Hares Ear Nymph 12/11/2016 Photo Album

The hares ear nymph earned comeback fly of the year honors in 2016. Of course it never fell very far from the top, but I definitely favored the salvation nymph over the hares ear in 2015. I suspect the hares ear never stopped producing, and instead I elected to allow other flies to occupy my line more than usual. At any rate I enjoyed some fabulous days throughout the season with a size 16 beadhead hares ear nymph dangling from my line.

A Killer Beadhead Hares Ear

If you read back through my hares ear nymph blog posts from 2010 and 2011, you will realize that this workhorse fly was my unquestionable number one up until the summer of 2015. I increased my beginning of the season quota from thirty to one hundred during this period. There were several seasons when I consumed my entire inventory, and this forced me to tie more during the season. When the weather is suitable for fishing, I detest sitting at my tying desk producing flies.

During the summer of 2015, however, I fell in love with the salvation nymph. The new favorite was akin to a new car with lots of flash, and the trout agreed with me. During numerous summer fishing trips, the fish attacked the salvation nymph like sharks attracted by the scent of blood. I nearly depleted my salvation nymph supply during 2015 and increased my beginning inventory to sixty.

The Edge of the Pile

I began 2016 with a similar mindset, and I preferentially knotted the salvation nymph to my line to the detriment of the hares ear nymph. Fortunately in many instances I fished the hares ear and salvation in a two fly combination, and during these instances I discovered that the trout showed a distinct preference for the hares ear. This was significant, because during most cases I positioned the hares ear as the top fly. Historically the end fly of a two fly system produced more fish, because it displayed more movement compared to the top fly, which is constricted due to line tension above and below.

From the Top

Trout choosing the hares ear over the salvation during two fly presentations was a strong sign that the old standby was returning to most favored status, but the true clincher was two spectacular days of fishing on the South Platte River in May. I landed nearly 120 fish on May 12 and May 13, and 90% of these catches consumed the beadhead hares ear. These two days restored my confidence in the beadhead hares ear, and it returned to the top of my list. For the remainder of the season a beadhead hares ear was nearly always present on my line, and it rarely disappointed.

Excellent Clarity

The salvation nymph continued to produce fish, but its prime time was centered on mid-June through August; whereas, the hares ear attracted fish consistently throughout the season, and it was particularly effective in the late fall time period of October and November.

Unwilling to risk depletion of my valuable stock of hares ears, I tied seventy-two, and when added to my carry over supply of twenty-eight enables me to enter the 2017 season with one hundred in inventory. I cannot wait to observe the salvation vs. hares ear face off again in 2017.

Salvation Nymph 11/29/2016 Photo Album

Perhaps some of my readers are wondering why I have been inactive for two weeks? The short answer is that the weather in Colorado finally shifted to temperatures more typical of late November. I was never a strong proponent of fishing in cold temperatures, and now in my mid-sixties, that is more a certainty rather than a preference. Given this aversion to cold aching fingers and the loss of feeling in my toes, I shifted my attention to fly tying.

Salvation Nymph

For the last two weeks I visited my comfortable fly tying bench on a daily basis, and I produced eighty-five size 16 salvation nymphs. With the addition of twenty carry overs from 2016, I now possess one hundred of these shimmering nymphs, and I can restock my fly bins with the knowledge that I likely have enough to get me through the 2017 season.

From the Top

If you review the archives of my blog posts on the salvation nymph, you can read about my history with this favorite. In short it has gone from a recommended purchase at Conejos River Anglers to a mainstay in my fly box, and this explains the significant increase in inventory from sixty to one hundred. For some reason I tend to lose more salvation nymphs than any other fly, and many of these fly separations occur with trees, rocks, and branches and not fish. My only explanation is that I tend to fish it as the last fly on a dry/dropper or nymph configuration, so it tends to encounter foreign objects in advance of the flies positioned higher on my leader.

