Monday I was fishing the Lower Deschutes from Warm Springs to Trout Creek with my wife and a friend. We were hoping to find some fish still looking to eat Salmonflies and Golden Stones dry flies. This is a busy section of water and it’s tough to find my Zen sometimes. We decided to let…
It’s that special time of year when Salmonflies and Golden Stones are hatching on major rivers close to me. These are the bugs many fly fishers wait for with high expectations. Some fly fishers start shaking as they approach the river knowing the bugs are out and the fish are looking up, ready to explode on their…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Buszek’s Kings River Caddis. I recently finished up a fly order for a customer that included a few of Buszek’s Kings River Caddis. After filling his order and tying a few for myself, I decided this fly would be a good candidate for this week’s TBT post. Buszek’s Kings…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Granam or Green-Tail fly. I thought this was a good fly to go along with the Mother’s Day Caddis post about the American Grannom. I’ve told you before that my Throw Back Thursday Fly segment celebrates older flies and that “old” is in the eye of the…
The Mother’s Day Caddis hatch is well-known and can be amazing to see. And it’s right around the corner. Yes, all those dots in the picture are caddis flying over the water! Thousands and thousands of American Grannom (Brachycentrus occidentalis) hatch at this time of year. These caddis are the ones building square-shaped cases you…
Wow! The weather has changed dramatically this week. The forecast shows 81 degrees on Thursday. The anticipation of some major hatches is very exciting and I decided I have to get a May fly box ready for the river. This is what I hope to catch. I’ve found the fish to be a little more…
I can’t lie. I’ve been a little frustrated lately with spring fly fishing. It always happens this time of year for me. Winter is over and I have expectations of going to the river and see a few mayflies hatching. I love mayflies. There is something elegant about that bug. I enjoy watching them float…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the McKenzie Caddis dry fly. This odd looking body color matches the real insect found on the McKenzie River in Oregon. I found this fly pattern in the 1980’s when I tied a few of these flies for the first time. These caddis flies begin hatching in mid-May and…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Griffith’s Gnat Emerger fly. This is another great fly pattern from Craig Mathews at Blue Ribbon Flies in West Yellowstone, MT. He created a variant of the Griffith’s Gnat with his Zelon Midge and the result was the Griffith’s Gnat Emerger fly. If you are a frequent RiverKeeper Flies reader, you…
Do you know the names of all the bugs you see on the river or lake? Do you need to know these names to catch fish? Not at all. Fly fishers have developed their own common names over the years for many bugs in order to share information about recent fishing trips. I have to…
