• In-The-Film CDC Midge Emerger

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the In-The-Film CDC Midge Emerger. I found this fly recently while reviewing Ed Engle’s Tying Small Flies book. I tied up four size 22 In-The-Film CDC Midge Emergers and placed them on a dime to show how small they are. I met Ed through a friend while fishing…

  • McMurray Ant

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the McMurray Ant. Ed Sutryn invented the McMurray Ant in the early 1960’s while fishing on a stream in McMurray, Pennsylvania. He watched trout crazily feeding on ants. Sometime later, he found out they were timber ants and set about designing a fly using monofilament, cork, and black…

  • Grey Ugly

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Grey Ugly. Recently, a potential customer contacted me to see if I would tie some Grey Ugly flies for him. I had never heard of this fly and did a quick Google search to learn about it. Looking at an image of the fly, I thought it…

  • California Mosquito TBT

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the California Mosquito TBT. A couple of weeks ago I posted a Mosquito as a Throw Back Thursday Fly. At the time, I had this thought in the back of my head about learning about the Mosquito in one of Randall Kaufmann’s books I purchased in the early…

  • Mosquito

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Mosquito. More of a top view showing split, upright wings. This is another fly from a box of old flies I borrowed from my friend Jim Fisher. He learned to fly fish in Northern Idaho. This fly is probably from the 1950’s or 60’s. I’m still on…

  • More Mayfly Spinners

    A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about PMD spinner fly patterns and shared the Ellis Triple Wing Spinner as a TBT post. Spinners have continued to be a focus in my fly fishing and fly tying. I thought I’d share a few more mayfly spinners. Spinner fishing can be terrific. But locating the spinners…

  • Ellis Triple Wing Spinner

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Ellis Triple Wing Spinner, which I tied to imitate a Rusty Spinner. I thought it was fitting to feature a mayfly spinner as this week’s TBT, since I wrote about PMD Spinner Fly Patterns in yesterday’s post. The Ellis Triple Wing Spinner can be found in Kelly…

  • PMD Spinner Fly Patterns

    I hope you read a recent post where I talked about going Back to the River and all the mayflies we’ve seen on the water. PMD fishing has been good for us on some days and that made me think, I need to restock my fly box with PMD spinner fly patterns. The spinner phase…

  • Missing the Salmonfly Hatch

    I’ve heard through the grapevine that fish are rising to adult salmonflies on the Deschutes River. The beginning of the hatch is here. With the lower river boat ramps closed until later this month due to social distancing guidelines, I might be missing the salmonfly hatch this year. I enjoy floating and fishing the Warm…