• Chernobyl Ant

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Chernobyl Ant. It’s an attractor fly pattern and can imitate cicada, crickets, grasshoppers, and stoneflies. Larry Tullis of Orem, Utah relays the fly’s development in Tying Flies with Foam, Fur, and Feathers by Harrison Steeves. Larry tied up a foam body cicada from a beach sandal in the late…

  • Fishing East Lake

    I was fishing East Lake again on Monday. But before we went, I had to restock the “provider box”. So I tied up some Callibaetis Sparkle Dun and Harrops Callibaetis Paraspinner flies along with my latest favorite Callibaetis pattern, the RiverKeeper Callibaetis Emerger. My latest theory about Callibaetis fishing is to not bother fishing with a Callibaetis dun. That’s the…

  • Dougs Damsel Nymph

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Dougs Damsel Nymph. And here is what it looks like when wet. And a picture of the real damsel nymph. I began tying and fishing these flies in the mid-1990’s. I found the fly in Tying Nymphs book by Randall Kaufmann. I tied a lot of flies from that…

  • Pale Morning Duns

    Pale Morning Duns (PMD) are the major hatch I’m fishing lately. The Green Drakes are done, so PMDs are what I’m looking for. This is a picture I took of the real Pale Morning Dun. The distinguishing features of a PMD are 3 tails and light gray wings with a leading edge of yellow stain. The body…

  • Alder Fly

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Alder Fly. This fly is an old English fly pattern that is hundreds of years old. In fact, some quick Internet research suggests it may have been developed around 1496 when it was included in Dame Juliana Berners first fly fishing book Fysshe and Fysshynge. I wonder if…

  • Top 10 Dry Flies for July

    The Green Drakes are winding down, so I decided I better begin thinking about what fly patterns I’ll be fishing soon and make sure the fly boxes are stocked. What better way than to come up with a list of the Top 10 Dry Flies for July? The list I compiled could be used on…

  • Bi-Visible

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Bi-Visible. Ever use one? I have…many years ago. But I haven’t had one in my fly box for some time. The Bi-Visible was created in the early 1920’s by Edward Ringwood Hewitt. In his book Telling on the Trout (1926) Hewitt stated: “Dark colors are more visible to the trout…

  • Next Cast Flyfishers Camp

    A couple of weeks ago, I helped my wife Karen teach 12 kids from ages 10 to 14 about fly fishing during the Next Cast Flyfishers Camp. It’s part of our fly club’s Next Cast Flyfishers (our youth program) goal to get kids into fly fishing in Central Oregon. This is a picture of the kids…

  • Purple Peril

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Purple Peril. Since I wrote about Purple Flies in this weeks blog, I felt it appropriate to select it as a Throw Back fly. The Purple Peril was developed by George McLeod from the Seattle area before World War II. Paraphrasing from Classic Steelhead Flies by John Shewey, George’s…