Fish No Match For Turck’s Tarantula

Guy Turck has a cure for fly fishers with arachnophobia.

The fly fishing guide from Jackson Hole, Wyo., created Turck’s Tarantula, the pattern that terrorized the field in last fall’s Jackson Hole One-Fly Fishing Tournament.

First-place in the annual event went to a four-angler team from Coeur d’Alene. Each of the winning team members used Turck’s creation to whip 35 other teams. An angler’s faith in a fly’s durability and effectiveness is put to the test in this contest, considering each participant shells out $812 for entry fees.

The rules restrict each competitor to using floating lines and only one fly for the two-day event on the Snake and South Fork of the Snake rivers.

Turck, who guides and ties for High Country Flies, created the Tarantula in 1990 as an improvement to the productive Madam X pattern.

“That was the first of the good rubber legs dry flies,” Turck said. “But it didn’t float really well, and my clients had trouble seeing it.”

The Tarantula has golden pheasant tippets for a tail, natural fur dubbing for the body, calf tail with an overlay of a couple strands of pearl Krystal Flash for the wing, a spun deer-hair head clipped in a triangular shape, and two wiggly white rubber legs on each side.

“The fly can be effective from April to October near Jackson Hole because stoneflies are hatching all the time,” Turck said. It’s particularly good for the Snake’s brown, rainbow and cutthroat trout when grasshoppers are abundant.

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