Morgan Lyle passed along word this morning that Fran Betters, "champion of the West Branch of the Ausable," died on Sunday. As Lyle says on his new blog The Fly Line, Betters was one of the most innovative tiers of his generation. His techniques spawned new classes of trout flies that in turn became the inspiration for thousands of other tiers. For example: "The same construction using snowshoe hare's foot fur instead of deer hair became the Usual, a generalist emerger/dun that has caught trout from coast to coast, while the basic structure of the Haystack was tidied up to become the Comparadun and Sparkle Dun -- slim, flush-floating flies that catch trout where traditional hackled dry flies won't."
Be sure to read the full tribute on Lyle's site.
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