Category Archives: Fly Tying

Blogs related to tying flies

Prince Nymph 01/25/2014

Prince Nymph 01/25/2014 Photo Album

Ultra Zug 01/25/2014 Photo Album

Prince nymphs are very productive flies in Colorado so it’s a good idea to have a supply in one’s fly box at all times. Unfortunately I do not enjoy tying these peacock body flies probably because of the temperamental white goose biots that never seem to cooperate when I mount them behind the bead and on top of the body of the fly. The splayed goose biot tails can also be frustrating, but I’ve improved my ability to attach these after watching a YouTube video.

I’ve had the most success with prince nymphs on the Arkansas River in April and May after the heavy caddis hatch arrives, as I believe the peacock body and white wings mimic egg laying caddis adults as they dive to the river bottom. I recall quite a few outings where caddis pupa and dries were not producing so I knotted a prince nymph to my line and began to enjoy some fairly fast action.

Ultra Zug from the Side

Ultra Zug from the Side

Several winters ago I was paging through my Scott Sanchez fly pattern book, and I discovered his ultra zug pattern, so I decided to give it a try. This pattern is a much simpler fly, but it retains the peacock body and presents a very shaggy buggy look. During visits to the Arkansas in the spring of 2012 and 2013 I substituted the ultra zug for the prince nymph in caddis egg laying situations, and I discovered that it worked quite well. As I planned my tying for 2014, I decided to produce more ultra zug flies and skip the more time-consuming prince nymph.

Refurbished Prince Nymph

Refurbished Prince Nymph

As I prepared to tie ultra zugs I went through my canisters of damaged flies and set aside seventeen prince nymphs in varying states of disrepair! This is probably an indictment of my prince nymph tying capabilities as many were missing one or both of the white goose biot wings. I spent a few hours reconstructing these wounded prince nymphs on Saturday, and I now have some of the real thing in addition to the scaled down ultra zugs. Perhaps this spring I can perform some tests and alternate between the two peacock imitations to see which one delivers the best results?

 

 

Copper John – 01/24/2014

Copper John 01/24/2014 Photo Album

The copper john came into vogue as a hot fly perhaps 15 – 20 years ago, and I jumped on the bandwagon and tied a batch at that time. They proved to be quite effective, and I can remember some hot fishing in the pocket water of the Eagle River with a copper john being the primary target of some nice brown trout. I attached the copper john to a yellow Letort hopper using a three foot dropper, and the fish gobbled the shiny nymph like candy.

Side View of Copper John

Side View of Copper John

Aside from the flash of a copper john and a generally fishy look, they are also appealing because of their rapid sink rate particularly when used as a dropper in a dry/dropper arrangement. I tie some of my copper johns with lead wire wrapped behind the bead, and when combined with the copper wire abdomen and the bead, this fly sinks quickly upon entering the stream. The flash of the wire abdomen, the bead, the peacock herl thorax and the flash on the wing case make this fly difficult for trout to miss.

Completed Copper Johns Drying

Completed Copper Johns Drying

For some reason I’ve strayed from using the copper john in recent years and consequently I have not needed to replenish my supply. As I prepared for my trip to Argentina; however, I realized that I was down to nine relics from the copper john heyday so I decided to replenish my stock. I dug through my fly pattern binder and found the John Barr materials list and tying instructions and quickly got in the groove of producing a fresh supply. After generating ten brand new copper nymphs I found four more in need of refurbishment. I was able to salvage the copper wire abdomen and reconstructed the thorax, legs and wing case on these unraveling flies. I feel comfortable with my 2014 supply now, and I plan to test the effectiveness of this solid standby particularly early in the season.

Zebra Midge – 01/24-2014

Zebra Midge 01/24/2014 Photo Album

Perhaps one of the easiest flies to tie is the zebra midge. I had 13 of these small flies in stock so I decided to tie an additional 7. I completed this project in less than half an hour as the most time consuming part of the process is centering the tiny bead over the point of a size 20 hook and sliding it around the bend to the hook eye without dropping the bead or the hook on the floor. Because these hooks and beads are so tiny I clamp the hook in my vice in a backwards J position and use my tweezers to grab the bead and position it over the point of the hook. I always try to hold my hand beneath the hook in case I miss because if one of these falls to the carpet, it is goodbye bead.

Once the bead is on the hook, I simply attach my black thread to the hook and then attach a length of fine silver wire. I wrap the thread up the hook shank making sure that the metal is covered and at the same time creating a gradual taper. Once I’ve covered the hook shank, I wrap the fine silver wire forward to form a rib and then tie it off just behind the bead. The final step is to whip finish behind the bead and this creates a bit of bulk that imitates the head.

