A great time was had by all last weekend at the WRFF Expo! It was really nice to catch up will old acquaintances from Missouri and the surrounding states.
The much-anticipated part of the expo for me was the awards presentations for the fly tying contest. I was eagerly hoping to win one award to make it my 20th fly tying award … and I not only received one award but I received six. There was a low number of entrants in the contest but wining six awards out of nine categories is quite humbling.
Here is a crude shot of the award-winning flies in a nice frame. If you want a better look you’ll have to go to the Museum of Fishing in Branson, MO. It will be on display until it is auctioned off at the next expo.
2025 WRFF Fly Tying Contest Winners
I managed to win the following six categories: To get a feel for why I selected these flies you can click here. I have also updated my Fly Tying Awards page which you can view by clicking here.
Nymph – Gilled Baetis
Wet Fly – Red Arsed Green Peter
Traditional Streamer – Gray Ghost
Bass Bug – Ol’ Mr. Wiggly
Salmon/Steelhead Fly – Rusty Rat
Best In Show – No. 27. Dun Wing
For a quick look, here is a shot of all the flies I entered into the contest.
Another day, another fly tying contest. It kind of seems that way anyway. Preparing an entry for each contest division, and tying two flies each definitely takes some time and planning. This time it is for the White River Fly Fishers Expo to be held October 10-11, 2025 in Branson, MO. Branson is really a fun place to visit. There are a lot of things to see and do.
If you’ve read some of my past blog posts, you would know that I really enjoy fly tying contests. As I did earlier this year, I decided to enter every single category in the contest. I really enjoy going out and finding new fly patterns that I had never tied before in order to complete my lineup.
The entries are due on August 15th. The judging should be completed before the Expo.
2025 WRFF Fly Tying Contest
Here are my entries for this year’s fly tying contest.
#
Category
Fly Pattern
Reason For Entering
1
Nymph
Gilled Baetis Nymph
A semi-realistic mayfly nymph pattern that is not the easiest to tie. This one has an olive color scheme.
2
Dry Fly
Royal Coachman
A very old and very iconic dry fly pattern. The Coachman wet fly, which it is based on, is several hundred years old.
3
Wet Fly
Red Arsed Green Peter
A good looking wet fly that is easy to tie except for the double-layered wings.
4
Traditional Streamer
Gray Ghost
A classic streamer pattern from the infamous Carrie G. Stevens of Maine.
5
Articulating Streamer
Rainbow Trout
An interesting streamer pattern that I needed for this category.
6
Bass Bug
Ol’ Mr. Wiggly
A classic smallmouth bass fly pattern created by Charlie Piette of Wisconsin.
7
Salmon/Steelhead
Rusty Rat
A nice salmon fly pattern and one that is simple enough for me to tie fairly well.
8
Saltwater
Ally’s Shrimp
A modern classic saltwater salmon fly named for its creator Alastair (Ally) Gowans. It dares to be tied on a double hook.
9
Best In Show
No. 27 Dun Wing
This is another salmon fly pattern from Mary Orvis Marbury’s 1892 book “Favorite Flies and Their Histories”.
The Lineup for 2025
The lineup is a little hard to follow because of the size of some of these flies but it goes in “top down, left to right” order with three flies in each column.
After I finished the lineup, I decided that the last entry needed some work. I originally had tied the wings with two feathers from a rooster cape but they are clearly not wide enough for such a big fly. So … I redid the wings with two feathers from a hen saddle and they look much better.
I finally put together a page that logs all my fly tying awards. It’s a little longer than I was thinking (NINETEEN awards) but you can view the page here: Fly Tying Awards. The link also shows up at the top of my home page.
A preliminary part of the Sowbug Roundup was yet another Fly Tying Contest. I had plenty of time to prepare for it this time so I entered every category. You can see all of my entries at a previous post located here.
After spending a considerable amount of time tying the flies … I won another award! It was the Best Soft Hackle. Here is my winning entry:
Best Soft Hackle – Violet Mendori Jun
The award winner for the Best Soft Hackle was a fly called Violet Mendori Jun. This is actually a Tenkara style fly but I guess it was good enough to win the Soft Hackle category.
