McClain's Drake

Jerry McClain of Grayling designed this drake and tied its body from wool yarn pulled out of old World War II army sweaters, which he bought by the box at a surplus store. That is where its other name, the Sweater Fly, comes from. McClain told FrankenFly's Paul J. Beel that the yarn idea came from Grayling commercial tyer Jerry Regan.

McClain fished Lake Margrethe and the Manistee as a young man and later the Au Sable, often with his friend Rowley Failing. He also knew Clarence Roberts, the game warden and fly tyer, who wrote him up more than once before the two became friends. His nephew Gary McClain still ties the fly from the sweaters Jerry passed down.

The pattern is a parachute-style dry with a pheasant tail, a brown yarn body and a post of colored feather tips under brown and grizzly hackle. It isn't matched to one insect. Anglers fish it whenever dark mayflies are hatching. A wool body soaks up water, so it needs floatant and a few false casts to stay up.