Did you ever put something for sale and change your mind? That might happen to me at the Trout Unlimited Dinner on Saturday night in Fayetteville.
Two of my favorite fly boxes will be for sale in the silent auction at the 40th annual TU Conservation Dinner at the Fayetteville Town Center. Doors open at 5 p.m.
There will be plenty of cool stuff to divert my attention from my fly boxes, but I might not be able to contain myself and bid on them anyway. I spent many nights in January tying flies for the dinner, one of my favorite nights of the winter. I know I’ll see many of my fly fishing friends in Northwest Arkansas.
My fly tying fire is always stoked every January knowing someone might want my creations. I guess I’m always a little surprised that my fly boxes are coveted by others and that they sell for a pretty penny. It’s a thrill.
I’ve been tying flies for 30 years and have gotten a few patterns down perfect, but I still am in awe of the real pros. Never mind that I’ve tied tens of thousands of flies, I still think of myself as a newbie.
This year was a bit different because I tied more than midges, those tiny ruby and root beer midges I learned from the late Dr. David Knowles. There is a box of 196 split evenly between sizes 16, 18 and 20 for this year’s dinner. If you bought the box and the flies where I volunteer on Mondays at Two Rivers Fly Shop in Norfork, you’d spend over $500.
But there is another box that deserves an explanation. Fly shop owner Dru Zameto talked me into entering a streamer tournament last week. I wanted to fish some of my own flies, but I’d never tied streamers.
So like two years ago when the cicada hatch was coming to our area, I began to study tutorials on YouTube to try to figure out if there was a simple way to approach an articulated (two hook) streamer pattern.
That’s what I did on hopper patterns until I settled on my own variant of cicada patterns, nicknamed by a local guide as the CyClayda. The fly shop sold around 15 dozen before a tornado ended the cicada hatch with about two dozen still in the shop.
Preparing for the streamer tourney, I watched Kelly Galloup’s tutorials until I settled on a popular pattern for our tailwaters, his Sex Dungeon articulated streamer. It can be tied in about any color, but it seemed the white or the black was what sold the most.
I tied some of both, but didn’t like the result. Maybe the pattern was too complex, especially the head with spun deer hair. It also proved messy for the dining room table with the deer clippings everywhere. Jean Ann frowned, even after I ran the vacuum.
Finally, I found tutorials made by Brian Wise, a famous tyer from Gainesville, Missouri. They were simpler with far less need of spun deer hair. Plus, I liked the way he mixed different colors and more dubbing instead of deer hair for the head.
After buying about $100 worth of material online, I started tying my own variant, slightly different than what either Galloup or Wise tied. I took some to a fly tying tournament in Mountain Home emceed by Wise. He approved and later sent a nice note on Facebook. My head is now swollen. That was all I needed to decide to tie some for another box to be auctioned at the TU dinner.
So there will be a box of six streamers in a box. They are a combination of pink, green and white, probably perfect for smallmouth in Crooked Creek. They will also be great in a shad kill on the White River.
I tied about 30 before I decided there were enough with the right proportions that I’d want others to see and fish. Oh, they do work, too. I caught an 18-inch brown in the streamer tournament. I didn’t place, although I would have won the over 70 category (if they had one).
They are variations of a sex dungeon, but several guides said they really needed a name tied to the tyer. Fly shop friends pushed about 20 names until something hit me after watching the Super Bowl halftime with rapper Bad Bunny.
Bad had to be in the name of my new streamer pattern. It was suggested that Clay should also be included.
I woke up in the night with the proper name and wrote it down on my night stand. They would be called The Bad Clay Bobby.
You have to go back 40 years to understand the Clay Bobby origin. It dates to my years at Southern Hills Baptist Church in Tulsa. Friends there were intrigued with my Arkansas background, and the double names in my family. There is my wife, Jean Ann, and my daughter, named Sarah Jo to honor her grandmother, Wanda Jo, and her aunt, Bobbi Jo.
Someone decided it was proper to just add Bob to my name, although that’s nothing close to my actual middle name. It stuck. I was Clay Bob for about 10 years. Clay Bob Henry even showed up on the leaderboard when I played in the city golf championship at LaFortune Park. I often heard Clay Bobby.
So why not call these beautiful articulated streamer patterns The Bad Clay Bobby?
I will know how many read this when I get to the dinner Saturday night. That will be just part of the fun.
Oh, and it’s going to be fun. I can’t wait to see what Sue Hey brings from her kennel in Baldwin City, Kansas. She has donated a Labrador retriever pup to be auctioned. Hedge Lane Labradors is a wonderful place. Sue’s labs are pure sweetness.
It was three years ago when I was the top bidder for our wonderful yellow lab Millie at the TU dinner. She is both gorgeous and well behaved. She could be elected mayor of Norfork. Sue’s pups are bred for both beauty and personality. Our daughter Sarah has one of her retired breeding females, a black lab, loved by our entire family.
It will be a treat to see Sue and her husband Bryan. We made the trip to Baldwin City to pick up Sarah’s dog Vaeda in early January. It made me smile when Bryan greeted us in the front yard with Millie’s parents for a great reunion. Millie was thrilled. Bryan was wearing the red TU cap I gave him last year. How about that?
You will have a chance at plenty of neat items at the dinner. Included in the auction will be a Safari trip to Africa and many other guided fishing trips. The food is always top shelf.
But here is a warning: you may be bidding against me for my fly boxes. I know they work and I might decide to keep them.
