Eggie Special

Eggie Bugby tied flies in Grayling and sold them from a small shop next to his house, and he fished the Au Sable two or three times a week. The Eggie Special was his best-known fly and was a common sight around Grayling at one time. Nobody has pinned down the year, and sources place it somewhere between 1920 and 1950.

For years the recipe in circulation came from a copy tied by Bob Smock, who used the nearest hackle tips he had for the wings. Paul J. Beel of FrankenFly worked out the original with help from the Bugby family. Eggie's son Robert went over the materials, and his grandson Dale sent Beel one of Eggie's own flies. It showed dark barred ginger wings and a brown and grizzly collar, not brown hackle alone.

The fly has a turkey tail, a pale yellow wool body ribbed with palmered brown hackle, and upright hackle-tip wings. Beel dedicated his write-up to Tom Deschaine, who died in 2014. Matt O'Neal of Savage Flies later filmed the original dressing from Beel's research. The family says brook trout rarely turn it down.