Posted on November 14 2004
Francis Betters’s Au Sable Wulff was an attempt to combined the best qualities of the Adams pattern and the Wulff, another classic fly invented by Lee Wulff. But “The Au Sable Wulff isn’t his only famous pattern. In 1949, while still in high school, he invented the Au Sable Haystack, a mayfly imitator. About two decades ago, he hatched the Usual (‘What are you fishing with? … “the Usual.”‘), a versatile artificial that can be fished wet or dry. ‘I know 2,000 different patterns, but a fisherman only needs 10 or 12 to fish any river in the world,’ he says.” Candus Thomson in the Baltimore Sun.