This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is John Shewey’s Spawning Purple Steelhead fly. I recently finished tying an order of a half dozen Shewey’s Spawning Purple steelhead flies. Shewey created this fly in the mid-1980’s and tells the story of creating this variant of Dave McNeese’s Spawning Purple. McNeese’s version utilized a tail of orange-dyed…
The month of October is a transition for me, as dry fly fishing comes to a close. Sure, you’ll find BWO hatches throughout the winter months, but I spend less time on the water. It’s when seasons change and I transition to fly tying, filling the provider box for next season and participating in Zoom…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Thorax Dun. I found this fly while paging through Vince Marinaro’s book In the Ring of the Rise (1976). Vincent Marinaro (1911-1986) was born in Reynoldsville, PA. He started fly fishing during his high school years in the area’s local waters. In later years, he lived in…
I just finished tying a box of 7 dozen flies I’m donating to an upcoming Casting for Recovery (CfR) auction supporting Casting for Recovery. I hope these flies will bring in a few dollars for the Southern Oregon CfR retreat my wife leads. Casting for Recovery (CfR) is a retreat designed to help women in…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Silver Admiral steelhead fly. I tied this pin recently for my wife as she left to lead a Casting for Recovery retreat. I thought it appropriate to highlight this Polly Rosborough fly as the first TBT fly in October to bring recognition to breast cancer awareness month….
I was watching the river last week, waiting for bugs to hatch and fish rise and began thinking about this week’s post. What topic should I write about? I finally noticed a couple of subtle rings from trout sipping insects. I wonder what they were eating? I tied on a dry fly that didn’t work…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Art Lingren’s Green-Butt Black steelhead fly. Here is another steelhead fly pattern I found in John Shewey’s Classic Steelhead Flies on page 90. Lingren developed this fly around 1983. He is well-known in the steelhead community and knowledgeable about British Columbia fly fishing, which is his home. The link…
If you’ve followed my RiverKeeper Flies posts for a while, you know my fishing partner and I fish a lot. You might interpret today’s title of how to select where to fish as one river over another. Or perhaps it might resonate with you to mean a summer fishing trip to a different state and…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Van Sant Steelhead Fly. The fly pattern is found in John Shewey’s Classic Steelhead Flies, page 178. Shewey attributes this steelhead fly to Josh Van Sant, Jr. (1861-1950) of Eureka, CA. The fly is reminiscent of popular trout wet flies of the early to mid-1900s, namely those…
Yes, I have a problem…feathers, feathers, feathers! I’ve been known to say you can never have enough feathers, but even I must admit my collection has grown substantially over the years. And I might have added to it this summer during our time on the Madison River, MT. No, I didn’t buy all these a…
