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Foam Lipped Dry Fly History 101

10K views 38 replies 16 participants last post by  Marty 
#1 · (Edited)
After seeing Marty's recent post on the importance of keeping the history and original tier of fly patterns straight I thought this was in order. Please read the entire post before you comment on it.

Some may be aware of the history of the foam lipped twitched fly as used for steelhead, some may not. The following is the history of the foam lipped dry fly from it's humble and covert beginnings on the North Umpqua where it was first used successfully.

I am open to any comments about these origins and would love to discuss any claims by anyone that say's they were fishing a FOAM fly like this with a twitched or chugged presentation before we were. My intention here is to give credit where it is due and refresh some memories about what really went on with this fly and dry fly fishing style.

I am tired of defending this but also tire of seeing relative newcomers( and there are many) bull dog their way into the fly world claiming ownership of something I saw firsthand. Maybe this can set the record straight a little for posterity sake. Hopefully this will be the last time and at least I wrote it all down for reference.

Here ya go:

The real origin of the Deer Hair Foam skater, the technique to fish it and how it all came about:

The history of the fly, it's origin and the technique developed to fish it start way back in the mid to late 80's. It was a multi step process to get to the fly that we call the Foam Dome. There were a few of us involved in the further development of the fly as well as what became the technique to fish it.

I will not show a picture of the fly as there is still nothing quite like it in the mass market place today. Tony's original design is still the best IMHO, and easiest to tie and cast of any of the scores of copies out there. I respect Tony and his decision NOT to mass market the fly.

The history on the fly and its metamorphosis is as follows:

We often fished muddlers and riffle hitched them, dead drifted them etc. We started to tie muddlers with a flat bottom and we would aqua seal them to get a flared flat surface that would skate well. We even bent the hook shank upwards to increase the angle and make them surf and skate even better. We fished these flies for a few years and they worked great, the fish loved them! We also came up with a disk shaped fly out of deer hair that was quite effective.

One day in around 88 or 89 Tony Wratney(legendary NU guide) was looking at the deer hair muddler fly in the vise and got the idea to add foam to it. He said " I'm going to Joe's(Howell) to get some foam and I'm gonna tweak this pattern. He went to Joe's and got some bright foam and brought it home. He sat at the vise and produced the first deer hair foam lip skater. We tried some names out, I thought of Nerf Surfer because the foam was the color of a nerf football. I always liked that name but it never stuck, but Foam Dome did. We fished it and it produced almost immediately. We skated it normally without the twitch at first. It was a cool looking fly.We now had a virtually unsinkable fly that was highly visible that could be fished in heavy water. It was a winner.We had a killer fly that was working well but we had no idea how much more effective it would become with the development of the" Twitch"

Now to the origin of the twitch and how we developed it into a dry fly technique. Another friend Tim Caine (another amazing fisherman) was fishing one day to 4 or five fish in a favorite run. He swung a wet fly through and put it in front of every fish in the pool. No dice they were not interested. So he is standing there just screwing around and he starts to swing through the run again. He starts bouncing his rod, moving the fly, twitching the fly as it comes across the pool. A fish moves up and eats it almost instantly with this new movement. I think he ended up moving a fish or two after they had just refused the same fly on a normal swing. The movement really got their attention.That started the ball rolling to try the same thing with the newly invented Foam Dome. We all started to fish the new fly with movement......and it worked amazingly well. It took a while to figure out a consistent rhythm without moving the fly to much. We all fished it and compared notes on what worked best in what circumstance. Everyone developed their own rhythm and did it a little different. As time went on we figured out that a bigger lip pushed more water and made more commotion. The fly changed many times. Bigger, smaller ,sparse, bushy etc. Different sizes for different runs. Heavy water, glassy tails we had a bug for all of it. the fish loved them. We had no trouble following people through runs because fish would just clobber this thing. It was new, the fish went nuts for them. They had never seen such a thing before. The fly is still changing to this day some 20 years later.

