Some nice ones today for Cindy B. on the sofa pillow and Goddard caddis!
Salmon fly hatch was good to us today!
When Pat Barnes invented the Sofa Pillow for the salmon fly hatch he used squirrel tail and LOTS of hackle. The pattern has evolved and morphed and been bastardized ad infinitum through the years, but even after all the fuzz and foam and sparkle and spangle, it will always be a Sofa Pillow to me.
Probably the most important addition to the fly was the use of blonde elk for the down wing because it floated better and you could see it on cloudy days! Dick McGuire of Ennis, Montana was the first to incorporate blonde elk hair in his salmon fly pattern, “Dick’s Pillow”. When I lived with McGuire the winter of 1979-1980, he showed me how to tie it.
But we all know that elk hair just isn’t hipster enough. I mean, it’s sooo boring it couldn’t possibly be any good, so now any good sofa pillow has wings tied with Ice Hair, EP Fibers, Widows Wing, McFlylon, Antron or Super Charged Krypton and must have an bulbous egg sac/reverse probiscus made out of Hemp Seed and rubber legs of imported Fiscus Elastica.
Since all of this is quite confusing to me I try to keep a clear head and no matter what they are tied out of…or what exotic shape they may take…I just call any salmon fly imitation that fools the wily lunker trout by one name:
The Sofa Pillow