In a week, I’ll be headed out on another Montana fly fishing road trip. I live in a beautiful place called Central Oregon, but there’s something about Big Sky country that makes me want to return. One of our destinations in Montana will be the International Federation of Fly Fisher’s Fair in Livingston. My wife…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Steelhead Caddis. The Steelhead Caddis was created by Bill McMillan in 1975 as a low-water variation of the Muddler Minnow. This fly is fished dry on the surface with a trailing wake, making a commotion to get the steelhead’s attention. Use a riffling hitch or cast the fly…
I’ve been tying Schroeder’s Parachute Hoppers for an order and decided I needed a few as well. While I tied 2 dozen flies, it got me thinking about fishing terrestrial fly patterns and my three favorite terrestrial fly patterns I wouldn’t be without. Here they are – Schroeder’s Parachute Hopper, Harrop’s CDC Ant and of…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Black Gnat dry fly. I had an earlier Black Gnat wet fly as a TBT fly, but Dancing Trout found this fly along the river and it’s been in her fly fishing pack for a while. It looked like a good candidate for today’s TBT post. To…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Mottled May, a fly developed by Charles DeFeo. I found this fly pattern in Forgotten Flies by Paul Schmookler & Ingrid Sils. This is a spectacular book and includes flies from Ray Bergman, Preston Jennings, Mary Orvis Marbury, and Carrie Stevens. I used Forgotten Flies as a reference for…
I’ve been helping my wife this week with Fish Camp, a 3-day fly fishing camp for 14 students, 10 – 14 years old. It’s part of our fly club’s Next Cast Flyfishers (our youth program) goal to get kids into fly fishing in Central Oregon. We’re teaching them about casting, knot tying, aquatic bug basics, fly tying,…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Sheep Creek Special. I found the fly was developed by George Biggs of Jerome, Idaho in the 1960’s where he fished it at Sheep Creek Reservoir on the Nevada/Idaho border. Some say the Sheep Creek Special imitates leeches is larger sizes and midges in smaller sizes. It might…
I wrote a post entitled Fly Fishing with Beetles almost two years ago touting how effective fly fishing can be with a beetle on the end of your line. I’m still a believer. I fish a fly I call Beetle Bailey. I shake my head in disbelief and smile at how effective Beetle Bailey catches fish! Beetle Bailey…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Blue Bottle, another Ray Bergman wet fly. I found the Blue Bottle on Plate 1, page 23 from Ray Bergman’s Trout, first published in 1938. Bergman’s book includes 15 colored plates to illustrate the dry and wet flies with a description of each fly in the back. It was…
Earlier this month, I wrote a post entitled Where to Fish where I tried to describe the difficulty of all the fly fishing choices available to me. Today I’m headed to the Lower Deschutes to see if the Golden Stoneflies are still around in numbers to have a few fish looking up. And that means…
