• Del Cooper

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Del Cooper. I’ve been reading John Shewey’s Classic Steelhead Flies and decided to look in my Steelhead fly box to see if I had a few of the flies. Low and behold, I found a couple Del Coopers. I must have tied this several years ago. Shewey attributes…

  • Beetle Bailey Catches Fish

    I wrote a post entitled Fly Fishing with Beetles almost two years ago touting how effective fly fishing can be with a beetle on the end of your line. I’m still a believer. I fish a fly I call Beetle Bailey. I shake my head in disbelief and smile at how effective Beetle Bailey catches fish! Beetle Bailey…

  • Blue Bottle

     This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Blue Bottle, another Ray Bergman wet fly. I found the Blue Bottle on Plate 1, page 23 from Ray Bergman’s Trout, first published in 1938. Bergman’s book includes 15 colored plates to illustrate the dry and wet flies with a description of each fly in the back. It was…

  • Just in Time Fly Tyer

    Earlier this month, I wrote a post entitled Where to Fish where I tried to describe the difficulty of all the fly fishing choices available to me. Today I’m headed to the Lower Deschutes to see if the Golden Stoneflies are still around in numbers to have a few fish looking up. And that means…

  • Hackle Stacker

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Hackle Stacker, a style of fly developed by Bob Quigley in the late 1980’s. Bob fished the Hackle Stacker in Southern Oregon and Northern California. The fly utilizes a paraloop technique by winding the hackle around a flexible post of some type. The fly above is a…

  • PMDs Hatching Again

    I was on the river last week and happened to witness a tremendous PMD hatch. I’ve been waiting for the Green Drake mayflies to begin hatching, but it was great to see PMDs hatching again. PMDs, otherwise known as Pale Morning Duns, are an important hatch for fish and fly fishers. Generally, you’ll find these…

  • The Rose

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is The Rose. The Rose is a fly from the collection of Mary Orvis Marbury. I’ll call it a “variant” as I didn’t have the original materials to tie the fly. I used a Golden Pheasant body feather for the hackle and added black ostrich herl at the head…

  • Testing Fly Fishing Knots

    I’ve written about my favorite fly fishing knots in previous posts, but I’m preparing to teach a class entitled Making Effective Leaders for Rivers and Lakes at the International Federation of Fly Fishers Fair in Livingston, Montana on August 4. The Fair runs August 2 to 6. I thought I should use the knots I’ll…

  • Sidewinder No-Hackle

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Sidewinder No-Hackle, by Doug Swisher and Carl Richards. This size 18 fly was given to me recently by a friend who tied it a few years ago. I think he did a terrific job! Notice the small drop of Dave’s Fleximent at the tip of the wing,…