Belly

When I composed my salvation nymph blog post last fall, I was crowning it as the champion producer, as it seemed to dethrone the long time number one beadhead hares ear nymph. However, during the spring, summer and fall of 2016, the hares ear staged a frenzied comeback, and I now suspect that it regained the top position on my fly ranking. During a few outings in May I experienced unbelievable success using solely the hares ear, and the strong appetite of Colorado trout for the hares ear extended through the summer and fall seasons.

Quite a Jumble

The salvation nymph seems to excel during the June through August time frame, and these months coincide with the pale morning dun hatch in most Colorado rivers and streams. I suspect that the hares ear imitates a myriad of subsurface food items including caddis emergers, stonefly nymphs, and various mayfly nymphs; and this may explain its ability to produce success throughout the many seasons. The salvation does exhibit more iridescence, and therefore, it can attract fish during the periods when pale morning duns are not prevalent, but overall I am inclined to knot a hares ear on my line more frequently.

Of course it is not unusual for me to fish both in a deadly combination, and many times when I offered them both, I was surprised to discover the top fly, the hares ear in the lip of my netted fish. Generally I believe that the last fly catches more fish because it demonstrates more movement, so attracting fish from the upper position is quite a statement of effectiveness.

85 Salvation Nymphs and Ingredients

The pile of sparkling salvation nymphs represents many hours of focused tying, and I am pleased to have this effort behind me. I will now shift my attention to beadhead hares ears, and I plan to produce another batch of one hundred. There may be another significant gap between posts on my blog.

San Juan Worm 02/15/2016 Photo Album

Fishing with worms is woven into the fabric of my fishing existence. I have fond memories of my brother and I trailing my dad with a coffee can and picking worms from the rich black soil as he turned over sod and dirt with his garden spade. We accumulated enough garden worms to fulfill our fishing needs during the early season in Pennsylvania, and they were always very effective in April and early May.

As the season advanced my father and brother and I would visit my grandfather at his house near Boyertown after a heavy rain storm. My heartbeat literally pounded against my chest from the adrenaline rush that resulted when we gathered coffee cans and flashlights and charged into Pop Pop’s back yard. Here we discovered fat juicy nightcrawlers sprawled along all the flower beds and in my grandfather’s large vegetable garden. I am sure the worms were also present in the grass, but it was much easier to spot them in bare soil. Brother Jim and I took turns executing the messy task of picking the nightcrawlers. It took some practice, but fairly quickly we learned to recognize which end was the head, and once this extremity was identified, a very quick gooey snap was necessary to pinch and slowly extract the retreating worm. Collecting nightcrawlers was an exciting nighttime adventure.

When I began fly fishing in Pennsylvania in my early thirties, it took some time before I became proficient enough to catch fish on a regular basis. I trusted my worm drifting skills and knew that the tried and true methodology produced success. Fishing with flies however was largely an unproven technique. With this view of the efficacy of flies compared to worms, I formulated a compromise strategy. I knotted a bait hook to the end of my tapered leader and then impaled a worm to my hook. I added a split shot and lobbed this fly fishing/bait hybrid configuration to all the likely holding spots, and this method landed a decent amount of fish. I liked the feel of playing a fish on the long rod, and being able to pick up line and toss to the next hole was more efficient than reeling up line using a spinning reel.

Wapsi Flesh Ultra Chenille

The next step in my fly fishing evolution was our move to Colorado. Shortly after I arrived in 1990 I began to investigate the rivers and streams along the Front Range as well as more distant destinations. It did not take long for me to discover that the closest river to my home near Castle Rock was the South Platte, and fortunately the area downstream from Deckers was a premier trout fishery. I began to make frequent forays to this beautiful stretch of river, and in an effort to accelerate success, I also read as much as I could about the gold medal tailwater fishery. The books and magazine articles that I studied repeatedly mentioned San Juan worms, pheasant tail nymphs and RS2’s. Naturally I accepted this advice willingly and began to add these flies to my fly boxes.

