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.

Steelhead Flies | www.johnkreft.com

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 and the volunteer activities I signed up for.

Before I get too far into this week’s post, I wanted to remind you to write a letter about the Metolius River regulation changes. Here is a link to the letter I sent – Metolius Letter.

I was asked to tie classic hair wing steelhead flies as well as spey flies…40 in total.

Let me begin with the “easy” flies…hair wing steelhead flies.

Black Prince

Black Prince | www.johnkreft.com

Del Cooper

Del Cooper | www.johnkreft.com

Freight Train

Freight Train | www.johnkreft.com

Black Gordon

Black Gordon | www.johnkreft.com

Purple Peril 

Purple Peril | www.johnkreft.com
Purple Peril

Mojo Magic

Mojo Magic | www.johnkreft.com

Shewey’s Spawning Purple

Shewey's Spawning Purple | www.johnkreft.com
Shewey’s Spawning Purple

How about a few spey flies? You might have read about my first experience with spey flies Tying Spey Flies – I’m Scared. That post is from December 2014. I’ve come a long way since then!

I wrote a post in January 2015 entitled Another Spey Fly – Done. Here are the issues I was dealing with then.

  • What feathers should I use for the heron substitute?
  • How many wraps will I get with a specific feather?
  • Where should I tie in 3 different tinsels…side, bottom, side? And in what order?
  • What spacing should I use to get the standard 5 turns for each tinsel?

In the Spey Flies Lessons Learned post (December 2016), I shared my thoughts about tying a spey fly with married wings.

Still Working on Spey Flies (December 2016) found me working on:

  • Mounting the tail without splaying the golden pheasant topping fibers.
  • I’ll continue to mount the tinsel ribbing materials with long tags so not to create little bumps at the tie-in, tie-off points.
  • Selecting the proper materials, particularly goose shoulder feathers. I’ve never tied with goose before. I found most of the feathers I have to choose from have slightly feathered tips, which aren’t good for married wings. The tips are difficult to stay married together. The proper materials are critical.
  • Two-strand wool yarn vs. floss for the fly’s butt section.
  • Don’t forget that proportions are very important for mounted flies.

These posts were an important learning experience for me because I was able to verbalize the struggles I had. Over time, I overcome my fears and become a much better fly tyer.

How did I do that? Practice!

Simple right? Tying a variety of flies for my Throw Back Thursday Fly feature has really helped my fly tying. It reinforces techniques and having the proper materials to tie a fly. I seem to write about that aspect of fly tying quite a bit.

Fast forward to today, I’ve been VERY happy with the spey flies I’ve tied. Recently, I finished a Spey Fly Project.

Golden Spey | www.johnkreft.com

And today I’m sharing pictures of the spey flies I tied for a customer.

Fire Ant Spey

Fire Ant Spey | www.johnkreft.com

And one of my favorite steelhead flies to tie, the Lady Caroline, a fly pattern from the 1800s..

Lady Caroline | www.johnkreft.com

Lastly, the Green Butt Skunk Spey. It’s the fly I was working on when I tried married wings.

Green Butt Skunk Spey | www.johnkreft.com

I hope you enjoyed viewing the images of these steelhead flies.

I’m on to the next project.

Go fish!

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