Not for a lack of trying. Just consider the mess on my fly-tying desk. Hair clippings and wisps of dubbing are clumped together next to the vise, the detritus of flies already tied.

FREDON — It took a moose, a turkey, a duck and a chicken to make a mayfly. With a little bit of moose fur, pieces of fowl feathers, a really long piece of thread to hold it all together on a ...

The Montana Fly Co. offers more than 1,000 fly patterns, from Adams to zonkers, and from micro-midges to monster "double-bunny" pike streamers, each in four or five different sizes.

Check any fly fisherman’s fly box and it’s likely you will find a bit of Troth’s legacy. In 1957, Troth designed one of the most definitive dry-fly patterns of all time – the elk hair caddis.