Remembering the Man from UNI: Jean-Guy Côté (1949-2006)
 School is out for the day, and a teenager gets on his bicycle and starts to pedal the 45 kilometers
between his home in Trois Pistoles and Riviere du Loup. The apprentice pedals hard,
for a late arrival is sure to provoke a rebuke from professional fly tyer, Jean Michaud. In this
era the secrets of the vise are jealously guarded, and the young man is lucky to find a willing,
if demanding, teacher. Both bicycle and vise were destined to play major roles in the life
of Jean-Guy Côté, the Man from UNI. Another lasting influence was one of Michaud’s creations,
the John Special, an Atlantic salmon pattern with a spun and clipped deer-hair head.
After High-School Jean-Guy headed
for Montreal to attend university
en route to becoming a physical
education teacher. Money being
tight, he naturally sought out a
tackle shop to try and turn his skills into
cash. Fortunately, he chose the Sherbrookestreet
store of another Quebec fly tying icon,
John Cuco. Cuco quickly recognized talent,
and soon the student moved in, paying for
his keep by filling the shop’s pattern bins,
particularly the Muddlers.
Teaching certificate in hand, Jean-Guy
moved to the Joliette area, north of Montreal.
He continued tying flies to supplement his
income. The Joliette Hopper (brainchild of
local tyer Bernard Boulard) was a popular
but time consuming (i.e. low-profit) dressing.
With the analytical style that characterized
many of his later designs, Jean-Guy
combined familiar elements to create a pattern
that could be tied in a variety of sizes
and colours to imitate caddis hatches and serve as a general dry fly for brook trout. Tens of thousands of Mud H o p p e r s
later, it had become, by far,
his most commercially successful
pattern.
Returning for a moment
to those bicycle commutes,
they were the seeds of
much bigger rides to
come. Jean-Guy became
a competitive cycler
and competed locally
and internationally,
including involvement
in the 1986 Mexico
City Olympic Games.
Sadly, injuries forced
him to wi thdraw
early from competition.
Nevertheless,
his enjoyment of high-level cycling
never diminished. Competitive judo became another significant influence
in his life and it helped him later to make
an early business connection with Japanese
distributors.
 I first met
Jean-Guy in the
early eighties at
the annual dinner
of the Cold Creek
Fly Fishe r s in
Belleville, Ontario.
He accompanied
long time friend
Claude Bernard to
help with a presentation
about brook
trout fishing in lakes.
At the time he spoke
little English, and
what he had learned
had come from reading
sporting magazines such
as Outdoor Life and Field & Stream. A few years later, we were able to
converse more freely, and I started to help
him with small communication projects.
When we began fishing together, Jean-
Guy rarely waded. Almost all his angling
was from boats, be it trolling or casting
for brook or lake trout, landlocked char or
salmon, or casting to Atlantic salmon. For
trolling he evolved a group of legendary
flies that, when tied and fished correctly,
continue to land memorable catches. To
take advantage of surface activity, he early
on recognized the potential of pre formed
foam bodies and, consequently, created a
series of trout and salmon dry flies such as
the Foam Spider and Côté Foam Bomber.
Knots, their strength by test, tying techniques,
and teaching the tying of, fascinated
my friend. In conjunction with Claude
Bernard, he developed the VIA Knot, so
called because it came about while on a
train trip from Montreal to Toronto. To tie
the VIA Knot, simply double the initial bight
of a Perfection Loop. Why bother? Because
trollers habitually use a uniform diameter
leader and many opt for a loop-to-loop connection
between leader and line. Moreover,
the loop leaves a “perpendicular” tag end,
perfect for attaching a dropper. While a
standard Perfection Loop produces a similar
tag end, it’s considerably weaker than the Via knot. Jean-Guy also developed a complete package for demonstrating proper
knot-tying techniques and presented it at
fly fishing events in Quebec.
Beyond his skill as a commercial tyer,
Jean-Guy was also recognized as a talented exhibition tyer, exemplified by the series of
twenty-four Muddler patterns he created
for the world-renowned William Cushner
Collection. In addition, for several years
he judged the World Salmon Fly Tying
Championships event, organized and run by
the Fédération Québécoise pour le saumon
atlantique (FQSA).
UNI Products, although not yet named,
began with Jean-Guy hand-spooling thread
and working on an improved wax and
waxing system, helped by visits with Harry
Darbee. It was the discovery of an outstanding
polyester thread that would become the
company’s foundation. However, without
the founder’s self-taught mechanical, computer
control, and design skills, it’s very
unlikely UNI could have become the world’s
largest supplier of spooled fly tying materials.
As the company grew, Jean-Guy developed
an outstanding wax formula and infusion
waxing system, automated labeling and
spool delivery systems, and overhauled and
improved large spooling machines. He also
designed a signature black spool, high-quality
informative labels, spool packaging and
storage systems, and material dispensing
containers. UNI introduced numerous new
materials to fly tyers, and at present spools more than 1000 products (see Potpourri in
this issue of The Canadian Fly Fisher for a
note about UNI’s future). With distributors
in nearly 50 countries, it’s fair to say that
UNI is Canada’s fly-tying face to the world.
My friend will be greatly missed, particularly
by the fly-tying community. Fortunately,
he undertook to preserve his memory by
endowing an annual Jean-Guy Côté flytying
prize and donating his collection of
fly fishing and fly tying art and literature to
the proposed Canadian Fly Fishing Museum
in Waterloo, Quebec. Recognition of prize
winners and the collection will be housed
in the Jean-Guy Côté Room, to be built as
a part of a major expansion of the Waterloo
Public Library. *
B Y PAU L M A R R I N E R
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