Salvation Nymph 11/15/2015 Photo Album

Trout candy. The salvation nymph seems to be irresistible to the trout of Colorado. If you click on the link in the previous sentence, you can read about my introduction to this fly. I now realize that the fly that I hold in such high esteem is officially named the tungsten salvation nymph and was designed by Devan Ence. I do not use tungsten to tie my version, so I simply refer to it as a salvation nymph. If adding a tungsten bead to this fly improves its performance, then perhaps it should be outlawed, since it is an extremely productive fish magnet without the tungsten.

As described in my 12/30/2011 post, I initially fished with a salvation nymph on the Conejos River during a 2011 trip, and I experienced quite a bit of success. Each year since then, I tied more of these jewels and fished them over greater time periods until they became my number one workhorse fly during 2015. During 2014 I discovered that they were particularly effective during the pale morning dun hatch time period, however, this past season convinced me that the salvation nymph is a superior fish attractor during all seasons. I usually start my day on the water with a salvation nymph attached to my line as the featured dropper in a dry/dropper configuration or as the point fly in an indicator nymph set up. Rarely does it let me down.

Top Producer

In many cases flies appeal to human beings more than they attract fish, but the salvation nymph is an example of a fly that is extremely pleasing to the eye of a fisherman and is also a tantalizing morsel to the underwater cold water inhabitants of our streams. I love the way the fly reflects light from all angles especially the iridescent sheen that emanates from the flashback and wing case. Adding to the sparkling appeal is the ice dub abdomen, the black peacock ice dub thorax and the copper rib. The small rubber appendages are simply icing on the trout dessert menu.

Salvation Nymphs and Associated Materials

All the materials are synthetic except for the tail, and this translates to durability. I dab the thread wraps with clear nail polish at three key tie down points, and then shellac the wing case and the abdominal covering with a thick layer as well. I nearly always lose these flies to rocks, tree limbs and break offs before they unravel or breakdown on their own.

Lots of Sparkle

Since I use this fly more than any others in my box, I also lose quite a few. I began 2015 with 50 salvation nymphs stashed in my fly bins, and when I recently counted my remaining stock, I discovered that eighteen remained. I increased my desired starting inventory for 2016 to sixty and the arithmetic told me that I needed to produce forty-two to reach my desired starting level. After diligently visiting the tying bench over the past week, I reached my quota, and I am excited to learn whether the salvation nymph can continue to satisfy the cravings of Colorado trout.

Hares Ear 11/05/2015 Photo Album

I caught more fish on a beadhead hares ear nymph than any other fly during my fly fishing lifetime. My friend Dave Gaboury swears that my version, which he calls Dave’s hares ear, is superior to those he purchases. My modest modifications include tying them on a curved scud hook (Tiemco 2457), using small clumps of pheasant body feather fibers for the tail and legs, and including a generous amount of guard hairs from a hares mask in the dubbing. A hunting friend shot a rabbit many years ago in Pennsylvania and donated the hide to my fly tying material cache. I can certainly testify that my hares mask is the real thing, and despite tying at least a thousand of these flies, I still possess ten lifetimes worth of hares mask.

Brown Legs with Fewer Guard Hairs

Unruly Look with Guard Hairs

Gradually over the last couple years I gravitated to a salvation nymph and ultra zug bug ahead of the hares ear, however, I continue defaulting to this reliable general nymph imitation nearly every time I fish. I particularly favor the hares ear on the Arkansas River, as it seems to imitate caddis pupa and yellow sally stonefly nymphs, and these two bugs are quite prolific in Big Horn Sheep Canyon through which the Arkansas flows. Historically I attempted to enter each new season with 100 beadhead hares ear nymphs in my fly bins, but because I rely more on the other two nymphs mentioned earlier, I lowered the starting inventory goal to eighty.

Front Shot of the Pair

When I counted my existing stock of hares ear nymphs several weeks ago, I determined that I had 65, so I tied fifteen new additions to bring my total to the goal amount. When I tie beadhead hares ear nymphs, I dab head cement on the threads after attaching the tail and gold wire for ribbing. I am convinced that this helps to prevent the fly from unraveling at the rear. After I dub the abdomen, rib, and attach the wing case material; I apply another coat of head cement in the thorax area. Of course the head wraps behind the bead receive the final application of head cement to protect the fly from unraveling. This area remains the most vulnerable, and I have several flies that I plan to refurbish because the threads at the head got severed by the teeth of hungry trout.

