Since the Crooked River Flies, Basic Dry Flies, and Basic Nymph Flies Fly Boxes are so popular, I thought I’d add an East Lake Fly Box to my RiverKeeper Flies Fly Patterns page. While my first love is river fishing, I do fish lakes. In fact, friends are surprised when they see me at a lake. I guess my…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Quigley Cripple, developed by Bob Quigley in the late 1970’s for Northern California’s Fall River. Seems like Northern California is the birthplace of several flies I like. Here is my Green Drake Quigley Cripple. As the story goes, Bob was fishing a Humpy and catching fish with…
In this week’s post, I wanted to share a fish story that happened to me last week. How many times do you walk along the river and say “there’s gotta be a fish there”? It happens to me frequently. I’ve been lucky enough to fish a lot, caught some fish over the years and perhaps…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Muddler Minnow. Muddlers imitate various bait fish, namely sculpins. This is a fly I tied many years ago…a feeble attempt at best. The development of the Muddler Minnow was attributed to Don Gapen of Anoka, Minnesota in 1937. Don’s parents ran the Gateway Lodge Resort on the shore…
Here are some recent changes I’ve made to RiverKeeper Flies. The changes include: Fly Patterns Page There’s an old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words”. With that in mind, I’ve been busy revising the Fly Patterns page to provide a simpler method of finding flies. Clicking any picture on the new Fly Patterns page will take you to…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the LaFontaine Sparkle Pupa, developed by Gary LaFontaine. Caddisflies was first published in 1981. It was a classic as soon as it was written. Before his book came out, most the talk in fly fishing was about Mayflies. Caddisflies changed everything. Gary spent many years researching caddis. In fact, it took…
Have you ever heard the term “foam is home”? Here is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. The main current is flowing towards us in the top of the picture and this eddy is capturing bubbles created by the river. And with insects in the drift, this is a natural conveyor belt of…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Birds Nest, another one of Cal Bird’s inventions. The history for the Birds Nest is a little mixed up for me. I found three versions: So you pick which one you’d like to believe. Regardless, it was and still is a great pattern for multiple bugs if used…
Sunday was a beautiful day for a Central Oregon Project Healing Waters Crooked River outing. My wife and I were mentors again to help a few Vets hook up on some fish. We tied a few knots, suggested a fly or two, tweaked the casting stroke for nymph fishing, and offered pointers on how to read…
The Metallic Caddis is this week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly. I found this fly pattern in the mid-90’s from Randall Kaufmann’s Tying Nymphs book. I don’t think I had tied a lot of bead-head nymphs as beads only came to America in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s. Tying Nymphs stated Dennis Black of Umpqua Feather Merchants signed…
