• 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,…

  • 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…

  • Lake Fly Order

    I’m finishing a lake fly order today. Karen and I were fishing Diamond Lake with friends last fall and had great success on Dennys Stillwater Nymph. While our friends caught fish, we had a tremendous day and only used one fly pattern…Dennys Stillwater Nymph. (I wrote about our experience in a previous post – Fly Fishing at…

  • Wickhams Fancy

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Wickhams Fancy. It’s another fly I pulled from Ray Bergman’s book Trout.  Created in the 1880’s by one of the Wickhams, there appears to be a little family feud as to which family member really developed the fly. Most credit Dr. T.C. Wickham of Winchester with the fly’s creation…

  • Davie McPhail

    There are a lot of talented fly tyers out there. A rare combination is when you find someone who can tie beautiful flies and TEACH too. Davie McPhail is one of those tyers. Davie is from Scotland and has a Youtube channel I frequently watch. Youtube states he joined on June 26, 2009 and has posted…

  • Tying Flies in Paradise

    You might be surprised, but I’ve been known to tie flies while riding in a car. But this week, I’m tying flies in Paradise! Last fall, it was on the road to the Pendleton Round-up in September. I was able to finish a dozen RiverKeeper Soft Hackle Cripples. Or how about this video mentioned in my post Fly…

  • Goodbye Boise

    Well, it’s time to say “Goodbye Boise”! I had a wonderful time at the 2016 Western Idaho Fly Fishing Expo this weekend in Boise, Idaho. This is my 4th year tying flies at the Expo and it’s good to see people I recognize from year-to-year. On Saturday, I decided to demonstrate the RiverKeeper Callibaetis Emerger, which…

  • Lightning Bug

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Lightning Bug. I recently added the Lightning Bug nymph to the Fly Patterns list on RiverKeeper Flies. As I searched for the original fly pattern and who developed it, I thought it would be a good candidate for a TBT fly. I was surprised the Lightning Bug was over…