Dressing the Black Creeper – A George Grant Pattern with Dutch Baughman (Buszek Award Recipient)

Description

• Saturday Afternoon, February 15th, 1:00pm – 4:00pm
• Location: 2nd Floor Conference Room
• Please Bring Fly Tying Tools, Thread (Black 6/0 or 14/0) and a Portable Lamp
• Also please bring Scissors, Hair Stacker, Comb, Super Glue, Tweezers, Hackle Pliers, Push Pin, Ruler
• You will also need a flat book or piece of wood (used to dry the glued ends of the hair sticks)

Franz Pott migrated to Missoula Montana in the early 1920s opening a barber shop and importing a unique hair weaving skill learned in the wig-making trade. Using this talent, he produced the first woven-hair hackle trout flies that imitated large caddis and stonefly nymphs sporting a hallmark brightly colored threaded stripe into the woven underbody of each fly.  These flies were very durable, and the woven-hair hackle produced a unique wiggle action.

Pott’s woven-hair hackle flies were incredibly popular but fly tyers at that time were unable to duplicate Pott’s woven-hair hackle weaving technique until George Grant patented the Black Creeper fly pattern in 1939.  Grant was able to duplicate the result of Pott’s woven hair hackle technique using a two-thread loom weaving method. The technique begins using natural hair to build hair sticks that are then woven in a loom to produce a hackle. The hair hackle is then dressed on the fly pattern using feather hackle techniques. In this class, Dutch will show students how to prepare hair sticks, weave them into a hair hackle, and use them to dress a Black Creeper.

Dutch resides in Southlake Texas, is a long-time member of the Fort Worth and Dallas Fly Fishers Clubs and has taught fly fishing classes at a local college as well as personal and group instruction for fly tying, fly fishing, and two-hand and single hand casting.  Dutch completed an apprenticeship with Michael Radencich for Salmon Fly Tying.

Dutch received the 2019 FFI Fly Fisher of the Year Award and a President’s Medal, the 2020 Darwin Atkins Fly Tying Award,the 2022 Dick Nelson Fly Tying Teaching Award, and the 2023 Buz Buszek Memorial Fly Tying Award.

You can keep up with Dutch at his www.flyfishingskills.com website.