Now, everyone KNOWS that people have been putting movement on the fly since time began. Done for Atlantic salmon on the East coast and Europe and people have been twitching wet flies on the west coast forever.Nothing new there.Bill Mcmillian was doing it with dries and wrote about it in Dry Line Steelhead (although not done with a foam fly and not done with the same movement we discovered).I am not claiming that movement on the fly was our idea. It wasn't only the movement/twitch that made this fly work, it was the mechanics/shape and design of this fly.This new foam lipped deer hair fly pushed water like a bass popper. That, coupled with a rhythmic, pulsing, metronome twitch was revolutionary to the steelhead world. We kept it under our hat. We didn't talk about it. It was our technique. I truly believe, and to the best of my knowledge we were the only people around that were consistently catching steelhead on deliberately chugged and twitched foam skaters.Those in our group were well traveled in the steelhead community and it's rivers and to our knowledge there was no one in the steelhead world that was doing this with a spun deer hair foam fly. Like I said, I am open to any discussions with anyone that has any earlier claims to this. Please comment.

For years we fished this way. It worked amazingly well for us. There were a half dozen of us that were doing it, the inner circle if you will.However, the public as a whole, even upon seeing what we were doing did not know what we were doing it WITH.They remained skeptical. and people would even ask what the heck we were doing and scoff. No one really thought you could get them on top like this,twitching and all. No one wanted to spend the time trying this new technique even when they saw us catch fish. It was too radical, too "outside of the box" to steal a phrase,for the masses. We had confidence in it but no one else was convinced it would work.People actually laughed at us and made jokes about us. "There's those guys with the epileptic twitch" "That will never work:, "You'll scare the fish" "That is the stupidest thing I have ever seen" we heard it all. We didn't care, we were breaking new ground and the fish were on it big time!

In fact, to further illustrate the fact that no one was doing it or had even heard of it, Tony took a handful of the new flies up to BC to fish in the early 90's. He was fishing on the Kispiox with guys like Bob Clay and Wolford and Tom Lee. Giants in the steelhead fly fishing world, in the heart of the very origins of steelhead fishing on the fly and they had never seen or heard of a fly or technique like this. He was with Bob Clay when he first pulled out the Foam Dome and Bob was skeptical at best. He would only let him fish it every other pool that's how skeptical he was.When Tony was allowed to fish it he cast it out and it started to swing and then he started in with the pulsing, rhythmic twitch and Bob said" Don"t do that, it won't work, it will scare the fish!!!" Tony kept on chugging and rose a huge fish. Bob's eyes raised...."Hum, that was cool" Shortly after that session with Bob,there was a guide newsletter that came out where Bob reports that he and some fellow guides went out twitching skaters and hooked 23 fish.The guides were convinced and were sold! They then came up with their own versions and the fame of the fly and technique started to spread.

Word of this fly and technique soon started to make the rounds in the steelhead world.The Deschutes is where I think I saw the first commercial versions of someone else's foam skater. Several well known guides started to tie some similar flies and you started to see them showing up in the fly bins maybe in around the early 2000's. Tony also fished with Ken Morrish during those early years and he saw the foam fly and later we saw patterns like the Morrish mouse emerged as well as his more recent Pom Skater. I would think it would be hard for Ken to deny that he was influenced by Tony's fly.

As I said,we started fishing this fly and technique on the North Umpqua in around 88 or 89. We actually were using single-handed rods to fish these things.......anyone remember what one of those things look like? We still fish them often and it is still one of my favorite ways to fish a skater.

Anyway,15 years later(that's a long time folks) in about 03-04 ,Scott showed up and started guiding out of Steamboat Inn. He immediately saw what we were doing and took notes. He is a very savvy angler no doubt.He watched how and where we fished it. He however did not start fishing it right away. Eventually he started guiding more and converting to the twitched dry as well. I even remember when we first saw him twitching a dry in the Station. I was with Tony and we were like "Hey, he's stealing our technique" We had no idea what would happen over the next few years.

He then developed a similar fly which would become the Ska-opper that is now everywhere.The rest as they say is history.

Just trying to set it straight.
 
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#2 ·
foam fly

History is an interpretation of facts.

Jack Gartside, a wild Boston striper fly fisher tied the Gartside Gurgler in the 1980's. He did fish the west coast, and said that the Gurgler was great in salt and freshwater. Heck, he told me that about 15 years ago.

Who originated this?

Well, a deer hair slider has been around for 50 years and predates the foam used in these flies.

An intruder is a Clouser Minnow with big material and a trailer. There have been trailers used in salt for years. Look at a famous Hemingway photo and you'll see a trailer hook.

Few can claim true inovation. Maybe inovation in fly tying will only happen with new material, genetic/biologic, or man-made.

There is SOME history, from a history teacher no less.
 
