Henry’s Fork Hopper

Materials

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Hook TMC 5212 #8-12
Thread Danville Yellow 6/0
Body Bleached Elk Hair
Overwing Prince Nymph Brown Henback
Underwing Yellow Elk
Legs Chartreuse Rubberlegs
Head Natural Brown Elk Hair
Hopper
Hopper
Mike Lawson

Mike Lawson

Henry’s Fork Hopper

The Henry’s Hopper designed by Mike Lawson in the mid-1970’s remains a popular pattern. It utilizes Elk Hair for most of it’s parts and therefore is very buoyant. Mike Lawson fishes the Henry’s Fork, particularly the Harriman Ranch. He noted that the hoppers present had a cream to white body, not a yellow one, and the hopper patterns at the time seemed to be primarily yellow.

Pontoon Body

The pattern he desired needed stability on the flat waters of the Henry’s Fork and Mike was inspired by the description of the Pontoon Hopper in Vince Marinaro’s book, “A Modern Dry-fly Code”. He designed the pattern with a body of elk rump hair and a short extended body that acted as a “pontoon”. It had an underwing of yellow deer hair and an overwing of Pheasant rump feathers. The head was a bullethead using natural gray elk hair. There were no legs. The bullethead, similar to the Madam X, eliminates having to spin and clip the hair. Later, legs were added for more action.

Al & Gretchen Beatty created a foam body variation of the pattern worth noting. They also substituted Squirrel Hair for the wing which, with the foam body, makes a more durable and floatable hopper.

 

Variations