Lost in the murky currents of time, however, is the original name of the girdle bug.
Back in the 1930s and '40s, it was called the "McGinnis rubberlegs," after its creator, Frank McGinnis of Anaconda. The McGinnis clan plied the waters of the Big Hole often enough to call it their "family river." And Frank McGinnis' homely pattern gained fame far and wide for fooling the river's renowned lunker rainbows and browns.
Matt McGinnis, a guide and outfitting manager for Missoula's Grizzly Hackle fly shop and grand-nephew of Frank McGinnis, has devised a distinctive streamer pattern called the "McGinnis Extra Stout." McGinnis and his new fly are featured in an article in the January/February issue of the Orvis Outdoor News, the newsletter of the venerable mail-order outdoor sporting goods giant based in Manchester, Vt.
Orvis will commercially tie the McGinnis Extra Stout and market it in its future fly-fishing catalogs.
Initially, the fly is being sold as part of Orvis' "Endorsed Guide All-Pro Fly Selection," one of six patterns voted by 250 Orvis guides as the "most likely to succeed when the hatch is off."
Orvis solicited the guides' selections at its annual fishing rendezvous in Bozeman last year. The company also plans to sell his fly individually in its catalogs, McGinnis says. He will receive royalties on the sales.
McGinnis will be demonstrating how to tie his streamer this Saturday at the third annual fly-tying clinic sponsored by Missoula's Westslope Chapter of Tout Unlimited, which will be held at the Holiday Inn Parkside, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The McGinnis Extra Stout shares one common fish-attracting characteristic with his great-uncle's famous fly - rubber legs.
The McGinnis rubberlegs was one of very few fishing flies unique enough to have a U.S. patent issued for it. His uncle began tying it commercially in the 1940s, says McGinnis.
"Back then," he adds, "he took the rubber strands straight out of girdles." Hence the name that became part of the lexicon of anglers across the country.
Matt McGinnis grew up in Kent, Wash.
"But my dad grew up in Anaconda," he says. "I came out to visit relatives every summer in Montana. That's how I learned to fly-fish, from my uncles and my dad."
He moved to Missoula in the fall of 1999, McGinnis says, "basically to be a trout bum. And I'm still here. I was hoping to get on in a fly shop."
Although his arrival wasn't ideal timing - after the fishing season - he landed a job with Grizzly Hackle within a week.
The McGinnis Extra Stout was conceived in October of 2003, says McGinnis, as he sat down at his tying vise to make a fly for Grizzly Hackle's annual staff "one-fly contest." Each member of the staff is allowed only one fly for a day on the river to see, "just for fun," who can catch the most fish.
Admittedly a "streamer junkie," McGinnis decided on that type as his single fly for the contest.
His Extra Stout is loosely based on a friend's leech pattern for lake fishing, McGinnis says.
He rejected the standard chenille body used on the tried and true woolly bugger.
"I was kind of sick and tired of the regular chenille yarn body," he says. "The solid color isn't something you see in nature."
Instead, he opted for a lifelike blend of light and dark body materials, alternating brown Angora goat hair and a flashy gold synthetic fur called Brite Blend.
The Extra Stout has the traditional woolly bugger tail of yellow marabou sandwiched between two brown marabou feathers. Strands of Krystal Flash for added sparkle, white rubber legs, and a hefty gold colored brass "conehead" complete the pattern.
Under those materials, McGinnis also wraps a generous amount of lead wire around the shank of the hook.
"For streamers," he says, "I think you really want 'em heavy to get 'em down quickly. That way you can fish 'em either on a floating or a sink-tip line."
His creation isn't intended to imitate any particular creature, McGinnis says, but resembles a variety of fish prey.
"It can look like a crayfish," he says, "or a small brown trout or sculpin, or a leech. It represents a scared, fleeing fish real well. The way it flashes, it really looks like moving scales."
The first time he tried out his new fly, in the shop's one-fly contest, "the fish destroyed it. They smashed it."
More often than not, says McGinnis, he fishes the Extra Stout on a sink-tip line.
"When I'm in a boat, I cast it tight toward the bank or structure," he says. "I like to fish it with an upstream mend to allow it a little bit of time to sink. Then I use sporadic, short, popping strips (to retrieve the fly). And the fish will usually hit it within a few feet of shore or other structure. Usually, they tear it up if they're going to eat it. They're pretty aggressive."
He's found his streamer to be most effective in the spring and fall, he says, but they also work well in the summer.
The best times to fish the Extra Stout, he says, are "right when the water warms up to that magic 50-degree mark in the spring and the fall, especially when the browns are on the prowl in the fall. I like to fish it when the water's off color. I've had really great days when the visibility was less than 2 feet."
All trout species seem to be attracted to the Extra Stout, McGinnis says.
"It works really well for browns," he says. "But it seems really good for rainbows and cutthroats too. I've had bull trout eat it and I've even caught brook trout on it."
The excitement of having a big fish hammer a streamer fly can't be beat, as far as McGinnis is concerned.
"I'm a streamer junkie," he says. "I'd rather go all day long with no fish, and throwing streamers, than any other way. And when the fish are on 'em, it's unbelievable. You definitely have shots at bigger fish throwing streamers, without question."
Like his great-uncle's girdle bug, McGinnis concedes that the Extra Stout "isn't pretty."
"Truth be told," he says, "I'm not a great fly-tier like the other guys (at Grizzly Hackle). So I like to tie ugly flies. And when it comes to streamers, the uglier the better. It's not a difficult fly to tie. But it's a time-consuming fly to tie because there are so many steps. But it's worth it, I think."
Reporter Daryl Gadbow can be reached at 523-5264 or at dgadbow@missoulian.com
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