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 (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…
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…
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…
While sitting at the vise today, I decided to celebrate the 4th of July. Here’s what popped out the jaws.
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…
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…
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…
I don’t know why they work so well, but purple flies seem to catch the fish’s attention. What really made me a believer is the biggest rainbow trout I’ve ever seen on the Metolius River was caught on a size 16 Purple Haze. That was a few years ago. I taped it at 26 1/2″….
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Partridge and Orange Soft Hackle. Soft hackles are an old style of fly and were developed before Izaak Walton wrote the Compleat Angler in 1653. I’ve used various versions of soft hackles and eventually developed the RiverKeeper Soft Hackle Cripple and fish it as a dry fly. Others…
