The first time my dad showed it to me, I turned my nose up like I had smelled a long dead piece of road kill.
No way would I fish that, I thought to myself. The fly was all wrong, constructed completely backwards to traditional intruder style flies that we fish on our steelhead rivers when the water temperatures drop and a sink tip presentation is needed.
Apparently, steelhead don’ t have the same opinion.
Fay Mills, my father, is known mostly by his nickname,“ Old Man River.” OMR for short. He’ s a guy who just exudes fishy juju and has a tendency to be a bit of a fish vacuum on the river. If at all possible, don’ t fish behind him because watching him hook and land fish will get old pretty quick. I’ ve seen it happen way, way too much. Like I said before, his bug, dubbed“ OMR’ s
Dancing Lady,” was all wrong. Imagine a typical sink tip steelhead fly and you’ ll see about 99 % of them with what we call a three section construction. The rear section, which consists of a small silhouette, a section to give it length in the middle and the front section that gives it the bulk, action and form that steelhead key in on. Beyond that, there’ s something else that bite on steelhead flies. Steelhead fishermen.
You have to consider the aspect of bin appeal. The visual presentation that gets people to buy flies completely factors in on what you see in production flies. If the fly looks the part, it sells. Some of the best flies have zero bin appeal at the shop, in turn they don’ t sell, and out of production they go.
OMR’ s Dancing Lady falls into the category of zero bin appeal. It’ s backwards, with the bulk of the silhouette occurring at the back
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