SUN JOURNAL • October 1, 2022
Fly fishing from an old gray rowboat with a cowboy guide on a high-country Western Colorado trout pond, I decided that the moody, unresponsive trout needed to see something with an Eastern motif. A Hornberg was called for. “What is THAT lil’ thang?” Sam asked me. Under the shadow of his sweat-soaked Stetson, he stared at me through squinting, doubtful eyes. “That, sir, is a Hornberg, a killer fly on Maine trout ponds,” I said. Did it work? You know it did. The Colorado Cutthroats banged it repeatedly until the fly was just a remnant of its former self. Fishing writer Bob Mallard goes so far as to opine that the Hornberg “might be the most fished fly in Maine.”~ V. Paul Reynolds