Bill asked after some history on Al Troth's Elk Hair Caddis and Nevill provided some already. Here is episode two:
Al still lived in PA when he tied up his first EHC in 1957. He subsequently moved west to MT, and started tying the pattern for Dan Bailey's shop. It gained popularity and Al received enough custom orders to make this direct sales model work. He developed several other patterns but the EHC is by far his signature fly to this day. While he suffers the tremors which come with Parkinson's disease, his EHC are still as neat as ever. They have changed some in appearnce over the years. The bleached cow elk Al uses for the wing also forms the head. While the stubs were left fairly long originally, these days Al slices the hair quite close to the thread wraps, making for a quite small stubby head. As it so happens I photographed this evening a recent Al Troth original. Take a peek: http://www.danica.com/flytier/atroth/atroth.htm (click on the thumbnails for the full size picture) Cheers, Hans
