By George

by Colin Pittendrigh

A living legend, on the Bighorn and beyond.

“Aren’t there any good sculpin flies that don’t have the deer-hair head?” I asked. “You bet,” said George. “I’ve got one I call the Foxy Lady, and I really believe in it. Come over here, I want to show you something.”

I was talking to George Kelly in the showroom of the former Beaver Pond Sports Center in Bozeman. The Beaver Pond had a big fiberglass fish tank near the front entrance that was stocked with an impressive menagerie of wild Montana fish. There were several good-sized rainbows, a grayling, a pair of whitefish, and a mean-looking, two-foot brown trout that was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the tank. George was grinning at me. “Look at this,” he said, producing the fly from his pocket.

Rather than taking George’s offering, the brown swatted it with his tail, knocking the fly clear out of the tank. The Foxy Lady landed with a wet splat on the aquamarine rim of the fish tank, about a foot away from where I was standing.

George’s fly was a yellow-bellied, fuzzy-hackled thing with a long, sensuous strip of fox fur tied over the back. It was the spring of 1976, and I had never seen a fur-strip streamer before. The thing looked pretty wild. I watched closely as he tied the Foxy Lady onto a short length of leader and tossed it into a froth of air bubbles on the far side of the tank. “Look at that fox fur move,” he said. “That action just drives ’em wild. And without the deer-hair head, it’s easier to sink than a Muddler.”

George was—and I’d contend still is—one of the best river guides in all of Montana. To say I was impressed would be an understatement. Just as I was about to say something about the sexy, undulating action of the fox fur, the monstrous brown trout darted out from his sanctuary under the air bubbles and swarmed the Foxy Lady like an angry shark. What happened next sealed the deal for me. Rather than taking George’s offering, the brown swatted it with his tail, knocking the fly clear out of the tank. The Foxy Lady landed with a wet splat on the aquamarine rim of the fish tank, about a foot away from where I was standing.

It was too much for me to resist. I bought two or three patches of fox fur, tied up a whole new arsenal of Foxy Ladies, and set off on what would become a ten-year binge of fur-strip-streamer fishing.

The story of the brown trout at the Beaver Pond is just one in an overflowing index of instances where George helped me, both as a guiding role model and as a mentor.

Later in my life, when I was a 40-year-old college student working my way through school as a fishing guide, George and I would occasionally work a trip together for the Yellowstone Angler in Livingston. I never would have survived the high standards and expectations demanded there without the mentorship and guidance I got from George and several others from the old guard. 

And I’m not the only grateful protégé, either. Rick Smith at Dan Bailey’s—who is almost retired now—laughed the other day while agreeing that George was—and still is—his role model, too.

I never would have survived the high standards and expectations demanded there without the mentorship and guidance I got from George and several others from the old guard. 

George, along with Randy Berry, Terry Ross, Chuck Tuschmidt, and a few others, essentially pioneered contemporary fishing on the Bighorn River. Only George was savvy enough to buy a chunk of land near the Bighorn’s Fourteen Mile Access, which is now the iconic Bighorn Fishing Lodge near Xavier. George Kelly and George Anderson fished the Bighorn before and after the Crow Tribe access closure, which lasted from 1975 to 1981. In 1997, George published Seasons of the Bighorn, a seminal work on the famous river.

Now at 88 years old, George is still bright, strong, sharp as a tack, and clearly one of most accomplished fly-fishing gurus to have ever rowed the fabled Yellowstone River. But as it turns out, George isn’t just an angling aficionado: he’s also one of the most knowledgeable, well-respected, and sought-after bird-watching guides in all of Montana. These days, George’s spring and fall Audubon trips fill up weeks ahead of schedule.

What a guy! Suffice to say, when I finally do grow up, I hope to be a whole lot like my old friend, George.