Kyle Bakko is a new Umpqua Feather Merchants signature tier, and his patterns stand out for their practicality and creativity. Bakko's use of multilayered foam bodies and foam cutters, and his eye for accuracy and proportion, make his flies stand out in the increasingly crowded new-fly world. His Phat Azz Hopper has an incredibly creative head, and while designed to suspend heavy droppers, trout also smash it on top. But we could have just as easily run his unusual Big Sky Hopper pattern, which is tied on a jig hook. In fact, we could have blindly chosen any one of his new flies for the Fly Tier's Bench. Bakko does a lot of float fishing, and his usual method includes a dry/dropper rig on rivers like the Stillwater, Shoshone, and Yellowstone. Big droppers like Pat's Rubber Legs or crayfish imitations require a buoyant dry to hold them up, and Bakko was unsatisfied with previous offerings, so he set about to create a magnum foam hopper that would do the job.