• 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…

  • Green Drake Hairwing Dun

    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,…

  • Fly Fishing Leaders

    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…

  • Fern Variant

    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…

  • Lingrens Olive

    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…