The fly is actually quite simple but I guess most soft hackle flies are. Besides the hook, the material list includes a violet thread abdomen, a silver wire rib, a gray ostrich herl thorax, and a hen hackle feather dyed dark claret.
2025 Sowbug Best Soft Hackle
I was quite impressed with all the other winners . They were indeed worthy of their respective awards!
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 27th, 28th, and 29th, 2025. This is the 28th 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 Friday, February 7th. 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 twelve categories in the contest. I really enjoy going out and finding new fly patterns that I had never tied before in order to complete my lineup.
2025 Sowbug Contest Entries
Here are my entries for this year’s fly tying contest.
#
Category
Fly Pattern
Reason/Rationale For Entering
1
Nymph
Gilled Baetis Nymph
A very realistic-looking nymph baetis pattern and one that I had never tied before. I like the nymph skin on the top of the abdomen and thorax.
2
Dry Fly
Royal Coachman
The most popular dry fly pattern in existence. It’s a classic.
3
Soft Hackle
Endrick Spider
A Scottish wet fly named for the River Endrick. A spider is a simple soft hackle pattern and this one is primarily tied with pheasant tail fibers and a partridge feather.
4
Wet Fly
Red Arsed Green Peter
A Scottish loch-style wet fly which is a little complicated to tie. I wasn’t all that happy with how this one turned out.
5
Smallmouth Bass
Ol’ Mr. Wiggly
This is a foam-bodied bass fly with a lot of wiggle to it. I think this one tuned out the best of all twelve of my entries.
6
Bass
Whitlock’s Waking Minnow
There’s a lot of deer hair in this pattern created by the late Dave Whitlock of Oklahoma.
7
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.
8
Salmon/Steelhead
Dun Wing
A nice salmon fly pattern from Mary Orvis Marbury’s book “Favorite Flies and Their Histories”.
9
Saltwater
Ally’s Shrimp
This is the most popular and famous saltwater shrimp pattern around. It was created by Alastair Gowans.
10
Streamer
Gray Ghost
A streamer pattern developed by Carrie G. Stevens of Maine in 1924. She developed many of the extra-long streamer patterns. This one is tied on a 9X-long hook.
11
Tenkara
Violet Mendori Jun
This is a nice Tenkara-style fly but with swept-back hackle instead of the more popular swept-forward. The key to tying this fly is having claret-dyed hackle.
12
Euro Nymph
McKenna’s Rumble Bug
This is one of my top five Euro nymph patterns. I fish this one regularly and with good success.
The Lineup for 2025
The winners of the contest will be announced on Friday March 28, 2025 at the Sowbug Roundup Shindig which will be held at St. Peter the Fisherman Catholic Church in Mountain Home, AR.
A preliminary part of the Branson Expo was yet another Fly Tying Contest. For me it was a short turn-around bit because I found out about the contest about August 1st and the entries were due by August 15th. In addition (subtraction actually), that didn’t leave me much time for tying since there would be at least 3 days needed for shipping.
At any rate, I whipped up a few of my recent favorite flies and … lo and behold … I won three awards! They were Best Dry Fly, Best Wet Fly, and Best Bass Bug. Here were my winning entries:
Best Dry Fly – Hornberg
The award winner for the Best Dry Fly was a fly called the Hornberg. The pattern was developed by Frank Hornberg of Wisconsin in the 1920s.
Hornberg
Best Wet Fly – Claret Bumble
The award winner for the Best Wet Fly was a fly called the Claret Bumble. Bumble style flies date back to the 1500s in Derbyshire Ireland. A ‘Bumble’ is simply another description of a palmered fly where the body hackle is wrapped in open spirals.
Claret Bumble
Best Bass Bug – CJ’s Freaky Frog
The award winner for the Best Bass Bug went to a fly called CJ’s Freaky Frog. The pattern was developed by Chad Johnson of Dally’s Ozark Fly Fishers. It is a floating fly that is typically used when fishing for bass in water with Lilly pads. The wire weed guard between the front of the fly and the hook point help to keep it from snagging.
CJ’s Freaky Frog
I must admit that these three flies had won awards for me before but that was at a different contest and in a different state. However, my rule is not to win a repeat award with the same fly in the same contest so I’m good here. I will just not submit them again next for this contest time around.
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.
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.