Zebra Midge

Zebra Midge

The zebra midge is a fly I should probably fish with more frequently. I fall into the trap of thinking that the fish cannot see such a tiny morsel drifting in the current; however, I must say that on the occasions when I’ve used one, I’ve had a fairly high success rate. Generally I’ve used a zebra midge in the morning before I observe larger insect activity, and it has produced fish. I can remember instances on the Frying Pan River, Big Thompson River and Arkansas River where I’ve added a zebra midge to my line and experienced some success. I’ve added it as the point fly on a two fly nymphing setup with a strike indicator, but more success has resulted from using it as the second fly below a buoyant attractor with a larger nymph above it.

I seldom fish lakes, but I’ve also had good luck with a zebra midge dangled off a Chernobyl ant or similar large attractor when I’ve noticed adult midges fluttering above the water. Hopefully I’ll recognize midge situations during 2014, and the zebra midge will serve me well.

Baetis Nymphs – 01/12/2014

Baetis Nymphs 01/12/2014 Photo Album

Upon finishing the salvation nymph supply, I reviewed my fly tying to do list and noticed that the next patterns were RS2’s and soft hackle emergers. These are both very productive flies in Colorado during the spring and fall BWO hatches. I’ve had days when trout tune into these subsurface imitations like kids tune into candy on Halloween night. I can recall several occasions when I spotted only a handful of adults in the air, but the fish hammered subsurface nymphs and emergers. Apparently the nymphs get active but do not always emerge on the surface, and the fish notice this.

Beadhead RS2

Beadhead RS2

The RS2 has historically been my most productive baetis nymph imitation, and I’ve gradually evolved to tying all of them with a tiny nickel bead behind the eye. This added weight allows me to fish the RS2 as a single dropper beneath a buoyant attractor, although I sometimes fish it as a third fly on the point with a larger beadhead nymph in the middle position. There are also many times when the dry/dropper does not produce, but fishing a deeper nymph rig with a strike indicator does the trick. The RS2 is also productive in these instances as the point fly. I suspect this method excels when the nymphs are swimming up from deeper in the water column.

Teal Baetis Nymph

Teal Baetis Nymph

Once I completed the 15 RS2’s according to my plan, I found another ten that were in my refurbishment supply, and I made them as good as new. In addition, I retrieved 9 teal baetis nymphs and 8 WD40’s and refurbished them as well. These two patterns also imitate BWO nymphs, and I’ve had occasional success with them. The WD40’s present a very narrow profile and seem to produce best when extremely tiny mayflies are visible in the air.

WD40

WD40

The final pattern that I tied in this BWO genre was the soft hackle emerger. This pattern caught my eye when I spotted it in Charlie’s Flybox, and I made a few two winters ago and then experimented with them successfully during the summer of 2012. Given this success I stocked up on more for 2013, and they became much more of a mainstay on my line. In fact, I began going to the soft hackle emerger before the RS2 in many situations, and I was not disappointed. After tying nine additional soft hackle emergers, I enter 2014 with 50 at my disposal. This is indicative of my confidence in this new addition to my arsenal.

Another View of the BWO Soft Hackle Emerger

Another View of the BWO Soft Hackle Emerger

Salvation Nymph – 01/06/2014

Salvation Nymph 01/06/2014 Photo Album

When I posted my last report on the salvation nymph a year ago around this time, it was mainly an experimental fly. I’d caught a few fish on it, but there were other flies in my arsenal that spent more time on the end of my line. After another year of fly fishing I can report that the salvation nymph has improved its ranking among the various flies in my box. There were several occasions during the year when this fly came through in a big way, so I decided to replenish my supply for the coming season.

I counted 13 in my large storage box plus a few in my fleece pouch so I decided to tie an additional 19 to bring my inventory to 35 entering the new season. Upon my return from Argentina and after taking a break during the holiday season, I returned to my fly tying desk with the start of 2014. I finished tying my supply of beadhead hares ear nymphs and launched into salvation nymph production tying mode. I followed the steps outlined in a previous blog post and completed the nineteen according to my plan. Similar to the hares ear nymph I added several additional points where I applied head cement to hopefully prolong the life of the fly before the thread unravels.

Closer Top View

Closer Top View

Once I’d completed nineteen new flies I searched through the four or five canisters of unraveling and damaged flies on my desk and discovered four or five in need of repair. I refurbished these and brought my total stock to 40. Hopefully these will serve me during the coming year as I intend to use the salvation nymph even more frequently than in previous seasons. I love the look of this attractor nymph with numerous points of light reflection including ice dub, pearl flashabou, and flash back black.

November Fly Tying – 11/27/2013

November Fly Tying 11/27/2013 Photo Album

It’s 9:30AM on November 27 and I’m killing time waiting to depart for the airport and our long flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina. High temperatures in Buenos Aires are around 80 degrees and highs in Bariloche are upper 60’s and low 70’s. I can’t wait, even though highs in Denver for Thanksgiving are projected at 55 degrees. My bags are packed, my checklists are marked, and in an hour Jane and I will depart for the RTD terminal where we will board the Skyride shuttle that will transport us to DIA.

