2019 NW Fly Tying and Fly Fishing Expo

The 2019 NW Fly Tying and Fly Fishing Expo in Albany, OR begins in a couple of days. It’s one of the largest events of its kind in the country. Besides being a Demonstration Tyer on Friday and Saturday, I’ll be teaching Fine Tuning Your Tying Techniques class on Friday afternoon.

I tied two flies for plates to be auctioned on Friday night – the Legend’s Plate and a plate from my local Central Oregon Fly Tyer’s Guild.

The Legend’s plate is a long-time tradition which includes flies tied by members of an exclusive group – those selected as a Stan Walters Memorial Fly Tyer of the Year. There are some terrific fly tyers on this plate! I am honored to be part of it.

I submitted a Benn’s Coachman steelhead fly for this year’s Legend’s plate.

Benn's Coachman | www.johnkreft.com
Benn’s Coachman

My local Central Oregon Fly Tyer’s Guild continues to create fly plates for the NW Expo to auction. I’ve had flies on those plates and this year was no exception. This year’s theme was the Green Drake Life Cycle.

Here is the Mercer’s Poxyback Green Drake Nymph I tied for the plate. UV resin has replaced epoxy for my flies. It’s much faster and cleaner to apply

Mercer's Poxyback Green Drake Nymph | www.johnkreft.com

Lastly, I’ve been tying lots of flies the last few weeks to fill orders. Here are some Clark’s Stones. You’ll see the original Clark’s Golden Stone, a Clark’s Lady Stone and the Salmonfly versions. These are tied in sizes 8 and 4 respectively.

Here are other blog posts from previous NW Expo’s I’ve written about. If you haven’t seen them, I encourage you to check them out.

I hope to see you at the 2019 NW Expo!

Enjoy…go fish!

Similar Posts

  • Back to Steelhead Flies

    My fly tying has found me back to steelhead flies. I finished a steelhead fly order last week for 40 flies. I thought I’d share them with you. This project was a little change of pace from the many trout flies I’ve been tying. I’m trying to finish some customer orders between all my fishing…

  • Shakey Beeley Soft Hackle

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Shakey Beeley soft hackle. The Shakey Beeley is another wonderful fly pattern from Blue Ribbon Flies in West Yellowstone, MT. And this specific fly  was purchased there a few years ago for a pattern for me to use. It’s one of THE flies used when fishing for…

  • Project Healing Waters

    Central Oregon Project Healing Waters had an outing at Lake in the Dunes last week. What a wonderful event and turnout. Had just shy of 20 Vets out fly fishing. Oh the joy on their faces. This happens to be one of the volunteer efforts taking up my time when I’m not fly fishing myself. I…

  • Ray Bergman Pale Evening Dun

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Ray Bergman Pale Evening Dun. The Pale Evening Dun is a Ray Bergman dry fly listed in his book entitled Trout (1940 – fourth printing) on page 123, Plate No. 6. Bergman was well known for his wet flies, but his book also lists dry flies, streamers, nymphs,…

  • Kent’s Pumpkin Head

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is John Kent’s Pumpkin Head. The Pumpkin Head was created by John Kent originally for fishing in Tunkwa Lake in BC, a highly productive but frequently low visibility lake. Kent originally developed the fly as a damsel imitation, but I’ve used it as an attractor pattern when no hatch…

  • Blue Bottle

     This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Blue Bottle, another Ray Bergman wet fly. I found the Blue Bottle on Plate 1, page 23 from Ray Bergman’s Trout, first published in 1938. Bergman’s book includes 15 colored plates to illustrate the dry and wet flies with a description of each fly in the back. It was…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *