The Branson Fly Tying Expo is an annual event but now the sponsoring organization has a new name – the White River Fly Fishers. They have basically spun off a previous chapter into their own organization. The WRFF currently uses Facebook (which I don’t) for their communications so this PDF is the only information I have on the event.
This year’s event will be held again at the Branson-Hollister Lions Club. It’s a really nice venue with updated lighting and WiFi.
The Expo will be held on Friday October 11th and Saturday October 12th. Yes, it’s approaching quickly so there’s not much time to prepare!
I will be a fly tying demonstrator at the expo during both sessions on both days so please stop and see me if you are in the area. I plan on tying several of my favorite and more successful dry fly patterns. These are the flies I love to use on the streams!
The judging of the 2024 Sowbug Roundup fly tying contest has been completed and I had the great fortune of winning THREE more fly tying awards: Best Dry Fly, Best Traditional Wet Fly, and Best Tenkara Fly. All of the winning flies were mounting in a nice frame and the end result looks like this.
The full details of all the contest entries I submitted can be viewed here.
2024 Sowbug Award Winners
Best Dry Fly
The “Best Dry Fly” award went to my entry called the Hornberg. This is an old dry fly pattern (it could also be fished as a streamer) which was originally tied by Frank Hornberg of Wisconsin in the 1920’s. I think the ornate wings made of long mallard flank feathers and jungle cock eyes were what caught the attention of the judges.
Dry Fly Winner – Hornberg
Best Traditional Wet Fly
The “BestTraditional Wet Fly” award went to my classic wet fly entry, the Claret Bumble. This is a very old English wet fly that apparently dates back to the 1500’s. Yes, that’s an old fly pattern! It took me a while to find the right color of claret dubbing to build the body and apparently the judges thought so too. The blue-dyed guinea feather hackle at the front didn’t hurt either. It made the fly look impressive even to me.
Traditional Wet Fly Winner – Claret Bumble
Best Tenkara Fly
The “Best Tenkara Fly” award went to my tenkara kebari entry the Quilled Body Sakasa. Tenkara is a style of fly fishing that originated in Japan. In addition, a Sakasa style of fly means that the hackles are facing forward which is the reverse of the way a fly like this would be tied otherwise. Let me be the first to say that I am not at all experienced in this style of fishing but the fly was fun to tie. I suspect it was a winner due to the low amount of fly entries in this category.
Tenkara Fly Winner – Quilled Body Sakasa
Presentation of Awards
The fly tying awards were presented at a banquet called The Sowbug Shindig. Here I am pictured with my award plaque.
I’ve recently made some updates to my Framed Fly Gallery page. It now shows all 24 of my 5×7 Framed Fly Collections and both of my 8×10 Collections. There is still one glaring absence in the 5×7 gallery and a few less obvious issues but for the most part it is pretty representative of my product line. Here are some of my latest collection photos and I think they look pretty good.
Recently Added Gallery Photos
One reason for the noticeable improvement in photo quality is a light box studio that I recently acquired. It helps me get nearly perfect lighting on the flies and minimizes the shadows due to the setback of the parchment. The other reason for the improved photos is that I now have a set of frames with the glass removed so the reflections are nearly eliminated.
Light Box Studio
My gallery has one obvious issue and a few not-so-obvious ones so to correct the issues I have created a to-do list with the following items on it:
Missing photo of the Old Favorite Lake Fly Collection #1 – White [UPDATED!]
Poor lighting of the Old Favorite Bass Fly Collection #1 – Gray [UPDATED!]
Poor lighting of the Classic Wet Fly Collection #1 – Gray [UPDATED!]
Poor alignment/cropping of the Old Favorite Lake Fly Collection #1 – Gray [UPDATED!]
Change to Gold Parchment in the Black Frame for the Classic Wet Fly Collection #1 [UPDATED!]
Change to Gold Parchment in the Black Frame for the Old Favorite Bass Fly Collection #1 [UPDATED!]
Change to Gold Parchment in the Black Frame for the Old Favorite Trout Fly Collection #1 [UPDATED!]
Change to Gold Parchment in the Black Frame for the Halford Dry Fly Collection #1
Change to Gold Parchment in the Black Frame for the Classic Nymph Collection #1
The 8×10 collection photos were taken before the Light Box Studio and have irritating shadows in them.
Sowbug Roundup is a three day fly tying and fly fishing show that is held in Mountain Home, Arkansas. The next event will be held Mar 21st, 22nd, and 23rd of 2024.
I will be a fly tying demonstrator at this year’s Roundup. Part of the duties of a demonstrator is to donate three flies for the auction. The flies will be put into a framed collage and sold at the Fly Tyer’s Dinner on March 22nd.
For my auction flies, I have chosen three flies from Mary Orvis Marbury’s magnificent 1892 book Favorite Flies and Their Histories. It’s a revolutionary book for its time and one I refer to often.
One of my flies is from the Lake Fly section, one is from the Trout Fly section, and one is from the Bass Fly section. Here are my flies as well as the images from the book where they came from.
No. 63 Cunningham (Lake Fly)
No. 63. Cunningham
63 Cunningham – Created by G. V. Cunningham of Cohoes New York
No. 179 Original Montreal (Trout Fly)
No. 179 Original Montreal
179 Original Montreal – Created by Peter Cowan of Cowansville Quebec in 1840
No. 255 Jungle Cock (Bass Fly)
No. 255. Jungle Cock
255 Jungle Cock – Named for the wing feathers taken from the jungle fowl
Sowbug Roundup is a three day fly tying and fly fishing show that is held at the Baxter County Fairgrounds in Mountain Home, Arkansas. The next event will be held Mar 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, 2024. This is the 27th year that the North Arkansas Fly Fishers (NAFF) have put on the Sowbug Roundup. The first Sowbug had 20 tyers and 150 attendees. The 2019 Sowbug had over 140 fly tiers and over 1000 attendees. The official name is actually the International Sowbug Roundup, a Celebration of Fly Fishing. You can read more about event on their official webpage by clicking here.
