It’s that time of year where I start to think about pulling out my Euro nymph rod and head to the river. You know how much I enjoy fishing dry flies, but hatches at this time of year can be very short, like 20 minutes, or nonexistent. If I want a chance at hooking up,…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Mike Mercers Poxyback Green Drake Nymph. I’m tying this fly to complete a fly order and thought Mercer’s Poxyback Green Drake nymph was a great candidate for a TBT post. I found this fly pattern several years ago in Mike Mercer’s Creative Fly Tying (2005) book. Mercer writes…
I’m preparing to teach a Zoom fly tying class in a couple of weeks. I thought it would be an appropriate time to share a few thoughts about selecting the proper deer hair to tie Sparkle Dun and X Caddis flies. As a bonus, I’ll include information about hair I use for Stimulators and Clark’s…
I can’t believe this is the last Throw Back Thursday Fly post for 2020. It’s the last Thursday of the year and I thought it was appropriate to share a few of my favorite Throw Back Thursday Flies for 2020. In case you missed the flies and their stories, just click on the fly’s name…
The new year of 2021 is only a couple days away and I thought it timely to provide a few highlights of 2020 on RiverKeeper Flies. I’d like to express my gratitude to all the subscribers and regular readers who continue to read my weekly content and use the website as a reference to improve…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Stalcup’s Stillborn Emerger TBT. Here is another example of Shane Stalcup’s creative mind. He tied this fly backwards, starting at the eye and working towards the bend of the hook. The fly is designed to ride flat on the surface. In all honesty, it felt very odd tying…
I recently had a question from a customer asking for ideas of how to fish the nymphs they were purchasing from me. I’ve written about the variety of ways I tie on two nymphs to my leader, but I thought it might be a good time to refresh your memories. So, today’s post provides several…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Stalcup’s Emergent Cripple Dun. I decided it was time to feature another Shane Stalcup fly. I first learned of Stalcup’s flies in his book Mayflies “Top to Bottom” (2002). I thought it was interesting looking at the materials he used to create close imitations to the real insects. It was…
Last week I talked about filling three orders for customer Christmas presents in My Favorite Dry Flies of 2020 post. I finished the orders yesterday, a total of 191 flies. What I really enjoyed about this project was the diversity of flies I tie…river flies, lake flies, and steelhead flies. The image below are the…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Ray Bergman’s Hawthorne. Bergman’s Hawthorne is a wet fly listed in his book entitled Trout (1940 – fourth printing) on page 64, Plate No. 4. As I’ve mentioned many times, I enjoy highlighting a Bergman wet fly because it forces me to sit down and tie these elegant flies. Bergman’s…
