Paradrake 09/11/2012 Photo Album

I was not satisfied with the performance of my green drake comparaduns during my last visit to the Frying Pan River and also on a recent outing on South Boulder Creek. I was able to get only a couple drifts until the fly began to sink and required sponging the moisture with my shirt and dipping in the drying powder. As I planned another trip to the Frying Pan River, I decided to do something about it.

I searched on line for green drake parachute fly and found a link to an Oregon fly shop with a video demonstrating the tying of a paradrake. I liked the style of fly and decided to make some prior to leaving for the Frying Pan on Thursday, September 13. The main feature I gained from the tying demonstration was how much thicker the moose mane tail was. The fly shop pattern used CDC as the wing and goose biots for the body and I didn’t care for these options so I adapted my own materials.

New Paradrake for Better Flotation

I stayed with the same Tiemco 200R size 12 3XL hook that I was using previously. I feel that this is the correct size other than for the smaller South Boulder Creek version, and I’ll address that later before I visit that stream again. I used olive thread and tied on a white calf tail wing. After I stood the wing up and created a thread base for wrapping the parachute hackle, I used a permanent black marker to color the bottom half of the wing. This resulted in a gray shade, but the top or tip of the wing remained white for better visibility. Hopefully this won’t turn off the fish. Picking up the drab olive/gray green drake is very difficult for my aging eyes.

Wellerfish Paradrake from Bottom

Next I moved to the tail and tied in five or six stacked moose mane fibers. I wrapped the thread up over the butt section of the moose mane almost to the base of the wing. I feel the hollow moose mane fibers will also add buoyancy. Next I returned to the base of the tail and tied in a section of maroon sewing thread for the rib. I dubbed the abdomen with the same light olive material that has proven itself on my comparaduns and then wrapped the ribbing to the base of the wing. Next I tied in a grizzly hackle concave side pointing down. The fly shop video used a grizzly hackle dyed olive, and if I had this material I would have used it. Hopefully my version isn’t a bit too light. I applied the same dubbing that I used for the abdomen to the thread and wrapped the thorax and then wrapped the hackle parachute style around the wing post.

I’m fairly certain this fly will improve over my comparaduns from a flotation perspective. I’m convinced the main features that are important to a trout from its underwater vantage point are the color of the underside of the body and the general size and silhouette of the fly. I think my version of the paradrake clicks on all these factors. Hopefully I’ll find out tomorrow how my paradrake performs on the upper Frying Pan River.

Mugly Caddis 01/22/2012 Photo Album

I’m quite excited about the latest batch of flies I tied today, Sunday, January 22. I spotted the fly and tying directions in Charlie Craven’s book, Charlie’s Fly Box, and today I generated six size 16 mugly caddis with olive brown bodies. These flies are purposely designed to be shaggy and unruly, and I love flies that fit that description. I’ve often caught numerous fish on a bedraggled fly, and it seems the more the fly deteriorates, the more the fish respond. The mugly caddis is analogous to buying faded jeans as it is created to look used.

Olive Body Mugly Caddis

In order to tie this fly I purchased two tan snowshoe rabbit feet. I’ve never tied a fly with this material, and I’m excited to see how it works. It certainly seems to bring a lot of air pockets to the underwing. In addition to offering a life like appearance, the mugly caddis is fairly easy to tie with only three materials involved.

Underside

Snowshoe Rabbit Underwing

At the end of October Dave Gaboury and I drove to the fairgrounds parking lot in Eagle, CO and gathered our rods and headed down the bank to fish the Eagle River across from where Brush Creek enters. The river was fairly low and Dave and I were hoping to catch a few fish after a very slow morning on Brush Creek. The sky was quite overcast and air temperatures fell into the 40’s while we were fishing.

Jujubaetis with Epoxy

Jujubaetis

We immediately saw a fisherman across from us in the nice long run and riffle below the entrance of Brush Creek. He was landing a fish as we approached the river, and Dave G. called out and asked him what he was using. The friendly fisherman replied, “prince nymph and jujubaetis”. I had seen the jujubaetis pattern in my Charlie’s Fly Box book authored by Charlie Craven, so I resolved to tie this great looking fly. The fact that the gentleman across from us was catching fish on it only reinforced my desire.

Flashback on Top

As I prepared to tie flies for the upcoming season, I made a list of what I planned to tie, and from that list I created a bill of materials. On a Saturday Jane and I drove to Old Arvada and visited Charlie’s Fly Box, and the salesman there helped me obtain the materials necessary to tie jujubaetis nymphs. This weekend I pulled out my book and the purchased materials and made five of these great looking flies. Since tying the jujubaetis involves using two different colors of thread, I made the tail and abdomen on five flies with the white thread and set aside. Next I switched to black thread and tied on the remaining materials. I set these aside and as a last step I added a layer of clear nail polish. I hope to purchase some five minute epoxy and finish them off with the appropriate coating.

Underside with Legs Visible

Perhaps the first dry fly that I had any consistent success with was the trico spinner. Tricos hatch like clockwork during the summer on the Little Lehigh Creek in Allentown, Pa., and I spent many weekend mornings trying to hook gulping trout on this waterway within the city limits of Allentown. This proved to be a great education in stealthy approach, casting and following a tiny dry fly for a relatively novice fly fisherman like myself.

Trico Spinner

When I moved to Colorado I assumed that my pursuit of trout sipping trico spinners was behind me, but I was mistaken. There are numerous streams in Colorado that host fairly dense trico hatches. Some of the first ones I witnessed were on the South Platte River between Spinney and Eleven Mile Reservoirs. Eventually I encountered spinner falls on the South Platte River near Deckers and some particularly predictable and steady hatches in Eleven Mile Canyon. This past summer I caught a few nice fish on trico spinners on the Arkansas River below Salida.

Top View of Trico Spinner

Because of these occasional encounters with the trico, I depleted my supply and decided to replenish this during January. I consulted my friend, Jeff Shafer, who continues to live in the Lehigh Valley about the latest trends in trico spinner tying. Jeff told me he has had good recent success using charcoal sculpin wool for the wings. This material more closely matches the gray opaque natural trico wing when viewed from beneath the water. Jeff was kind enough to mail me several hanks of sculpin wool, and I used this material to produce seven trico spinners. I also tied five spinners using the white poly wing from my past. Bring on the tricos as I’m ready to offer my charcoal wing imitations this summer.

Charcoal Wing Spinner