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PrintTying One On
Classic Jackson Hole fly fishing event turns 25
Whether in the shadow of the Tetons or on the South Fork of the Snake, competitors in the One Fly take their fishing fun seriously.
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Wyoming communities wrangle an array of entertaining competitions. They range from one-shot hunts, rodeos with chuckwagon sprints, and over-snow cutter races, to kayak, canoe, snow machine, skiing, running, and mountain bike events … not to mention the occasional mountain man rendezvous and other zany, costume-enhanced gatherings.
Jackson Hole is particularly proud of premier happenings such as the World Championship Snowmobile Hill Climb, the Town Downhill alpine ski race, Old Bill’s Fun Run for Charities, the Pole Pedal Paddle, and serving as the endpoint for LOTOJA (Logan to Jackson)—at 206 miles, the longest one-day USCF-sanctioned bicycle race in the country.
More gently, since 1986 the Snake River and this community have nurtured another great celebration focused on fishing, conservation, and sportsmanship: the Jackson Hole One Fly, a unique event generally held on the weekend after Labor Day. An epidemic of fly fishing madness sweeps across the valley as forty teams (usually with four members each, but often more with alternates) from around the globe practice, plan, and party before a Saturday and Sunday fishing competition unlike any other.
The object is to catch, measure, and release as many native Snake River cutthroat, and any other legitimate trout species (whitefish don’t count), as possible, in fifteen and a half hours of angling. Team and individual success in the One Fly, however, is about much more than just catching.
In the beginning, there were those who didn’t favor adding competitive overtones to the “quiet sport” of fly fishing. However, as these individuals soon recognized, after exposure to the notable atmosphere and flavor of the One Fly and the almost fiendish scheme of trying to fish all day long with just one fly, competition lessens and fun prevails. (Worth noting are compassionate brewery, winery, and other beverage sponsors whose products are dispensed and, fortunately, last longer than some contestants’ flies.)
When a little competition is woven into the excitement of a normal river trip—the floating, casting, hooking, landing, measuring, releasing, and retying, while constantly trying to protect your fly from the endless unseen disasters ahead—a frenzy is possible.
But momentary sieges of madness aren’t the best part. The particular charm of this game is that each angler is allowed to select and use only one fly pattern no larger than a specified size per fishing day. And the result consistently multiplies into hundreds of funny stories, thrills, and heartbreaks. A secondary benefit is the growing number of exceptional fly patterns and fishing strategies that continually spring from the creative minds and tying vises of contestants and guides.
The father of the Jackson Hole One Fly is local angling entrepreneur Jack Dennis, whose imagination and promotional enthusiasm nurtured the now widely copied contest from a circumstance that surfaced during his commercial fly tying days. Jack remembers when early Jackson tackle shop owner/outfitter Dick Boyer and some of his Rod n’ Reel store guides requested that he make them each a fly able to survive all day without being chewed apart. For this friendly guide competition, Dennis recalls, he crammed enough thread and head cement into some Royal Wulffs, Joe’s Hoppers, and Yellow Humpies that they wouldn’t dare come apart.
Years later, Dennis suggested opening this “one fly” inspiration to the public. With encouragement from local outdoors columnists Dan Abrams and Paul Bruun (that’s me), the plot of his novel concept thickened, and then accelerated. Suddenly—with a handful of supporters from his Jack Dennis Outdoor Shop, including business partners, their friends, and a suddenly enthusiastic fishing community—the first One Fly launched in September 1986.
It may be difficult now for some of the founders to recall that first One Fly a quarter century ago, but it remains as one of my fondest memories. Perhaps it’s because in that glorious inaugural event I got to fish on the Simms Life-Link International team (only because the full-time company gang was working the annual Las Vegas Ski Show). The fishing was a blast and so was meeting many of the original participants. That contest was won by the owners and guides of the newly opened Westbank Anglers, using the recently popularized Lime Trude dry fly.