A Batch of Hares Ear Nymphs

I first discovered this fly in my Scott Sanchez book, and I tied some as a quick simple replacement for a prince nymph. I use a prince nymph primarily during the spring caddis hatch, as it seems to be a reasonable representation of egg laying adults. I can tie the ultra zug bug much faster than a prince, since I do not attach goose biot tails or wings. I am not sure why I limited my usage of the prince to the spring, since I suspect it would be a fish catcher all year long.

During 2014 I attached an ultra zug bug to my line when I was running low on salvation nymphs. Much to my surprise I discovered that this simple fly was highly desired by Colorado trout in the fall as well as during the spring. Consequently I tied a large batch during the off season and entered 2015 with 50 stashed in my storage box. Because I possessed a significant supply, I opted to attach this sparkling nymph to my line very frequently, and I was pleased to find that it produced fish throughout the season.

A Newly Completed Ultra Zug Bug

I recently took an inventory of my workhorse nymphs, and I determined that I needed to tie twenty-one new versions to boost my supply to fifty. I churned these out in two relatively brief tying sessions, and I am set for the next season.

Tying an ultra zug bug is about as simple as it gets. I tie them mainly on Tiemco size 14 2457 hooks, and I drop a 3/32″ gold brass bead on the hook point and push it around the bend to the hook eye. Next I attach a small clump of brown pheasant feather fibers for the tail, but I am sure alternative sources of brown tailing materials are acceptable. Next I tie in a strand of pearl crystal hair, and this step is followed by dubbing the hook shank from the tail to the bead with peacock dubbing. Taper the body and take it all the way to the bead and fill the area behind the bead generously. Next wrap the crystal hair strand as a rib to the bead and then tie it down and snip it off. I believe the crystal hair rib is a key ingredient of this fly, as it provides a nice sparkle from beneath the shaggy dubbing. Finally spin a couple sparse clumps of dubbing around the hook just behind the bead, and then pull the fibers that extend forward back and place three wraps over them to lock in a rear facing position. Whip finish and coat the thread wraps with head cement. The last step is to comb through the spun dubbing and then cut off the fibers that extend beyond the hook bend.

Ten Additions to My Fly Box

That’s it. You now have a simple productive attractor nymph that seems to attract fish all season long. They look extremely buggy, but I am not sure what actual insect they actually imitate. As long as I am catching fish I really do not care.

Having completed my production tying of proven producers, I began to search through books and saved magazine articles for interesting fly patterns that I could tie and add to my expanding inventory. Several years ago I made some soft hackle emergers from Charlie’s Flybox, and these flies proved to be mainstays in my box and very effective during blue winged olive hatches. Charlie Craven writes a column in Fly Fisherman magazine, and a recent pattern from that source caught my eye. It is called a juju emerger, and it has several materials in common with the soft hackle emerger. Given my success with the soft hackle emerger, I resolved to tie some juju emergers.

Yellow Quill Body Emerger

When I reviewed the material list, I discovered that I was missing one key ingredient – olive superhair. I immediately tried to visualize a replacement material and after a short pause, I remembered the quills that I purchased to make quill body flies as described in A.K.’s Fly Box. Unfortunately these require soaking in water to soften them sufficiently to wrap around a hook. I immediately placed some light yellow and medium olive in a cup of water, but when I attempted to wrap the olive one around the hook shank on my first juju emerger, the surface layer cracked and separated from the base. I was anxious to tie an initial prototype, so I improvised again and sorted through my antron yarn supply until I settled on gold antron. I manufactured my first juju emerger using the prescribed materials and steps in the Fly Fisherman article and ended up with a nice wet fly with a gold antron body. I was reasonably pleased, but I still yearned to tie the pattern using the body materials specified in the Craven recipe.