24 Finished San Juan Worms

These were the halcyon days of the South Platte River in the Deckers area, and I can remember numerous visits when large brown trout and rainbow trout chomped on tan, flesh and chocolate brown San Juan worms. The most fortuitous aspect of this discovery was the ease with which I could generate a dozen San Juan worms. All that was required to produce a San Juan worm was a hook, a spool of thread and a section of ultra chenille. Meanwhile the South Platte River trout seemed to relish San Juan worms in April and May more than any other time of the year. These months coincided with elevated releases from Cheesman Dam in response to snow melt descending from the Rocky Mountains. The elevated flows scoured the river banks and flushed natural worms into the South Platte, so the hungry trout gorged on the delectable morsels, and my simple ultra chenille imitations represented a close approximation.

Blend of Old and New Flesh Chenille

Unfortunately the South Platte River was greatly impacted by the Hayman Fire in 2002 and remains a shadow of its status in the 1990’s. For this reason I fish there infrequently, but I discovered that San Juan worms continue to tempt trout in many other western waterways. The worm pattern is particularly effective during high murky water conditions, and for this reason I decided to replenish my dwindling supply. I possessed a small remnant strand of flesh colored ultra chenille, and my efforts to locate replacement material were thwarted last winter. Undeterred I once again embarked on a search, and on a trip to Charlie’s Fly Box I was elated to discover a skein of Wapsi flesh ultra chenille. This was a close match to my remaining sample so I purchased a spool. I produced ten flesh worms, five tan, five red, and four bright pink; and I am now prepared to tempt trout during spring conditions with an array of tasty worms.

Iron Sally 12/19/2015 Photo Album

In previous posts I extolled the virtues of the iron sally nymph. I continue to regard this fly as one of the prettiest imitations in my fly box, and I enjoy creating these gems. Another advantage of the iron sally is the weight provided by the wire wraps that form the abdomen.

Top View of a Shiny Iron Sally

During 2015 I did not utilize the iron sally as much as I intended, but it did spend time on my line primarily during days when I spotted yellow sallies fluttering over the stream. Apparently I deployed them enough to deplete my supply, so I tied an additional four to bring my inventory back to fifteen. This really is not a huge amount, and if I begin to experience more success, I may run short.

Zoomed In

The designer of this fly had a stroke of genius when he or she decided to combine the gold ultra wire and black crystal flash to construct the abdomen and legs. The iron sally attracts both fishermen and fish.

Juju Emerger 12/13/2015 Photo Album

I tied ten juju emergers last spring, and I tested them on several occasions during the early summer time frame when pale morning duns were active. I can report some success, but I also lost quite a few and reduced my supply to three. I suspect that my short supply affected my willingness to knot a juju emerger to my line, as I gravitated to the salvation nymph in many situations where a juju emerger might have been effective.

Juju Emerger

Since I had the requisite materials on hand, I decided to create twelve new flies to bring my total to fifteen. I completed this task several weeks ago, and I am anxious to utilize them for longer intervals during 2016. Charlie Craven’s recipe specifies size 18 hooks, so I complied with these directions and made eight. Once these were completed I clamped some size 16 hooks in my vice and produced four larger imitations.

Super Macro

On Friday December 11 Jane and I stopped at Charlie’s Fly Box in Old Arvada on our way to Golden. The main salesperson was busy with another customer, and Charlie Craven asked if he could help me. Rarely do I get an opportunity to speak with the owner of the shop and one of my favorite fly designers. Charlie helped me find the two packets of hooks that I was seeking, and then I took the opportunity to ask him about the juju emerger. I was surprised to learn that the pattern that I copied from his instructions is actually intended to be a blue winged olive imitation. The two strands of olive and one strand of brown super hair create an olive body with a segmented appearance similar to a baetis nymph. I now wonder if I should create some size 20’s and 22’s for the smaller broods of blue winged olives that emerge late in the season.

