Today was a good day. We planted 140,000 Spring Chinook salmon fry in the mainstem of the Metolius River. Ok, truth be known, we probably had a little help…actually, we were only 2 of around 20 volunteers and staff from Oregon’s Fish & Wildlife, Forest Service, and the Warm Springs Tribe who met at Camp…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Ida May, a fly developed by Charles Brooks. The Ida May is listed as a general nymph fly pattern. I probably purchased his book Nymph Fishing for Larger Trout in the 1980’s. It was early in my fly fishing and fly tying journey. I’ve always been interested…
I’m busy getting ready for the 2016 NW Fly Tyer and Fly Fishing Expo in Albany, Oregon on March 11 & 12. I continue my Chair duties again this year. The Expo is sponsored by the Oregon Council of the International Federation of Fly Fishers, where I am the Treasurer. Now you understand why I’ve…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Green Drake Hairwing Dun. The fly was created by Rene Harrop in the 1980’s. In fact, I found a Fly Fisherman magazine article Rene wrote explaining how he developed the Hairwing Dun. Looks like the fly was born in Rene’s mind as he fished the Firehole River. Evidently,…
What leader length do I use? What tippet size do I fish? I’ve been asked those questions quite a bit. And I always point people to a previous RiverKeeper Flies post entitled Make Your Fly Fishing Leader Last Longer about the fly fishing leaders I use to fish dry flies. But if you are new to RiverKeeper Flies, perhaps…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Fern Variant. I found this fly in an antique fly wallet, which is part of my small collection. I’ve shared a few of them in posts titled Antique Fly Wallets and Antique Fly Wallets Revisited. I opened this fly wallet up and picked a fly similar to Ray…
This is my 5th year leading the Central Oregon Flyfishers Winter Fly Tying classes. I really enjoy this activity and it takes up quite a bit of time to prepare and manage, a perfect fit during the winter months. Our rules are pretty simple…be a club member, know the basics of fly tying and bring your…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Lingrens Olive. I found this fly in the American Nymph Fly Tying Manual (1975) by Randall Kaufmann. It imitates many mayfly nymphs and the fly pattern sheet suggests tying these nymphs in sizes 10 – 18. It was named Lingren’s Olive. But after writing this TBT post, I’ve since…
I’m finishing a lake fly order today. Karen and I were fishing Diamond Lake with friends last fall and had great success on Dennys Stillwater Nymph. While our friends caught fish, we had a tremendous day and only used one fly pattern…Dennys Stillwater Nymph. (I wrote about our experience in a previous post – Fly Fishing at…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Wickhams Fancy. It’s another fly I pulled from Ray Bergman’s book Trout. Created in the 1880’s by one of the Wickhams, there appears to be a little family feud as to which family member really developed the fly. Most credit Dr. T.C. Wickham of Winchester with the fly’s creation…