Size 14 Black Caddis Tied for Argentina

Size 14 Black Caddis Tied for Argentina

In preparation for the fishing in Argentina I purchased some flies and allocated some of my inventory to an Argentina fly box. In addition Taylor Edrington advised that I should be prepared with some large caddis as Patagonia has a heavy population of these insects. I have quite a few caddis that I tie for Colorado, but they are mainly size 16, so I sat down at my vice and produced some size 14 caddis. I made three with a medium olive body, three Adams gray, three black and three tan. I already possessed three yellow versions that I purchased. I tied these flies with a deer hair tail, brown hackle palmered over the body, a deer hair wing and a grizzly hackle in front of the wing. These flies should float well and present a very bushy image on the lakes and streams of Argentina.

Nice Scraggly Hares Ear

Nice Scraggly Hares Ear

Another phase of my preparation was to take an inventory of all my go to nymphs and attractors. I created a list with a count of the flies I had and then also noted how many I planned to tie this winter for the 2014 season. My top producer year in and year out has been Dave’s beadhead hares ear nymph and I like to enter each season with 100 of these in stock. My count revealed to me that I needed to tie 44 to rebuild my inventory to 100, so I’ve been busy working on this goal over the last two weeks. In addition I tied 15 for a fishing buddy and packaged them up and put them in the U.S. mail. I tied my beadhead hares ears in the same manner as I’ve used historically, however, I initiated the practice of applying head cement at three critical junctures in the process to improve durability. I noticed that my hares ears tend to unravel just in front of the tail and also just behind the bead, so I dab head cement on the thread wraps just in front of the tail before dubbing the abdomen. Once I’ve tied in the wing case I apply more head cement to the wraps in the thorax area before wrapping the dubbing. Finally I apply clear nail polish to the final wraps behind the bead. Hopefully all these improvements will enhance the durability of Dave’s hares ear nymph.

Lime Green Trude 2013

I first became aware of the lime green trude during a trip to Jackson, WY in the 90’s. I arranged for a day of float fishing on the Snake River and the fly shop where I booked the trip forced me to pre-buy a quantity of flies. I was not pleased with this as I only paid for the flies I used in all my other guided fishing trips, but I went along with the policy and of course at the end of the day I possessed quite a few new unused flies. Among this residual inventory of flies were several lime green trudes.

Lime Green Trude 2013 Photo Album

Being the frugal fly fisherman that I am, I rotated a few on to my active fly patch and on occasion tied one on to my line to experiment with their effectiveness. I remember one of my early lime green trude successes was catching some fish on a lake in the Flat Top Wilderness. As time progressed I gained more confidence in the fly and had some nice action on the Roaring River in Rocky Mountain National Park and also caught some decent fish late in the afternoon on the Eagle River. One nice aspect of the lime green trude is the white calf tail wing which creates good visibility in many difficult lighting conditions.

Lime Green Trude

Lime Green Trude

Recently I’ve gone to the lime green trude when I spot yellow sallies, but I’ve had mixed results with this. I tend to tie them in size 14, so they may be a bit large for this application. Probably my favorite way to use a lime green trude is as the top fly on a dry/dropper setup generally in combination with a beadhead RS2 or beadhead pheasant tail. A size 14 trude can support these small nymphs but is probably not buoyant enough to stay afloat above a size 14 beadhead hares ear or larger nymph. I particularly like casting the trude and nymph combination in smooth relatively shallow pools where skittish fish are easily spooked by the increased surface disturbance caused by a larger fly.

Tilted at 45 Degrees

Tilted at 45 Degrees

The original trude pattern calls for a golden pheasant tippet as the tail; however, I’ve substituted a small clump of deer hair, and the fly seems to remain effective. In fact I believe that the deer hair supports the hook better and offers more buoyancy.

I tied enough additional lime green trudes so that I have around 20-25 as I get close to kicking off the 2013 season.

Green Drakes 2013

I love fishing green drake dry flies. I’ve encountered them on quite a few streams throughout Colorodao including the St. Vrain Creek, Roaring River, Clear Creek, the Conejos River, Fraser River, South Boulder Creek, Taylor River and the Frying Pan River. The most consistent for me has been the Frying Pan River and it is rare that I don’t encounter them on any trip in August through October. This summer I discovered South Boulder Creek and ran into green drakes on two or three visits to that pretty canyon stream below Gross Reservoir.

Green Drakes 2013 Photo Album

I was confident I had the green drake fly puzzle solved until this summer. I locked into making green drake comparaduns using microfibbet tails, medium olive dubbing with a maroon thread rib, and a dark deer hair wing. Mistake number one is locking into something and even worse was convincing myself that I had it figured out.

