The Hemorrhoidal Mouse’s development began in 1992 while Smethurst was guiding at Alaska’s Katmai Lodge, with a mission to catch rainbows on mice later and later into the summer season. Typically Alaska rainbows hit the mouse throughout June, but as the salmon begin to spawn in July they become more transfixed on the underwater caviar streaming into the river systems.
Being an astute and observant angler, Smethurst retired mouse to box, set forth with an indicator and pegged-egg, and fished. But something strange was brewing: in his attempts to deliver the egg subsurface, fish continually rose and annihilated his bobbing, bright-orange strike indicator. An aficionado of the mouse and a seasoned student of the egg, Smethurst quickly put two and two together and built the ultimate omelet. If giant Alaska rainbows wanted a floating egg, why not deliver it on the rear end of an ultra-buoyant, protein-laced mouse?
“It’s the furthest thing from rocket science,” Smethurst says. “I basically took the principles of an egg-sucking leech and applied them to the surface, trailing a mouse.”
To its creator, the new fly looked like a mouse carrying a briefcase full of eggs, but Mouse-Carrying-A-Briefcase-Full-Of-Eggs was a tough name to swallow. At Katmai, with the help of veteran guides such as Ed Ward, Scott Howell, Dec Hogan, and Scotty O’Donnell, the nameless fly soon received a new handle. “Someone decided the mouse had a problem, and that problem was similar to hemorrhoids,” Smethurst says. “The name burned and it stuck.”
The combination of mouse and bright-orange-hotspot quickly proved its mettle that introductory season on the Katmai. It caught surface-oriented rainbows through July and August, even a few in September. But its greatest feat was yet to come. Several years later, after Smethurst had returned to the Lower 48, a second Hemorrhoidal outbreak occurred at the 2004 Fly Fishing Masters. During qualifiers in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, competitors were pitted against some monster fish of dubious origins, and tasked to tie a worthy fly right there, on the spot.
“The fish looked really big and stupid and kind of ravenous so I thought, ‘Why not the mouse?’” Smethurst says.
The Hemorrhoidal became the winning ticket to the Montana-based finals by allowing Smethurst to “audition” and “cut” smaller trout and leaving it on the dinner plate for a big boy to scratch its mousy inclinations.
As a general order of flies, the greater fly-fishing community has and continues to largely ignore mouse patterns. They’ve been relegated to full moons in fall. And some of the more cartoonish variations—whiskers and beady little eyes—seem almost too cute to fish. Smethurst says it’s a glaring oversight: “If you’re really thinking about what terrestrials are important in a meadow, and you’re looking at beetles and ants above mice, you’re not seeing the forest through the trees. Certainly in the arid sections of Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming, I think the mouse is an absolutely golden approach during a remarkably consistent amount of time.”
The Hemorrhoidal might not be the most exacting mouse pattern on the market, but it does several things right. For instance, it throws a huge wake on the surface of the river that keeps trout looking up. It achieves this with a splayed deer-hair overcoat and a trimmed underbody that rocks back and forth like a rickety old boat. The fly has a skating lip similar to gurgler-style patterns and its irresistible bright-orange butt is formed from Antron, egg yarn, or similar.
What do trout see staring into the hemorrhoidal rear end of a waking mouse? Most likely, something to cure their hunger.
“I think if any gamefish were to translate what orange means to them, they’d all say ‘Protein.’” Smethurst says. “I don’t care if it’s a marlin, milkfish, or whatever . . . orange is just one of those colors.”
MATERIALSHemorrhoidal Mouse by Frank Smethurst, Montana Fly Company
Hook: Gamakatsu B10S Stinger Hook
Thread: 3/0 tan
Tail: Med size chenille light brown
Hemorrhoid: Orange chenille
Body: Deer Hair
[The is an excerpt from What A Trout Sees: A Fly-Fishing Guide to Life Underwater, Lyons Press, 2013. You can purchase the book online at barnesandnoble.com.]