Brown and Olive Super Hair on These Jujus

The following evening I adjourned to my fly tying area and produced two more juju emergers with quill bodies made from the softened quills in the plastic cup. I liked these better than the dubbed body version, but I remained curious to create the specified emerger with a two-toned super hair body. I made one additional deviation from the Craven pattern on these two flies, and that was the substitution of brown pheasant feather fibers for the microfibbet tails. The pheasant fibers are much easier to tie on, and I’m hopeful the microfibbets are not essential to the effectiveness of the fly.

New Juju Emergers Ready for Action

The next weekend I drove to Charlie’s Flybox store in Old Arvada and purchased olive super hair along with an assortment of other needed fly tying materials. With the missing ingredient now in my possession, I cranked out six more juju emergers, and I am quite excited to give them a try. The CDC tuft and the white flouro fiber topping should be great fish attracting attributes.

The Craven soft hackle emerger has risen from an experimental fly to a fly I select ahead of the trusted RS2 during blue winged olive emergence periods. I first tied a batch of these flies during the winter before the 2013 season, and I experienced quite a bit of success with them. Consequently I produced enough to begin 2014 with 50 in my storage bin. As a testimony to their improved status in my selection ranking, I consumed roughly half of my beginning inventory over the past summer, and as a result I decided to tie 26 new soft hackle emergers to bring my stock back to 50 for 2015.

A Completed Craven Soft Hackle

Despite my increased confidence in the soft hackle emerger, I recall several situations where the circumstances seemed perfect for the soft hackle wet fly, yet I was disappointed with the results. During one outing on the South Platte River in Eleven Mile Canyon in April a dense hatch of blue wings evolved, but the soft hackle did not entice the numerous feeding fish to devour my offering. I fished it using a dead drift, but I also imparted movement with numerous line manipulation techniques.

Soft Hackle Emerger Without Bead

I gave these situations some thought and concluded that perhaps I was fishing the soft hackles too deep. Quite a few mayflies were emerging from the surface of the river, but because of the strong wind, they tumbled and skittered across the surface before the trout could respond. Perhaps the trout were tuned into blue winged olive emergers or wind blown cripples just below the surface. My weighted offering may have been drifting beneath the fish’s field of vision.

Another View

For this reason I tied ten new emergers with a tiny nickel bead, and the remainder were tied with no bead. In addition I completed ten on a Tiemco size 20 2457 hook with no bead. These are very small and hopefully will cover situations when the smaller broods of olives hatch on Colorado rivers. If I need to go deep with the emerger pattern, I can always combine it with another larger beadhead nymph as the top fly.

29 Craven Soft Hackle Emergers

My previous post on the zebra midge largely covers the effectiveness of this diminutive subsurface fly, and I have little to add here in late December 2014.

Black Zebra Midge

I counted 18 in my fly bin, so I decided to tie an additional two to bring my total to 20 as I approach the 2015 fishing season. In addition my supply of dark olive zebra midges dwindled to only a few in my fleece pocket, so I produced an additional three of that variety.

Olive Zebra Midge

How can fish see these tiny morsels as they drift in the large rivers of Colorado? It remains a mystery to me, but I do know that they produce, and I will continue to tie them to my line in likely midge feeding situations.

First I imagined a fly that combined the best features of a hare’s ear nymph and a salvation nymph; my two top producing flies in 2014. Next I tied a single prototype, named it hare nation, and posted a photo of the new composite fly on this blog.

Hare Nation Nymph

As I prepared to tie thirteen beadhead pheasant tail nymphs to bring my inventory back to 60, I looked at my hare nation and decided that it was similar in appearance to a pheasant tail but offered some notable enhancements.The hare nation was tied on a size 14 2457 Tiemco hook, and excluding the space consumed by the bead, this yields a fly that approximates a size 16 which is the size range of pale morning dun nymphs. I tie my standard beadhead pheasant tail on a size 16 Tiemco 2457, and I have noticed on several occasions during pale morning dun hatch time periods that the larger nymphs outperform the smaller ones.

Underside

The hare nation contains legs in the form of brown pheasant feather fibers, whereas, my pheasant tail nymph pattern skips legs. Finally the hare nation uses flashy black peacock ice dub and the shiny flashback black and flashabou for the overbody and wing case. I suppose I could add legs to the pheasant tail pattern and tie them on a larger hook, but the most significant difference between the two is the durability of the synthetic materials compared to the brittle pheasant tail fibers.

