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

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

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.