Goofus Bug

Materials to Order Material, click the link
Hook	TMC 100 #4-14
Thread	Danville Yellow 6/0
Body	Danville Yellow 6/0
Shellback	Deer Hair
Tail	Deer Hair
Wing	Deer Hair
Hackle	Blue Dun Hackle

Goofus Bug

A fly pattern named the Tom Thumb was designed in the early 1940’s in England and made its way to Western Canada. Author/Angler Art Lingren cites the naming of the Tom Thumb to late British Columbia angler Collie Peacock. Collie Peacock named the pattern after meeting a California dentist who fished the Tom Thumb well near the town of Jasper. The Tom Thumb did not utilize either a hackle or a split wing.

Pat and Sig Barnes

A Goofus was born

The pattern came southeast into the Rocky Mountain areas near Yellowstone where guide Keith Kenyon added a hackle and split the wing to create the Goofus Bug in 1944. Keith fished this pattern on the Firehole river. Anglers would come into the Yellowstone Fly Shop of Sig and Pat Barnes asking for the “goofy looking” deer hair fly based so the name Goofus Bug stuck. At the same time in California, Jack Horner, in the Hat Creek area of the Northern Sierra, created the same pattern and it was known as Horner’s Deer Hair Fly. Eventually, by the late 1940’s the pattern picked up the name “Humpy” from Boots Allen, who owned a small fly shop in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Variations

Tom Thumb

Hook	TMC 100 #8-14
Thread	Danville Black 3/0 Monocord
Body	Deer Hair
Shellback	Deer Hair
Tail	Deer Hair
Wing	Deer Hair

Horner Deer Hair Fly

Hook	TMC 100 #8-14
Thread	Danville Black 3/0 Monocord
Body	Deer Hair
Shellback	Deer Hair
Tail	Deer Hair
Wing	Deer Hair, Divided
Hackle	Grizzly Saddle Hackle

Yellow Humpy

Hook	TMC 100 #10-16
Thread	Danville Yellow 6/0
Body	Danville Yellow 6/0
Shellback	Deer Hair
Tail	Moose Body Hair
Wing	Deer Hair
Hackle	Grizzly and Brown, mixed