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The Usual

Fountains of Youth – Classic trout flies that have withstood the test of time … flies that remain “forever young”

by Rusty Dunn

Inspiration in fly design can strike at any time.  A chance encounter … a windfall of road kill … a discovery of a new tying material.  Fly tyers are for­ever searching for new wrinkles on the ancient craft of lashing silk, fur, and feather to a hook.  ‘The Usual’ is an uncommonly effective at­tractor from the creative eye of Fran Betters.  It was in­spired by a mid-winter hunting trip, a forgotten bit of fur, the luck of a rabbit’s foot, and boredom on a lazy af­ter­noon. 

Fran Betters (1931-2009) was a humble and likeable angler who grew up in upstate New York’s Adi­ron­dack Mountains.  He owned a popular fly shop on the West Branch of the Ausable River for 47 years, where he designed and tied durable and effective flies for local waters.  Betters was a legend whose decep­tively simple creations were sought by anglers far and wide.  His most famous flies are the Hay­stack, Aus­able Wulff, and the Usual.  All are buggy impression­istic flies tied of inexpensive mate­rials that float well in the Ausable’s turbulent waters.  Bet­ters was a no-nonsense, blue-collar angler who, in his own words, applied “common sense and sim­plic­ity to an art that has been made to appear too com­plicated.”  After all, said Betters, This isn’t brain sur­gery, it’s supposed to be fun and relax­ing.”  Bet­ters distilled decades of his simple wisdom into a friendly, insightful, and now collectible book entitled Fran Betters’ Fly Fishing – Fly Tying and Pat­tern Guide (1986).  It is chock full of angling experience and fly tying knowledge.

The central feature of Betters’ Wilmington, NY fly shop was his fly tying station, where he tied twenty to thirty thousand flies per year.  The Usual was born on a slow afternoon in the 1950s.  Betters grew tired one day after tying a few hundred standard flies.  To re­lieve the boredom, he rummaged through an accu­mulated pile of tying ma­terials on his desk and dis­covered a neglected hind foot of a snowshoe hare, one he had harvested on a hunting trip several months previously.  Betters had saved the foot on the off chance that it might be us­able for fly tying.  Snow­shoe hares, also called “varying hares” be­cause of their seasonal color changes, have over­sized hind feet for walking on snow.  The wiry hair on the bottom of the footpad is naturally waterproof, traps air for in­sulation, and provides traction on snow.  Trout flies tied of this hair float like a cork.  Indeed, snowshoe hare fibers have been called “poor man’s CDC”.

Betters examined the hare’s foot closely and discov­ered that hair of the footpad was unlike any he had ever seen.  It was springy in texture and had a glassy translu­cency.  He snipped some off and was immedi­ately inspired.  Aha!  Time to ex­peri­ment!  The hair itself was quite fine, but its kinky texture produced a bulky pro­file using very little mate­rial.  Bet­ters then tied a fly similar to his famous Hay­stack series of flies.  Hay­stacks are floated by tails and wings of deer hair, but Betters substituted snow­shoe hare fibers for the deer hair and dubbed the body with underfur of the hare’s foot.  The resulting fly consists of a hook, some thread, and one tying material, sim­plicity at its best and a de­sign typical of Fran Betters’ ap­proach to angling.

Bill Phillips, Fran Betters’ good fishing friend, was the first to fish the new fly.  He reported excitedly to Betters that it was wildly successful throughout the Adirondacks.  Phillips called the fly “the Haystack tied with rabbit’s foot fur”, but Betters named it the “Phil­lips Usual” in honor of his friend.  In time, however, the fly became widely known simply as ‘The Usual’.  Bill Phillips was an expert fly angler, and he never tired of an­noying strangers who inquired, “What fly are you us­ing?” with the answer, “the usual”.

The Usual is an impressionistic attractor, a fuzzy ball of fur so buggy that trout cannot ignore it.  It can be dead drifted, skittered across the surface, or popped underwater and fished as a wet fly.  The Usual is not a fly for hatch matching, but rather one for pounding up trout with an irresistibly buggy at­tractor.

Copyright 2019, Rusty Dunn


The Usual

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Hook: Dry fly, #14 – #22
Thread: Hot orange, 6/0 or 8/0
Wings: A large bunch of hair from a snowshoe hare’s footpad
Tail: A small bunch of hair from a snowshoe hare’s footpad
Body: Underfur of a hare’s footpad dubbed on thread.  Use a blend of the grey next to the skin and light tan, which has very fine guard hairs mixed in to make it float better.