Rich's Fly

It's been just over a week since the unexpected passing of Rich Schaaff and it has been neat to reflect on Rich's life and all that he touched from the abundance of comments and memorials left in his honor on websites, blogs, and on his facebook page.  

Rocky Maley tearfully sat down at his vise this past weekend to create a fly that tells the story of Rich, their friendship, and the rivers that he held dear to his angling heart.

I am honored that Rocky allowed me to post this series of photos and narrative of his creation that he simply named "Rich's Fly".

This is the under body of the fly I am working on in memory of Rich.  This fly tells a story about stuff Rich and I shared with each other. So to start the story of the low spot will represent his love of the East Fork of the Lewis River.  The large butt will be the love of the mountains and the gold tip is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

To start with Rich loved birds with natural color.  His top four were the Peacock, European Jay, Impeyan Pheasant, and Macaw which will come later in the fly.  The ribs are there because Rich always wanted to know what is around the next bend.  The green represents the color of the grass at "River X".

The gold body represents the brown trout that Rich loved to pursue.  The ribs get closer moving forward which represent how Rich and I grew closer as friends.  The four macaw horns represent the four rivers we talked about...the Owahee, the East Fork of the Lewis River, the Lochsa River, and the Grande Ronde. The blue section represents his home river, the East Fork of the Lewis River, and the red horizontal rib represents the steelhead in that river.

Okay...to finish this story.  The silver section represents Rich always seeing the silver lining in everything.  The brown and green are just memories of the earth tones from the trip to the "River X".  The eyed tragg feathers represent Rich's keen eye through his photography.  The blue macaw represents the sky and the two tragg feathers are clouds in which Rich captured so well in photos.  The two green Impeyan Pheasant cheeks and the Peacock head represent how Rich went to a greener place.

This image says a lot about Rich...fly rod in one hand, camera in the other, and completely enjoying himself in the company of friends.