| This is the only Jack Boehme fly I've been able
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| to photograph so far. As you can see, this fly looks
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| a lot like a Bunyan Bug. Jack Boehme was best known
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| for the Picket Pin and the Bloody Butcher. This is a good
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| start, thanks to Mike Wilkerson.
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| Finding information about Jack is not easy. He apparently
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| owned or ran a tavern in Missoula, and also tied flies
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| for Bob Ward's tackle shop. Bob Ward's is now a big
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| outfit with stores all over the Northwest. But they
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| started out small in Missoula. My dad and I went to
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| Bob Wards to buy flies once, when I was 12. So it's possible
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| we bought a few Boehme flies then and didn't know the difference.
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| I'll never forget that day. My dad and I had been fishing the
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| West Fork of the Bitterroot all summe. And my dad had even
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| managed to catch a fat rainbow over 20" long. But that morning,
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| on the sidewalk at Bob Wards, they had an ice-chest display
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| with 5 fish--all rainbows and all over four pounds--that someone
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| caught early that morning on the Big Blackfoot. Sights like that
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| you never forget.
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Jack Boehme/