#3 · (Edited)
This is the history of the foam skater not lipped skaters in general. The moose lipped skater has been in use since the down of time as well as other materials that were used as a lip to pop the fly up. As far as I know this was the first foam skater ever made and we were the first to twitch them. I did not feel the need to market the fly or how its fished and feel sad that some people felt the need to bring it the masses with movies and vids.
TW
 
#5 ·
the world is a big place and too say you were the first to do anything is a big claim. East coast salt guys have used short, heavy heads for casting big flies and sink tips for years. do I think the guys who marketed skagit heads ripped 'em off? Or the use of foam lipped popping bugs by bass fisherman, do i think you guys ripped em off? did howell rip off wratney? is the nu being pimped so others can get rich? No, dont be ridiculous. I feel like I have read this thread before, just worded a little different.

I have been heading out to the NU for a week the past 5 years to fish for steel. But it wasnt a video that made me go. I have been flyfishing since I was ten, now 27, and i have known about the NU since the beginning. Any obsessed fly fisherman will read enough books that will show him far off places. There are a lot of books that mention the NU and its fish.

Innovation goes hand in hand with fly fishing, and fishing in general begs for experimentation.

Very cool story about a very cool way to fish in a very cool place. You guys were the first on the nu too twitch a foam lip skater, but I cant believe you were the first to do it for steelhead on the whole. There are a lot of rivers with a lot of fisherman.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Hey 83
I said that as far as I know I made the first foam skater for steelhead. The original post asks if there was an earlier version and welcomes a reply. As far as Scott goes, yes we feel ripped off, you would too. I watched Scott fish when he showed up on the the Umpqua and there was no skating more less twitching going on. He got that tecnique from us and marketed it as his own. I am just calling BS where BS is due.
TW
 
#7 ·
Hey 83
I said that as far as I know I made the first foam skater for steelhead. The original post asks if there was an earlier version and welcomes a reply. As far as Scott goes yes we feel ripped off, you would to.
My brother Mike tied the first foam skatter and was the first to fish a foam skatter on the Deschutes. Just saying
 
#9 ·
My brother and I opened a fly shop in Salt Lake City back in 1985. When we first opened foam as we know it today was not even considered to be a fly tying material. Packing foam had made its way to the tying bench and was colored with markers. Because of the newly identified cicada hatch on the Green river and the need for a better pattern, foam started to show on a number of the guide flies. Dyed foam found in the local craft store came into play a few years later and then in the late 80s Orvis and a few other material suppliers started selling foam. It was the early 90s when I first saw my brother tying skaters with a rusty deer hair spun body and orange foam pulled over the top. The fly worked well but was quickly forgotten because it was made with a synthetic material (it’s was a snub purist thing). I would never say Mike was the first to tie with foam or that he invented the foam skater but he was the first that I know of and we were pretty connected to both the fly tying industry and steelheading. I was there the night the Chernobyl Ant was invented on the Green River and was also there when a guide on the SF of the Snake claimed he had invented the Chernobyl Ant 5 years later. The rivers are 10 hours apart but the same type of fly had been developed at pretty much the same time. Fly tyers are very innovative and with one goal in mind, tie to catch. I don’t question the history of your foam lipped skater, I am sure it went down as stated. But it would be difficult defending exclusive ownership.
 
#10 ·
Thanks for the story Marty.

As you said, tying with foam in the trout world was probably an earlier occurrence for sure.

I guess we weren't all that concerned with what made up traditional fly material and went with the foam because it was highly visible and unsinkable. That fact alone was a revolutionary new way to look at skating dry flies for steelhead.

Up to the point we started using foam, it was usually difficult to get skater/waking flies to stay on top for very long. A lot of maintenance required(floatant etc) Foam solved that for us and we stuck with that material despite the disdain from traditionalists.

These days,the only way to get exclusive ownership is to put your name on it and start mass producing the fly and that was not ever on Tony's agenda. Many, many tiers have tied flies that were never commercially produced for years.....some never.
 
#11 ·
This is a very interesting thread, i love reading about flies and their history.

Now, i am wanting to tie some of these for a long time but cannot find proper recipes; would anyone please post some recipes (and aybe pics)? please, please, pretty please :roll:
 
#12 ·
Finnerty Steelhead Skater

July/August 2007 Northwest Flyfishing Magazine under the article heading "Guide Flies" the Foam lipped skater appears under the title Finnerty Steelhead Skater. Dean Finnerty claims in the article that "this pattern evolved over several seasons..." This is the first place I have ever seen the "Ska-opper, Finnerty Skater, Foam lipped skater" appear in any flyfishing media. The world may never know who first pulled a piece of foam over a bomber but whoever you are thanks for helping keep our flies afloat.
 
