Part tying, part carving: How Derek Darst turns deer hair into elaborate bass bugs

May 1-ST. MARIES - The most important part of tying a topwater bass fly is putting enough hair on the hook. So, one Saturday morning in early April, Derek Darst just kept adding more.

He tied in clump after clump of deer hair, stacking three colors - green, gray and black.

A pair of legs and a strand of monofilament, for a weed guard, dangled off the back of the hook. The hair filled the shank. It was a dense, spiky mess.

Then Darst grabbed a double -edged razor blade and the wizardry began.

With the blade flexed between his thumb and index finger, he shaped the fly. He cleared hair in multicolored clouds of shavings.

The bottom became flat. The top became round and smooth. He carved contours into its shoulders.

A pair of legs was dangling off the back of the hook. When he was done sculpting, the mess had become a frog.

Darst, 46, runs Saint Maries Flies, a one-man commercial fly-tying operation. He specializes in tying with deer hair - stacking or spinning it on a hook and then shaping it to look like something an aquatic predator might eat.

He goes through a lot of deer hair.

He buys it by the pound and in about 20 colors, which allows him to tie a wide range of patterns that imitate foods consumed by bass, pike, musky and more.

They're the opposite of delicate trout flies. They're big, gaudy creations that move water and imitate baitfish, amphibians, rodents, reptiles and more.

"There's so much stuff you can do," Darst said. "I've got birds and lizards and mice and frogs and poppers and divers."

Over the past decade, his work has garnered some recognition. North 40 Outfitters buys his flies and sells them in its fly shops. In January, Darst taught a deer-hair tying class at the Mead North 40.

He's become a regular fixture at fishing trade shows. He's been a guest on a handful of fishing podcasts and he's built a decent social media following by sharing pictures of his work.

Custom fly orders come to him from all over - Chicago, Canada, France, Singapore.

The business, however, is still small. On weekdays, you'll find him at the local grocery store, where he's the assistant manager.

In the evenings, he's hunched over a vise in the world headquarters of Saint Maries Flies - his basement.

His vise sits on a desk in front of a wall full of fly tying materials. More materials fill bins on shelves throughout the room.

In early April, he had a few different orders he needed to fill. The back half of a few lizard patterns were sitting on the desk, waiting to be finished. He also needed to finish tying mice and a batch of birds.

"That's going to Belize, for golden dorado," Darst said.

Darst grew up here. The St. Joe River is his home water, the cutthroat trout the fish he's chased for a lifetime.

He started tying flies when he was about 10, beginning by filling his boxes with trout flies.

Starting in high school, he sold flies to the local sporting goods shop and a few people around town.

He grew up fishing for bass, too, but not with a fly rod.

He did a little fly-fishing for bass when he was a teenager but didn't get more serious about it until roughly 10 years ago, when he saw a magazine story about a flytier who was producing deer-hair poppers and other bass bugs.

Darst had tied classic hair-bodied trout patterns like the Goddard caddis and the irresistible Adams. The bass flies he saw pictures of took that concept and applied it to something much larger - namely, small animals.

He thought they looked cool, and he wanted to try it.

The learning curve was steep. He bought instructional videos, read whatever he could find.

Right away, he liked the process.

"It's part tying and kind of part carving," he said. "You do all this tying and then you've got to carve the shape with a razor blade. It was just kind of something different."

Learning the craft got him more interested in fly-fishing for bass around his hometown.

He's found good spots to chase smallmouth in the St. Maries River and in the lower stretches of the St. Joe.

When the upper St. Joe is packed with people in July and August, he'd rather be in one of his favorite bass haunts, where the crowd won't be as big.

Tying bass flies also presented an opportunity. Darst was still selling a few trout flies here and there, but he thought his deer hair bugs could serve a niche market.

"You can go buy an elk hair caddis or a prince nymph from anywhere," he said. "You can't really find commercially tied deer hair stuff like I do."

He was right. After he started sharing photos of his bass bugs online about 10 years ago, people started asking if they could buy them from him.

He started using the company name, Saint Maries Flies. He and his wife set up a website and now orders are rolling in.

Somewhere along the way, a representative of North 40 Outfitters reached out, asking if they could put some of his flies in their House of Fly Project shops.

Darst's flies stand out from the crowd. They're generally at least a couple inches long - too big for fly bins. At North 40, they hang from hooks.

Then there's the price. While the average trout fly sells for under $3, Darst's bass bugs can cost as much as $18 apiece.

Ducklings - yes, ducklings - go for $25. Lizards go for $30.

Wes Kelsey, an employee at the Airway Heights North 40, said there's good reason for the high price.

"It's not only materials," Kelsey said. "It's time."

The production rate at Saint Maries Flies HQ is about two bass bugs per hour. After Darst gets the shape right, he ties in a weed guard, adds glue, threads another set of legs through the deer hair body and glues on eyes.

Trout flies go faster. He still ties some for North 40 and for the Idaho Fly Fishing Company in Avery.

A few anglers still custom order trout flies from him and pick them up on their way to the St. Joe.

Darst has started getting into the tying materials business, too.

This winter, he started dying deer hair on his own and selling it to other flytiers. He and his wife, Michelle, bought a laser to cut suede for frog and hopper legs, and now they're selling those.

Another generation of flytiers is learning from him.

His grandkids, Lucy and Alex, live nearby and often come over. They help pack orders and take their own turns at the vise.

Lucy started tying earrings, and they've become hot sellers.

All of it keeps Darst pretty busy.

He still finds time to fish. At least a few good St. Joe cutthroats have hit the net this spring.

But he could only laugh when asked how often he ties flies for himself.

"Not as much as I'd like," he said. "Usually if I'm going fishing, it's a few quick flies before I leave in the morning."

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This story was originally published May 1, 2026 at 7:02 PM.