My problems began in July when I visited the Taylor River below Taylor Reservoir. According to the fly shop fishing report I was catching the tail end of the green drake hatch in the upper river near Lottis Creek Campground. Unfortunately my green drake comparaduns were not fooling the fish and in addition my flies became waterlogged and sank shortly after I tied them on to my tippet. I sorted out my flies at the campground that night and discovered that I had both size 14 and 12 comparaduns. The next day I managed to land a fair number of fish on the comparaduns, but I spent quite a bit of time blotting the abdomen and shaking flies in my dry shake cannister.

Green Drake Comparadun

Green Drake Comparadun

On another outing on South Boulder Creek I ran into the same problem; my flies were too large and they sank too easily. This prompted me to tie a few green drake parachute flies. I tied these on a Tiemco 200R size 12 hook and eagerly transported them along on a trip to the Frying Pan in August. These flies solved the flotation problem, but once again the fish did not show interest in them except for one gullible cutthroat trout. I switched back to the size 14 comparaduns, and these produced nicely during one overcast afternoon near the spring.

I was now at a stage in my winter fly tying where I needed to stock some green drake dry flies. I decided to do some research on the internet before beginning and discovered there are actually three species of western green drakes present in Colorado. One hatches earlier than the others and is imitated with a size 12 fly. The others hatch later in the season and are best matched with a size 14 hook. This probably explains my inconsistent success when I failed to pay close attention to the size of the comparadun I was using. I also watched a YouTube video of a tyer in Oregon making a parachute green drake and noticed that he used five or six moose mane fibers to create a tail that was much thicker than the split microfibbets I was using.

Size 14 Parachute Green Drake

Size 14 Parachute Green Drake

With these observations planted in my brain I sat down and tied eight size 14 parachute green drakes using a moose main bundle for the tail and grizzly saddle hackles dyed dark olive for the hackle. I purchased a nice olive Keough saddle hackle patch at the fly fishing show in January for this very purpose. I’m very pleased with these flies and hope that they will prove effective this summer. Since I already tied three of the larger size 12 paradrakes last year, I plan to produce three additional models so that I have six going into the new season.

Top View

Top View

Fishing large dry flies to feeding trout in a cold mountain stream in summer is one of the most enjoyable experiences I can think of. Hopefully I’ll have a few more days like this in my future.

 

 

Light Gray Comparadun 2013

I completed the deer hair caddis and yellow sallies and decided to take inventory of my light gray comparaduns also known as the money fly. I counted ten size 14’s and ten size 16’s and decided to tie an additional 10 size 16’s.

This fly has been a great producer for me over the last three or four years, particularly  when I encounter a pale morning dun hatch. I’m not sure why the light gray body fly works so well as pale morning duns tend to have a light yellow body in my opinion. The light gray poly dubbing that I use for the body has very slight yellow undertones so perhaps that explains the success.

New Light Gray Comparadun

New Light Gray Comparadun

Several years ago my friend Jeff Shafer was scheduled to visit me and fish in Colorado. He asked what flies he should tie before his trip, and I told him about my great success with the light gray comparadun on the Colorado River. He asked me to send a photo so he could tie a few. I was looking for a nice background to photograph the fly against and placed it on the margin of a page of the Wall Street Journal. I told Jeff this was an appropriate choice since the light gray comparadun was a money fly thus the alternative name, money fly.

Little Black Stonefly 2013

During two late fly fishing outings to South Boulder Creek I encountered a small black stonefly hatch. During the first meeting I was able to catch a few fish using a size 16 deer hair caddis that was tied sparsely; however, I felt I could have done better with a fly that more closely imitated the natural stoneflies.

South Boulder Creek 10/23/2012 Photo Album

Small Stonefly Rests on Photographer's Hand

Small Stonefly Rests on Photographer’s Hand

I returned to my vise and produced some decent size 18 black stonefly imitations that used a dark coastal deer hair wing and dark olvie brown dubbing for a body. On a return to South Boulder Creek on 10/23/2012 this fly produced nicely in the afternoon, but I felt it was still a bit large to match the naturals in South Boulder Creek. My friend Jeff Shafer has been tying stonefly adults using sculpin wool for wings and suggested I give this a try. Jeff had mailed me several chunks of this material so I produced three or four with sculpin wings. I never returned to South Boulder Creek to test this pattern, but I did try them out on the Big Thompson River late in the season, and landed several fish. The dark body and charcoal wool wing make this fly extremely difficult to follow on the river, but it is a very close reproduction of the natural insect. Not wanting to fall short on my inventory of small black stoneflies, I crafted ten size 20 flies using the sculpin wool for a wing.

From the Top

From the Top

There are probably addtional hatches of small caddisflies where this fly might produce as well, so I am armed with some small stonefly and caddis imitations for the coming season.