#18 ·
singlehand-
after re-reading previous post i made i realized it may have sounded crass and one sided. In no way did I mean to take credit from anything you guys have done and give it too someone else. Honestly i dont care who came up with it first, its out there, and i like it. If I saw scott lay claim to being the first to popping flies for steel i would have made a very similar post. Im sorry you guys feel ripped off man thats a bummer, but poppers are nothing new and it was only a matter of time.

On my first trip out too the ump, before me and my bro knew who you, or who howell were, or anyone of steelhead notoriety were for that matter. we bought some dry flies from the blue heron, one happened to be a foam lipped popper. we fished it down and across, twitching, popping, dancing, commotion making.

We are bass fisherman from the east, just came naturally too pop. A little v wake created by the typical swung/waking dry isnt enough for me, gotta pop. After fishing with howell a few times he put me and my bro on the right path too fishing the chugger effectively.

In the several times i have fished with scott he never once laid claim too being the first to pop a fly for steel.
 
#21 ·
waker-

I'm not sure to be honest with you, I hope there are some guys twitching bugs man, it is a blast. In my time on the river i have never seen anyone do it. Few people i have talked to about fishing dries in the GL region no one ever mentioned twitching, or really knew much about it(how affective it is, not twitching).

I have tried it a few times, no takers. It is tough for me to find quality conditions when i make my trips. But if I find it feels right, I will put the skagit head away and bust out the scandi and start rocking.. I want a great lakes fish on the dry
 
#22 ·
I've tried but not realy commited to it, I know some are with some success. Its one of those things where the little voice says "no GL fish don't rise", which is exactly why I should commit to the dry. Twitched, popped, skated, or waked I want to raise one, I still get nutty when a bluegill boils on a sneaky pete and getting a steelhead boil! Gotta be absolutely killer!
 
#23 ·
This post started with Mark just wanting to set straight the history of the foam skater that we fished on the NU and asked if there was earlier tyes. Some of the posts got off track as far as people saying foam has been around on bass poppers and other flies. Yes we know that, foam has been used for ants and stones for years ,that is not the subject.

I feel the history of the fly and the way its fished should be set straight. Scotts dvd is a well done production and fun to watch but it lacks the real history of the skater and the twitch. Mark is trying to keep the real history from being lost in the new world of mass marketing and shameless self promotion. Thanks Mark.
 
#24 ·
The SM 2 dvd I saw had Scott giving credit to Tony Wratney and others who were involved in the creation and method of fishing this fly on the NU. When I was on the NU this past summer it was funny to see about every 3rd fisherman bobbing their rods and line up and down.
 
#25 ·
One day in around 88 or 89

He went to Joe's and got some bright foam and brought it home. He sat at the vise and produced the first deer hair foam lip skater ever. .
In the whole world?

Boy I can see why it’s so hard to defend what you are saying. I will give you that it was the first foam fly tied for steelhead on the NU but how can you say it was the first ever. With steelhead water stretching from AK to CA and all the way into ID and no internet to mass publicize new trends, how do you know for sure. I know for a fact foam was being used on flies fished on the Ronde (the granddaddy of dry fly water) in the late 80s early 90s. To write the pure history on foam steelhead flies would take years of research. To write the history on foam skaters used on the NU, sounds like you have done a great job. I know your frustrations, it seems to happen all the time in the fly fishing industry. Big egos sell the most product, manufactures know that and exploit it. Your defense of the foam skater and the twitching presentation is understandable. The NU has some very rich history that dates back to the beginnings of the pursuit of steelhead. I will never forget the first NU fish I hooked up with nor will I forget the fatal step on a round rock that left me looking at the sun through 3 feet of crystal clear water on a cold winter day. I hate to say it but after watching the clip on how the fly is fished, I might just have to come up there and spend some time twitching.
 
#26 · (Edited)
Thanks again Marty,

So far, you are the only one that has provided any solid stories with verifiable time lines. Your brothers story and the GR stories are like the ones I want to hear.

Did your brother and the people using those early foam flies on the GR twitch them?

It should be noted as well that a foam style skater that was just swung and not twitched in the method that originated on the North Umpqua would be in a different category and not necessarily part of this discussion.

From my view,this whole thing is really about the history of a foam lipped deer hair fly and a specific way to fish that fly and it's origins. In other words, you can't separate the fly from the technique....they go together.That is the history we are trying to defend here. Our foam fly and the twitch are inseparable.

