Today’s Throw Back Thursday is another fly from one of the vintage fly wallets in my collection. And I don’t know the name of it. This wet fly is one I’d fish as a hatching caddis, swimming towards the surface. Perhaps a size 12? If you know what it is, please let me know…a Black Gnat?
I look forward to the month of September every year because I know I’ll have some great fishing the next two months! In addition, it’s the time of year when several bigger bugs hatch. How about October Caddis or the fall drakes? Fall is a fly fisher’s dream. Below, you’ll find the flies that make…
I’ve been in Kauai a couple of weeks and have taken the opportunity to tie a few flies during the rainy and windy days. Fly tying in Kauai isn’t the first time I’ve tied flies in paradise. What was so unique this year were all the chickens running around our condo and the beach! It…
Foam is home. Have you ever heard that phrase? The longer version (my version) is…foam is where fish feel safe and food is readily available. When I fish new rivers, I am always on the lookout for what I hope is some good eddy fishing. Why? That’s where I usually find very nice fish. You…
Here is our recent experience fly fishing the Upper Columbia River at Black Bear Lodge. It’s a unique fishery, catching Rainbow trout in 100,000 cfs of water using dry flies!
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Forest Maxwell’s Purple Matuka. I first started tying this fly in the 90’s after I met Forest. At that time, he worked part-time at Keith Burkhart’s Valley Flyfisher fly shop in Salem, Oregon. Forest talked me into a couple Powell steelhead rods for Karen and me to fish….
I had a terrific time at the 2019 Western Idaho Fly Fishing Expo last weekend in Boise, ID. It was my 7th year tying flies at the Expo and I always enjoy seeing the friends I’ve made in previous years. On Friday afternoon, I decided to demonstrate a variant of the Braided Butt Damsel. And…
Definitely looks like what I learned as a Black Gnat wet fly from my father. He was a part time, local commercial fly tier. He tied trout flies for a couple of local sporting goods stores and tied Coho flies (to be trolled for silvers/cohos) for the local marina shop and boat house. He taught me the basics of tying in my early to mid-twenties and gave me his copy of “A Book of Trout Flies” by Preston Jennings. He tied a dry version of it also – identical except for upright gray quill sections in place of down wings.