Back to the Fly Tying Vise

After slacking off at the vise for the last two weeks, I just returned yesterday from our trip to Argentina. It will take me a little while to sort through the images before I share them here, but I need to get back to the fly tying vise and complete a couple of fly orders.

It’s certainly an interesting mind game after returning from two weeks of summer in the Southern Hemisphere where we found highs in the 80s and 90s. It hit 100 degrees yesterday afternoon on our drive to the international airport outside of Buenos Aires. The final segment of our trip was a drive over snowy Santiam Pass late today.

The heat made me think about the upcoming summer hatches here in Central Oregon as well as planned trips to Idaho, Montana, and maybe Wyoming. It’s a great segue to the fly tying vise.

Here are the flies I need to complete one order. They’re some of my favorites.

Sparkle Dun – March Brown

Pheasant Tail Soft Hackle

Pheasant Tail Perdigon

These flies should work for the upcoming March Brown hatch in March and April. You can read more about this Mayfly from a couple of posts I wrote on RiverKeeper Flies HERE and HERE.

Clark’s Lady Golden Stone

Chubby Chernobyl – Golden Stone

McPhail’s Golden Stonefly Nymph – Variant

Golden Stones and Salmonflies are a hatch I look forward to every year at the beginning of summer. Around Central Oregon, they begin showing themselves in mid-May on the Deschutes River. Wait until July for the Goldens on the Metolius. You’ll find more flies I like to use in this Favorite Golden Stone and Salmonfly Fly Patterns post.

RiverKeeper Stonefly Nymph

Clark’s Salmonfly

These are a handful of flies I carry from late March through mid-May. It certainly isn’t a comprehensive list, but it’s a state and I’ll be at the vise this week starting to tie up a few of them.

Let me know if you need any of these flies and I’ll add you to my fly order list. Better yet, if you tie your own flies, I offer fly tying videos for many of these on my RiverKeeper Flies YouTube channel.

I plan to share some images next week of our six days of heli fly fishing, using a Bell 407 for our daily trips to rivers at Estancia Chochoy Mallin in the Northwest corner of Patagonia.

Until then…

Enjoy…go fish!