The other intent besides providing our piece of history was to gather together any of those early stories and get some sort of time line together. I know it may be hard to defend this whole thing and nearly impossible to say and verify that Tony was "first ever". As I stated in the first post, I am interested in any other claims to the fly style and method of fishing it. I would love to hear more stories and specifics(dates and rivers) I would expect if someone had been twitching foam deer hair flies or knew of someone doing this we would have seen a few more responses. Maybe not

The group of friends that I fish with is quite well traveled on the steelhead streams that stretch the length of the territory you mentioned. If we didn't fish all of the ditches with steel personally, someone we knew that was close to us had. Between us all we never heard about or saw anything like the foam twitched dry in all our travels and on the many rivers we fished. That's talking to and being around a lot of guides and great fisherman from all over the place.


Marty, You must give it a try.....the Deschutes fish would eat that Bomber of yours on the twitch like no ones business!!!

Love to wet a line with you on the North as well!
 
#29 ·
Marty, You must give it a try.....the Deschutes fish would eat that Bomber of yours on the twitch like no ones business!!!

Love to wet a line with you on the North as well!


Believe it or not I was fishing the run just above the White River many moons ago. I was in a section that was kind of fast with visible pockets. To slow my bomber down I was making big mends that would jump the fly. I hated to see so much unnatural movement on the fly but I thought it would be better to slow the fly down even if it jumped a foot or two after each mend. During a big mend a fish cleared the water and pounced on my fly. The fish took me into my backing twice, jumped a bunch of times and pulled hard for the size I knew it was. I thought for sure it was wild but again to my surprise it was a hatchery fish. I never keyed in on what I had done. I was trained to keep the swing quite and to minimize mending. The fish did not just rise to the fly he chased it. Never put two and two together. Like you I have been in pursuit of these crazy fish for a long time and know a good many of top dogs in the sport. As for twitching dries what you say is very true and I would have to support you on your claims to the technique, as for the first to fish foam and deer hair, not so sure. I will be tying at the NW tying Expo, if your are around.
 
#27 ·
Hi, great thread....I can tell you that I personally fished with Jack Gartside in the early 90's, he already had the gurgler going and his size 2 foam black beetle tied on a Mustad 34007 no less....We fished from Marathon down to Key West, sunrise to sunset. When Jack first " Busted out the Gurgler and Beetle, he said we were going dry fly fishing for juvenille tarpon in the Deer Keys area.
I was told to splat them down hard on the water and give it 1 chug...BOOM!!! Baby Tarpon 10-30 # range and Jack Crevelle just crushed them on our 8 wts.
Jack was a super innovative tyer and very resourceful too. We stopped the car to get the tail off of a " Roadkill Racoon more than once...Jack's Secret material for his Bonefish Flies. He really was attracted to the luminous sheen of the white, silver, gray and black of the racoon. Great memories of a great fly fisher. :)
 
#28 ·
I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that Tony won't mind if I post a photo of some of his flies to satisfy the curious. He gave me these a few years ago to experiment with on the D...all I can say is there are a lot of beautiful and masterfully tied flies posted on this forum, but I can't imagine a fly more fun to swing/chug than deer hair and foam.
 

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#30 ·
Thanks for the stories guys and fly pics SMK.

The top fly in the picture is really the original design and earliest version of Tony's foam lipped fly. The other two are flies that came about much later, maybe the last 5-6 years.

The top fly is the design we fished for the first 15 years or so.

Marty, I know, it so goes against what we all were taught about swing speed,consistency and keeping the fly still. But it works so well....if you can get out and stay at it it can pay off. One of the most fun ways I have found to swing for steelhead. It just puts you into the action so much, it's so visual watching the fly come across the pool. And when a fish "chases it down" like you said, it is hard to stay calm.

I still shake when a fish blows up on the fly, weather he eats it or not!
 
#31 ·
I Don't mind the photos of the flies, they have been out there for many years. To give Scott some credit the fly on the bottom right is basicly his fly and it's a good one.
The thing I have found fishing these flies over the years is how fly specific these fish can be. You can raise a fish on one of the patterns and he won't come to any other. Then you put the original fly back on and he comes right back. That shows the old saying "its the pressentation not the fly" out of the water. When you are at the bench get creative with differant body shapes. With more people skating and twitching the same old flies may need some tweeking to be effective.

Happy skating TW
 
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