This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Van Sant Steelhead Fly. The fly pattern is found in John Shewey’s Classic Steelhead Flies, page 178. Shewey attributes this steelhead fly to Josh Van Sant, Jr. (1861-1950) of Eureka, CA. The fly is remeniscent of popular trout wet flies of the early to mid-1900s, namely those…
Yes, I have a problem…feathers, feathers, feathers! I’ve been known to say you can never have enough feathers, but even I must admit my collection has grown substantially over the years. And I might have added to it this summer during our time on the Madison River, MT. No, I didn’t buy all these a…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the St Joe Favorite TBT. (I mislabeled the title – should be St Joe Favorite!) I first found this fly at the Idaho Fly Fishing Company in Avery, ID during our fly fishing trip to the St. Joe River in Idaho. I always enjoy going into local fly shops to…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Old Master. Since I referenced T.E. Pritt’s North Country Flies (1886) in this week’s post, I thought it appropriate to highlight one of the flies found in his book. This one is listed as No. 39. Materials Hook: 1 Wings: Hackled with a feather from the inside of…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Ed Engle’s Wire-Body Drowned Trico. I found the Wire-Body Drowned Trico in En Engle’s book, Tying Small Flies (2004). I’ve featured flies from Ed’s book for previous TBT flies. I paged through Ed’s book looking for a spinner pattern since I wrote about them yesterday in Tying and…
I create a new post each week and many times I know exactly the subject I plan to write about. Other times, like this week, I need some inspiration. If I go to the river, it often speaks to me, and provides a subject. Today is different. We haven’t fished in two weeks after returning…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Polly’s Little Yellow Stonefly. I found this fly created by Polly Rosborough in John Shewey’s newest book, Favorite Flies for Oregon – 50 Essential Patterns from Local Experts. John sent me his book a few months ago and I thought I might find a good candidate for a…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the McCloud Ugly steelhead fly. I’ve heard there might be a steelhead fishing season this year on the Deschutes River and thought I’d highlight an older steelhead fly pattern. The McCloud Ugly was developed by George McCloud of Seattle, WA in the late 1940’s. George also was the…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is a Royal Coachman. I’ve shared a couple of Royal Coachman flies over the years as a TBT post and decided it was time to share them again. Why? Well, we’ve been on a fly fishing road trip for almost three weeks now and met a fly fishing couple…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is George Harvey’s Spruce Creek Dry Fly. George Harvey (1911-2008) was born in DuBois, PA and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in ornamental horticulture from Penn State University in 1935. As an undergraduate student in 1934, he organized and taught Penn State’s angling and fly tying class, the first…
