Fly fishing lost an innovator and those of us who follow the sport lost a long-distance friend when author and fly tier Gary LaFontaine died of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

In 1981, when LaFontaine’s book Caddisflies was published, I was preparing for a family vacation to Yellowstone Park. My first reaction to the book was that it was difficult to read, more like a textbook that a fly-fishing book. As I continued to read, however, I found information that had never before been available to anglers.

The fly pattern that caught my eye was the Emergent Sparkle Pupa. This fly with its Antron overbody or shuck seemed to be the answer to a lot of problems during a caddis hatch. After I located some Antron, not an easy thing back then, I tied a few of LaFontaine’s pupae to take on vacation.

Fishing on the Yellowstone River at Buffalo Ford during a caddisfly hatch one day I tried one of the pupae for the first time. I caught fish after fish while other anglers near me were catching few. I became a believer.

Touch dubbing is the technique Gary used on the Sparkle Pupa. It makes dubbing look transparent. In preparing the dubbing, cut the material (LaFontaine suggested a 50-50 mix of fur and Antron) into small pieces, no wider than 1/8”. Wax your tying thread and then touch the dubbing to the thread. The wax holds the dubbing in place. Wrap the dubbing on the hook shank then to form the body of the pupa. When the dubbing is put on correctly you can see the hook shank through it.

I met Gary LaFontaine once. Ten years ago he was with Mike Lawson and Jack Dennis at the Iowa Hawkeye Fly Fishing show. I sat next to the three fly fishing celebrities at the banquet. Gary was one of the funniest persons I had met. His dry sense of humor had everyone in stitches all evening. Even though he probably would never fish them, he asked countless questions about the rivers I fish and about the trout, flies and techniques that worked best. It was a great evening.

Gary wrote a number of books and narrated several videos. It is in the videos that Gary’s personality comes through — the one that I talked to that night long ago. His genius will be hard to replace. Gary, we’ll miss you.