Betters' Flies

Fran Betters was a fly tyer from Wilimington, New York. For many years he owned a fly shop, along the banks of the West Branch of the Ausable River, just below Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks. Fran was a creative tyer and originated several patterns that have become quite famous. Several years ago I purchased a collection of flies tied by Fran. Since many of you have never seen any of these original flies, I thought I would share them with you. These are all his patterns tied by him.

Betters' flies and business card

Mike Hogue

Ausable Wulff

Mike Hogue

Ausable Wulff

Perhaps Fran’s most famous fly is the Ausable Wulff. Originally developed in 1964, Fran observed that a good many insects had rusty orange coloring in the bodies, eyes and thoraxes. He began looking for materials to use and discovered Australian Opossum fur. His originals used the natural rusty orange but soon the demand for this pattern exceeded his supply of the material and he began dying the fur a rusty orange to get more of the sought out color. Fran preferred to use a long shank hook to get the fly to balance.

The Usual

Mike Hogue

The Usual

One of Fran’s long time customers was Bill Phillips. Fran created a fly made out of snowshoe hair for Bill. When people asked Bill what fly he was using he replied, “The Usual”. Since the fly had no other name it stuck. The original Usual was tied with hot pink or hot orange thread. The body was made of the underfur from the snowshoe feet, with the guard hair is used for the wings and tails. I often fish this in pale yellow and also rusty orange for mayfly hatches.
When working with snowshoe, break the toes to gain access to the best fur. The toes of each foot contain the ideal hair. Guard hair from the base of the foot doesn’t have as many of the hydrophobic floating qualities. Tie the wings and tail very bushy as the material thins out when wet.

Haystack

Mike Hogue

The Haystack

Fran developed this fly in high school. Several patterns have been derived from this fly including the Compara Dun and Sparkle Dun along with the X Caddis. Betters originally used Key Deer for the wing. These are smallish deer that live in the Florida Keys. Key deer has short hair with small tips. Today this deer is quite difficult to locate and I believe it to be protected. Modern substitutes are Nature Spirit’s Compara Hair, X Caddis Hair or Hareline Dubbin”s Coastal Deer Hair. Regular deer hair is too coarse and too long for this fly. Betters often used Australian Opossum for the body and muskrat fur.

Ausable Bomber

Mike Hogue

Ausable Bomber

The Ausable Bomber is a fly Fran developed from the Bomber series of spun deer hair flies used in Canada for Atlantic Salmon. For many years, I had never seen the originals and based my flies on those. Better’s Bomber is significantly smaller than the traditional Miramichi Bombers. These are highly effective to use for a dry dropper rig. I like to skate this and strip the fly fast across the surface. This is one of my favorite patterns to use. You can use this for big stone flies and you can tie this up to a size 6 and also tie it in pale yellow. The Bomber is tied using the same materials as the Wulff. Often I tie the Wulff on a dry hook and tie the Bomber on bigger hooks in bigger sizes. The wing is tied facing over the eye of the hook in a single clump.

Glass Mosaic

Gerard Philipp - photo Mike Hogue