Part of the Roundup is a fly tying contest. Your entries were due last Friday, February 9th. An announcement with the rules of the contest can be found here.
If you’ve read some of my past blog posts, you would know that I really enjoy fly tying contests. As I did last year, I again decided to enter all eleven categories in the contest – except for the Youth Category of course. I really enjoy going out and finding new fly patterns that I had never tied before in order to complete my lineup.
2024 Sowbug Roundup Contest Entries
Here are my entries for this year’s fly tying contest.
#
Category
Fly Pattern
Reason For Entering
1
Nymph
Glass Eyed Damselfly
A good-looking damselfly nymph pattern with big, red eyes and one I had never tied before.
2
Dry Fly
Hornberg
A very impressive and old dry fly pattern and one that I had never tied before.
3
Soft Hackle
Top Secret Soft Hackle
This is the fly I think of when I want to fish a soft hackle (which is fairly rare). It’s a version of a nymph called the Top Secret Midge but it has been tied with a starling feather soft hackle instead of the top secret wing bud material.
4
Classic Wet Fly
Claret Bumble
An old English wet fly that is fairly simple but I think it looks very impressive.
5
Tenkara
Quilled Body Sakasa
An nice looking tenkara kebari that was first tied by the famous fly tyer Davie McPhail.
6
Smallmouth Bass
Muddler Minnow
This is a fairly old bass fly tied mostly with deer hair and some turkey wing slips. I think it looks great.
7
Bass
Gartside Gurgler
An impressive looking foam bodied bass fly in a variation that was first tied by the famous fly tyer Davie McPhail.
8
Warm Water
CJ’s Freaky Frog
An eye-catching foam frog fly pattern that looks very realistic. CJ are the initials of the Ozark-local fly tyer who first tied it.
9
Streamer
Thin Mint
It’s just a variation of a Wooly Bugger but it has a nice color combination. Next year I need to come up with a better streamer pattern.
10
Saltwater
Lefty’s Deceiver
I have entered this one each of the last two years but was never very happy with it. This year’s entry is much better.
11
Salmon/Steelhead
Durham Ranger
An amazing looking salmon fly with wings made from golden pheasant tippet and Jungle Cock eyes. I found a nice Jungle Cock saddle on eBay recently so I had plenty of eyes to pick from!
The Lineup for 2024
The winners of the contest will be announced on Friday March 22, 2024 at the Sowbug Roundup Shindig which will be held at St. Peter the Fisherman Catholic Church in Mountain Home, AR.
If you’re into wild turkey hunting then this is something you won’t want to miss. The NWTF Convention & Sport Show is sponsored by the National Wild Turkey Federation and will be held in Nashville, TN this week – February 14-18, 2024.
I’m not too much of a turkey hunter but I have gotten involved with this in a different way. I was contacted by the SD & ND Regional Director of the NWTF to donate some flies for their Black Hills Cast & Blast package. The package is a fully supplied trip to South Dakota’s Black Hills for both trout fishing and turkey hunting. You can bid on the package at the convention this week during the auction.
There are many items included in the package, such as lodging, guide service, fly rods, coolers … and of course … my tiny part: TROUT FLIES. The photo below is what I donated to the package:
2023-24 National Wild Turkey Federation Fly Donation
So if you are the successful bidder on the package, four dozen of my flies will be included with the trip. I have fished the Black Hills area a few times before so my fly collection includes several patterns that have been successful for me. The nymphs range in size from 14 to 18. These are the sizes I commonly fish with. The dry flies range from sizes 12 to 22, with each successive pattern being one hook size smaller. The first three patterns are mainly attractors and the last three target specific mayflies or midges.
Nymphs
French Style Tactical Nymph
Mohawk Pheasant Tail Nymph
Sexy Walt’s Worm
Gordon’s Fire-Starter Nymph
Prince Nymph
Skinny Nelson
Dry Flies
Patriot
Adams
Purple Haze Parachute
Blue-Winged Olive
Herter’s Midge
RS2
I think the lucky winner(s) of this package will have great success with these flies!
I’ve sold quite a bit of wool yarn lately so I thought I would show how I like to use wool yarn in some of my flies. Here are some flies that use yarn for the abdomen material.
Jungle CockTellico NymphKiller BugGrave Digger
These yarns are available for a very reasonable price in the Fly Tying Materials section of my online store.
I have added more colors of Jamieson’s wool yarn to my inventory. You can quickly jump to all the wool yarns I have available in the Fly Tying Materials section of my online store.
Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift – New Colors
I have added these colors of Jamieson’s Shetland Spindrift super fine yarn to my store.
Scotch Broom
Paprika
Wren
Yellow Ochre
This is really great stuff for tying nymph bodies and also for some dry flies. The pictures below describe the new colors better than I could.
The author prepares for the 2025 White River Fly Fishers Expo contest in Branson, MO, by tying entries in various categories. They enjoy the challenge of finding new patterns and have submitted a diverse lineup, including classic nymphs, dry flies, streamers, and a saltwater pattern, with entries due by August 15th.
