• Royal Charlie

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Royal Charlie. The Royal Charlie is another old fly pattern listed in The North Country Fly – Yorkshire’s Soft Hackle Tradition (2015) by Robert L. Smith. Many of these older soft hackle fly patterns come from the Yorkshire Dales in northern England. Wharfedale is a small area of…

  • Winter and Blue Wing Olives

    Thanksgiving is only a few days away, which means winter is right around the corner. Do you know what that means? Blue Wing Olives will be the mayflies I plan to imitate. Gone are the bigger mayflies. What will get me through the next few months are hatches of BWO’s. So are you ready for…

  • Tyer’s Wax

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is…tyer’s wax! I know it isn’t a fly, but I want to honor the history of fly tying and this is one way I can do that. I’ve been blessed to have a wonderful friendship with Gretchen and Al Beatty. I met them a few years ago during my…

  • Red Clock or Pheasant

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Red Clock or Pheasant. I decided to tie an old soft hackle fly since I’ve been tying so many of my RiverKeeper Soft Hackle Cripples lately. I love the simplicity of these flies and am fascinated by older soft hackle fly patterns…or they would have called them…

  • Lee Wulff’s Hitch Specials

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Lee Wulff’s Hitch Specials. Four flies make up Lee Wulff’s Hitch Specials – Silver Blue, Red Squirrel, Haggis, and Blue Squirrel. These are very interesting flies, built with a molded, plastic body. A friend loaned the flies to me for my Throw Back Thursday Fly posts. Lee Wulff’s…

  • Filling the Provider Box

    November 1st is right around the corner and I’ve talked in previous posts about how fishing changes at this time of year. In the last week or so, I’ve noticed it’s come a little early.  What’s a fly fisher to do? It might be too early to begin filling the provider box, but that’s exactly…

  • Lee Wulff’s Surface Stone Fly

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Lee Wulff’s Surface Stone Fly. This is a very interesting fly, one built with a molded, plastic body. It’s one of several plastic body flies a friend loaned to me for my Throw Back Thursday Fly posts. In Lee Wulff’s Trout on a Fly (1986), he states he came…

  • Importance of Mayfly Spinners

    I sometimes forget about the importance of mayfly spinners. I was on the river the other night with no visible activity. I decided to blind-cast in a couple locations where I know trout live. What fly should I tie on? I remembered PMD’s had been hatching recently and knew from past experience a Rusty Spinner would…