I’ve been spending quite a bit of time at the vise recently, tying a variety of flies for customers. Fishing will pick up soon and I’ll be off on this year’s fly fishing road trips, so I need to get as many flies tied as possible in the next month or less. If you read…
Spring is here, the middle of April. What that tells me is some of my favorite insects will begin hatching in less than a month. We went to the river recently, once with fly rods in hand and another day to enjoy the river on a 5 mile hike. Both days were enjoyable and perhaps…
We’re back home after spending almost two weeks in Montana and fishing the Bitterroot River Skwala hatch for six of those days. We did find a few naturals along the riverbanks, but spring weather was out in force. “Spring weather” means temperatures up to seventy degrees and below freezing. Remember the image of snow on…
We’re in the Montana this week, searching for Skwala stoneflies on the Bitterroot River. I’d read the fishing report from the Grizzly Hackle Fly Shop in Missoula that the Skwala stoneflies were hatching along with a few BWO’s and March Brown mayflies. In fact, the report stated the fishing was 4 out of 5! The…
I thought I’d share a few more flies from the vise this week. I finished another fly order for a customer planning to fish the upcoming Salmonfly and Golden Stone hatch. They’ll begin showing themselves in late April and early May. In addition, you’ll find a link below to my recent YouTube videos. This pile…
I was asked recently to make a presentation to a fly club about selecting flies from a fly tyer’s perspective. It’s a great topic for new fly fishers who might be overwhelmed walking into a fly shop and picking a few flies for their next fly fishing adventure. Here are some highlights from my presentation….
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Lord Baltimore wet fly. This is an old fly pattern listed as No. 64 (page 158) in Mary Orvis Marbury’s Favorite Flies and Their History (1892). Click the link for a free download of the book. The fly can be seen on Plate I, page 183. No….
And suddenly, here I am, 8 years later, after writing 827 posts, around 300 fly patterns, and over 3,700 images. Little did I know then I would keep writing a post on my blog every week for 8 years without missing one week! I hope you will allow a little departure from my normal weekly…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is John Kent’s Pumpkin Head. The Pumpkin Head was created by John Kent originally for fishing in Tunkwa Lake in BC, a highly productive but frequently low visibility lake. Kent originally developed the fly as a damsel imitation, but I’ve used it as an attractor pattern when no hatch…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the No. 8 Water-hen Bloa. The Water-hen Bloa can be found in many of the old fly fishing and fly tying books. The first example is from page 24 of Yorkshire Trout Flies by T. E. Pritt (1885) “This fly is identical with the blue dun of Ronalds, and…
