Yellow Humpy

The Humpy was at first called “Horner’s Deer Hair Fly. The whispering among the wonderful world of fly tiers is that the Humpy was originated during the early 1940´s at the vise of California fly tier Jack Horner. Jack lived in Hat Creek, Northern Sierra”. The fly was perfect for the rough water at the Truckee River which Jack often fished, there was even a bend in the river called “Horner’s Corner”.

The name “Humpy” came in the late 1940´s, the rumour says it was Boots Allen, owner of a small fly shop in the region of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Humpy find it’s place in the fly fishermen’s box as one of those flies we use when nothing else works or when there’s no bugs around. The Humpy is proborably one of the most successful attractor flies ever created.

A Humpy isn’t one of the easiest flies to tie. The wing takes time to get right and it’s kind of hard to get the proportions right. But when tying this batch I felt like that I started to find peace with tying it. Just take it easy and don’t rush it, the fly is totally worth the time that it takes to tie it.

There are numerous variations of the Humpy Red, Royal, Green and so on. The most common one I believe is the “Yellow Humpy”. A really sexy variant is the “Black Humpy”, I hadn´t seen that one before I started to look a little deeper in the world of the “Humpies”, I think that one will become my favourite. I think the black one can be really toxic in smaller sizes. This “Black Humpy” is tied in size 14, will try to make some in size 18.

Flytying time is near

Evening, havn´t been much activity at the vise this summer. But now "I feel it in my fingers, i fell it my..." the urge of playing with feathers is finally back. I have started to fill up a new box for a little adventure that I´m hoping to be able to attend in september. Will go with one of my flyfishing neighbours, my friend has been there before and he have had good fortune earlier there with the Royal Wulff so that will be my first task for the box. As much as I love to tie the Royal Coachman Fanwing I actually prefer to fish the Royal Wulff, the RF is much more boyant than the RFC. The RF is a little rougher to tie though, the wing is easier on the RFC. These flies are as said quite boyant but to get them really boyant I impregnated all the RF´s with Tiemcos Dry fly formula. I´m quite sure I have got a batch of great floaters with that.
Next fly to tie will be another batch of "attractors", the yellow Humpy. But more about that one later..