A Size 16 Juju Emerger

Surprisingly Charlie told me I should use two brown and one black strand of super hair to mimic a pale morning dun emerger or alternatively two brown and one orange. Now that I learned this from the designer, I may produce some additional variants to imitate pale morning duns. I understand why I unknowingly selected the salvation nymph during pale morning dun hatches instead of the juju emergers…my juju emergers were designed for a different mayfly hatch!

Salad Spinner 12/12/2015 Photo Album

I must confess that you will not find this fly anywhere else if you search the internet. In addition, I have not yet tested it in a live stream scenario. The salad spinner was designed by my young friend Danny Ryan, and although I have not used it, Danny demonstrated to me that it was a fish catching machine on the South Platte River, as he extracted fish after fish from that drainage on an October visit. This day of fishing convinced me that I needed to manufacture some to add to my fly box for the upcoming season.

Closer

Danny has limited funds to purchase fly tying materials, so he attempts to make the most out of what he has. A friend in Texas gave him a box of materials that her deceased husband accumulated, and Danny stretches this cache of floss and yarn as far as his imagination allows him. This then was the source of the salad spinner. Danny caught quite a few trout during our October day on the South Platte, and when he removed the salad spinner from the jaws of several fish, he noticed that quite a bit of aquatic vegetation accumulated on his fly, thus the name salad spinner.

Angled from the Side

Although the fly is not intended to imitate a specific insect, I suspect that it falls into the midge genre, and it is probably taken for an emerging midge pupa. The combination of fish attracting colors makes it stand out in the cold tumbling flows of Colorado rivers and streams. They are a relatively quick tie, so I created ten as my starting inventory. If the fish demonstrate a strong preference for this black attractor, I will quickly produce some more.

Completed Batch With Ingredients

Here are the steps:

1. Start with a size 18 or 20 scud hook such as a Tiemco 2487 and slide a bead on to the shank and around the bend to the hook eye.

2. Place some black thread in your bobbin and attach it to a hook 1/3 of the way behind the hook eye.

3. Attach brown or speckled fibers from a pheasant tail feather as a short tail.

4. Attach a strand of extra small red ultra wire to the shank in front of the tail.

5. Wrap the tread forward  and create a tapered abdomen until you reach the 1/3 point where you attached the thread.

6. Wrap the red wire forward to create a rib and tie off at the end of the abdomen.

7. Tie in a section of white poly. The thickness should match the size of the fly, but for a small hook size probably 8-10 fibers.

8. Tie in two strands of peacock herl and create a thorax. I actually substituted black peacock ice dub for the natural peacock.

9. Fold the poly yarn forward over the thorax and tie it down and then whip finish.

10. Allow the poly yarn to angle forward over the hook eye and cut it off to leave a stub to represent an emerging wing.

Zebra Midge 12/10/2015 Photo Album

The zebra midge is an amazingly productive fly that I tend to overlook. I continue to fall into the trap of thinking that it is difficult for trout to see such a tiny morsel in the rivers and streams of Colorado, yet when I experimented with one on my line, I typically enjoyed a favorable response from the fish.

A recent example of my flawed thinking is described in my 10/02/2015 Arkansas River post. I stopped at the ArkAngler Fly Shop in Salida, and a young gentleman behind the counter practically ordered me to use a midge larva in the morning. As my wife will attest, I am a chronic follower of orders, so I adhered to his advice and had great success in the tumbling waters of the Arkansas River that day.

Another reason to favor the zebra midge is its simplicity, and this translates to easy and fast fly tying. Only four materials are necessary – a hook, a bead, thread and fine wire. The hardest part is threading the tiny bead on to a size 20 hook. I abandoned using tweezers this go round and instead used hackle pliers to clamp on the bead and then centered it over the minuscule hook point. It worked better than tweezers, but I can report a few instances where I did not have the bead centered, and the pliers released causing a BB style gun shot.

