• Hatchmaster

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Hatchmaster, a fly pattern developed in the 1930s. Originally known as the Two-Feather Fly, it was created by Harry Darbee for a fisherman named Terrell Moore to solve a problem of getting large mayflies to land on the water softly and eliminate the bulk and weight. Some…

  • Odds and Ends

    This week’s post is about the odds and ends that are happening as I look forward to the upcoming Spring fishing season. I think I’m going through a little “free fall” this week. Ever hear the term? It’s what happens after you’ve been working at a high level for some time and then everything just ends,…

  • Select the Right Dry Fly

    How do you select the right dry fly to tie on the end of your leader? Here are a few tips to make the selection process a little easier the next time you’re at the river. Let’s make it simple. You arrive at the river and it’s your lucky day, bugs are hatching. You were…

  • The Bouncer

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Bouncer, another fly from Ray Bergman’s book Trout.  I tied this fly last weekend at the Central Oregon Fly Tyer’s Guild. My friend Jim Fisher, the 2011 Stan Walters Memorial Tyer of the Year, taught a class on mounting duck quill wings in the wet fly style. This…

  • Recent Changes

    Every once in awhile, I create a Recent Changes post to catch you up on what’s been happening behind the scenes at RiverKeeper Flies. And this is the week for it. Did you notice the Youtube video my wife took recently at the Central Oregon Sportsman Show in Redmond, Oregon? She was there with a few…

  • Black Gordon

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Black Gordon. I found this fly in one of my steelhead fly boxes and thought it would be a good candidate for a TBT Fly. The Black Gordon is a well-known steelhead fly pattern developed on the North Umpqua River in the 1930’s by Clarence Gordon, a…

  • Goodbye 2016 NW Expo

    I think we had a great show last weekend and thought it appropriate to say “Goodbye 2016 NW Expo” in this week’s post. This was my second year as Expo Chair and I’ll be handing over the leadership responsibilities to someone else for the 2017 Expo. As I walked the venue on both days, I…

  • Spring Chinook Salmon Fry

    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…

  • Ida May

    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…