The Usual

Fran Betters' Snow Shoe Rabbit Pattern. This is one of Fran Betters' famous flies.

Hook: dry fly standard shank Mustad 94840 in sizes 14-22
Thread: Grey
Tail: small bunch of hair from the rabbit's pad
Wing: larger bunch of hair from the rabbit's pad
Body: underfur from the rabbit's foot dubbed on thread. Us the grey next to the skin and the light tan/white which are the fine guard hairs to help it float.

This was a random tie by Fran on day he was bored. He put the finished flies in the cup he put his finished Haystacks. The story goes that into the shop comes Bill Phillips. Bill was a good friend of Fran's father and also Ray Bergman. They all fished together and Bill was also a published angling author. He noticed the random flies in the haystack cup and inspected them. He asked Fran about them and Fran explained they were an experiment and he had not tried them. Bill took them and fished them. He reported back that the flies were great! It became Bill's go to fly. Often Bill would be catching fish while others were not so they would ask him what fly he was using...his answer always was "the usual".

Bill likes the fly because it floats well and skitters well. To him skittering is both a tactic but also if the fly landed in the wrong lane he could skitter it into the right one. The Usual's wing is also very soft...so when drag sets in the fly drops under the water and the wing folds back making it look like a nymph. Bill found he could also play it like a nymph at the end of a drift and retrieve the fly slowly and then give slack and the fly would pop up like and emerging bug.

So...fish it dry, skitter it and fish it wet like a nymph in the film it works!