbasser@yahoo.com

Life is an amazingly complicated series of crazy events we hope to control or they will control us. I fell victim to my own ambition. First moving into one house to work for someone managing his properties. To have that relationship end and my family and I having to move yet again. I’m done moving……until we get a house of our own!! A nice farm house on 20 acres and a room to tye in. Paradise…….

So I am back!!! I will write all I can…..email me with your questions, comments, or ideas.( Please leave your comments here first though.)

aroostookbasser@yahoo.com