First tied in 1978 when I was secretly fishing Imperial Mill pool. Why I chose the color scheme, I don't know. Although I remember about the Green Machines being used for salmon on the Miramichi and the great success they were having. It also is similar in looks to a Light Edson Tiger, a good brook trout and brown trout fly.
All I know is that the fly proved immediately to be very successful for me on the Saranac River. On many occasions, it would take salmon when nothing else would. On one Saturday morning, I was standing on Handley's rock at Imperial Mill pool and landed several nice fish, the biggest 6-7 lbs. Ol' Leo LaVigne was at the base of the dam over by the turbine out flow for the mill and was having no luck at all. After I got the big salmon unhooked and released, I motioned for him to come over and try it where I was. He asked what type of dynamite I was using, and I promptly gave him one. Leo, who almost exclusively used a Black Ghost streamer, tied on my green fly and began flailing. It was 3 or 4 casts and I heard a holler over the roar of the dam. Sure enough the little green fly had again worked its magic.
Some time later that year, Sam Thuesen, a long time salmon fisherman on the Saranac, asked what I called it. When I said I didn't have a name, He promptly called it the FB-111. At the time I was a pilot in the Air Force stationed at Plattsburgh AFB flying the FB-111A bomber. Hence the name and origination of the FB-111 fly!
Another time on a fishing trip to Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island and the Margaree River, in fact I believe my first trip there, the little green fly proved my salvation. On the tenth and final day of my fishing trip at about 4 PM in the afternoon after all the traditional salmon flies had failed me, I decided to go for it one more time. The old timers snickered a little with a new neophyte on ìtheirî river using what they had said looked like a trout fly. In fact when I started down Big McDaniel pool and my line tightened up, you could hear the old timers holler, ìIt's a trout, must be a sea trout! Well it was not, and soon a nice salmon came leaping into the air. Again proving the success of my little green fly.

Don Lee