Newly Minted Zebra Midges

I tied seven new zebra midges to bring my stock to 20. I produced some black and olive varieties, and hopefully I can discipline myself to attach a zebra midge to my line more frequently in 2016.

Craven Soft Hackle Emerger 12/10/2015 Photo Album

The soft hackle emerger has evolved from an experimental tie to a mainstay in my fly box. Over the last two seasons I gravitated to this fly more frequently than the RS2 and with good reason. It delivered. I believe that the additional flash of the white fluoro fiber tail and wing grabs the attention of the trout more readily than the drab RS2. Also the soft hackle style probably serves as a better imitation of emerging blue winged olives during hatch situations.

Top View Without Bead

I continue to deploy the RS2, but I usually reserve it for the time period before BWO’s appear, as this is when the nymphs are active deeper in the water column. I also concluded that the soft hackle emerger is best tied without a bead since I am generally fishing it as an emerger near the surface. Active movement of the soft hackle also seems to be quite effective in many hatch situations.

Completed Batch of Twelve

I tied twelve of these productive flies over the last several weeks to bring my inventory level to 50 again for the upcoming season. The hardest part of tying this fly is the folded soft hackle, but since it only requires two turns, I do not get overly upset if my fold is not perfect. The fish do not seem to care.

RS2 12/03/2015 Photo Album

I chronicled the history of the RS2 in a previous post, so you can read that explanation by clicking on the link in this sentence. When I first began tying these diminutive nymphs in the 90’s, I used muskrat guard hairs for the tails, and I did not include a beadhead. At some stage in my fly fishing evolution, I became a huge proponent of dry/dropper fishing, and I began to add tiny silver beads to my output.

At this point in my fly fishing life I make all my RS2’s with beads, and I substituted fibers from a brown pheasant feather for the tail. The bead never seems to prevent fish from chowing down on the RS2, and the extra weight allows me to fish it as a single dropper off a large buoyant top fly.

Side View

Over the last two seasons I discovered that Craven’s soft hackle emerger is also a productive fly before and during blue winged olive hatches, so I migrated to using the small wet fly more frequently than the RS2. Despite this tendency, I continue to deploy the RS2 on a regular basis. I suspect that it also is taken for a midge larva during certain periods when baetis are not present in large numbers, and the small amount of weight related to the bead enables me to fish it deeper than the soft hackle emerger.

A Completed Batch

When I counted my supply of RS2’s, I found twenty present in my boxes and bins, so I tied an additional ten to bring my total to thirty for the 2016 season. The RS2 is an essential addition to my arsenal, and I do not plan to approach streams without some.

Bright Green Caddis Pupa 12/01/2015 Photo Album

I documented my history with the bright green caddis pupa several times on this blog, so I will not repeat it here. This fly is a great producer particularly during the April time period ahead of and during the grannom hatch on Colorado rivers. I experienced particular success on the Arkansas River with this fly. My post on caddis pupa 01/26/2014 provides a solid description of the techniques I use to fish the bright green caddis pupa in advance of the fabled spring hatches.

A View from the Top and Side

During the spring of 2015 I once again failed to intersect with a significant caddis emergence, and consequently the bright green caddis did not produce many fish. This was the second consecutive year in which caddis pupa were not effective flies for me during the period before snow melt in Colorado. Hopefully conditions in the spring of 2016 will reward my ongoing confidence in the emergent caddis pupa imitation.

Resting on Deer Hair

The bright green caddis pupa belongs to the same family of flies as the emerald version. I follow the recipe precisely that is published in Gary LaFontaine’s Caddisflies book on page 40. When I counted my remaining supply of bright green caddis pupa, I discovered that my boxes and bins contained 35. With a goal of carrying 40 to begin the next season, I only needed to manufacture five, and I quickly completed a batch in late November. Hopefully I will be able to encounter more situations in 2016 where the bright green caddis becomes an indispensable weapon to fool Colorado fish.