• Green Ant

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Green Ant. I was doing a little research to determine which flies to tie for a fly plate the Central Oregon Fly Tyer’s Guild is making for the 2016 NW Fly Tyer & Fly Fishing Expo. The plate’s theme is flies for the major steelhead rivers in Oregon….

  • Back to Tying Flies

    The fishing season has definitely changed, but I did get out last week and this rainbow came to hand using an Improved Sparkle Dun, imitating a #16 yellow mayfly…probably a Serratella mayfly rather than the Pale Morning Dun. It has 2 tails vs. 3 tails for the PMD, but do you think fish count tails? Here…

  • Dennys Stillwater Nymph

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Dennys Stillwater Nymph. As I thought about which fly to choose for a TBT Fly, this one came to mind. It seems appropriate as I’ve recently posted pictures on my RiverKeeper Flies Facebook page and the fly was front and center in this week’s Fly Fishing at Diamond Lake…

  • LaFontaine Diving Caddis

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the LaFontaine Diving Caddis. If you’re a frequent visitor to RiverKeeper Flies, you might recognize a theme of several LaFontaine Caddisflies, including the LaFontaine Deep Sparkle Pupa and the LaFontaine Emergent Pupa. Brown & Green Diving Caddis In the past week or so, we’ve been fishing later and…

  • Max Canyon

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Max Canyon steelhead fly. It was developed by Doug Stewart in the early 1970’s. Our fly club has an outing in Max Canyon on the Deschutes River next week to fish for steelhead and I thought it timely to highlight this fly. You may have seen it spelled differently…Macks…

  • Copper John Rainbows

    I’m finishing up a custom fly order which includes a few Copper Johns. Since I had all the materials out, why not tie up a few Copper Johns in different colors for me? I’m calling these my Copper John Rainbows. The Copper John is the creation of John Barr. He started to create the fly…

  • Fall Fishing

    Yes, fall fishing is here. My wife is still clinging to the notion summer is not over, but the weather and changing leaves tell a different story. And the fishing is different too. Dry fly fishing is back with a vengeance. Gone are the dog days of summer and it’s been replaced with fish rising to strong…

  • LaFontaine Deep Sparkle Pupa

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the LaFontaine Deep Sparkle Pupa. Here is a fly I tied many years ago. I first learned of the Deep Sparkle Pupa when I purchased Gary LaFontaine’s book entitled Caddisflies in the 1980s. It took him 10 years to write the book because of the research he performed. When Gary…

  • Recent Changes

    I’ve been working hard adding fly patterns, so I thought I’d highlight a few recent changes you may not have seen. Even if you’re not a tyer, read on because some of these fly patterns are well known flies that can be purchased at your local fly shop. You might recognize the names…now you have…