Completed Cluster of Hare Nations

Perhaps I’m in love with the idea of creating and naming my own fly? At any rate I tied thirteen hare nations and added them to the 47 beadhead pheasant tail nymphs in my fly bin. I still have plenty of the old style pheasant tails as backup in case the hare nation does not yield superior performance and meet my expectations.

Nice Fly

My relationship with the emerald caddis pupa began many years ago during several fishing trips to Pennsylvania, and you can read the background story at beadhead emerald caddis pupa – 01/01/2012. It continues to be a productive fly in my arsenal, and I always plan to have adequate quantities available.

Unlike the bright green caddis pupa which seems to peak in effectiveness around grannom hatch time periods, the emerald version is productive all season long. In fact, I’ve had success with this fly during late afternoon time periods when the water seems dead after a significant hatch. I attribute this to the emerald color. I’ve seen caddis adults bearing emerald tips on their abdomen, so I believe that the color is a significant triggering characteristic.

Six Completed Emerald Caddis Pupa

For 2015 I plan to have 30 emerald pupa in my beginning inventory, and this required me to produce an additional six. I experimented with two different dubbing materials for the collar behind the gold bead. One choice was hares mask fur, and I am quite pleased with the unruly buggy look of this modification. I’m hoping this appearance will convey the illusion of movement and emergence even more than the gray rabbit fur that I have traditionally applied. I have completed six new flies, and I’m ready to explore rivers and streams with emerald caddis pupa.

Great Scraggly Caddis Look

While still living in Pennsylvania early in my fly fishing career, my father and I rented a small cabin along the Beaverkill River in New York during the middle of May. During one day early in our week we encountered a dense grannom emergence, and I managed to catch some fish on a dark cahill wet fly, but I felt like a better imitation would have resulted in more fish landed.

When I returned to the cabin that evening, I pulled out my recently purchased Caddisflies by Gary Lafontaine and researched what patterns imitate grannom pupa. This was my introduction to the bright green emergent caddis pupa. I must have had fly tying materials with me, as I remember producing some caddis pupa as well as some egg laying adult patterns, and the next day I arrived at the river prepared. That following afternoon I was armed with the bright green caddis pupa, and I experienced one of the best days of fishing in the east prior to my relocation to Colorado. I recall two doubles where I had two fish on my line at the same time.

Great Proportions

After I moved to Colorado, I continued to knot a bright green caddis on my line whenever I spotted a fair amount of adults in the air or in the streamside vegetation. I discovered that the sparkle yarn pattern was just as productive in the west as it was in the east.

Historically I’ve experienced the most success with the bright green caddis on the Arkansas River in April and early May when the grannom hatch is at its peak. I fish the pupa on a tandem nymph rig with a split shot and impart various types of movement to the fly in the hours before emergence or egg laying, and this approach yielded a significant amount of success. Unfortunately due to unusually cold high murky water conditions during the spring of 2014, I never encountered the caddis pupa friendly conditions that I seek.

I did have some decent success on the Eagle River in early July during the post runoff time period. During one outing with my friend Todd I was landing quite a few nice fish over a short period of time so I gave him some to test. Todd quickly became a huge fan of the bright green caddis pupa.

Twelve Bright Green Caddis Pupa

I counted my stash of bright green caddis pupa and discovered that I had 28 carry overs in my bin, so I planned to tie an additonal twelve to bring my inventory level to 40. I’m happy to report that this goal has been reached, and I anxiously anticipate a more productive caddis season on the Arkansas River.

In my 12/04/2014 post on the hare’s ear nymph I concocted a fly in my mind that I called a Hare Nation. I envisioned combining the best features of two of my most productive flies into one. I selected the hares mask dubbing for the abdomen and soft hackle legs from the hare’s ear nymph, and then borrowed the flash back black and flashabou from the salvation nymph along with the black peacock ice dub for the thorax.

A Completed Hares Ear

Very Nice Top View

I am happy to report that the hare nation is no longer a figment of my imagination. I tied one the other night. I like the look, but the final product strikes me as a close replica of a flashback pheasant tail nymph. That isn’t really all bad, as it may attract more fish during pale morning dun hatch periods.

Better Top View

What do you readers think? Should I tie more hare nations?