• Polly’s Muskrat Nymph

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Polly’s Muskrat Nymph. A couple of weeks ago, I presented Polly’s Fledermouse Nymph and thought since I had used muskrat, I’d highlight another nymph utilizing the same material. It’s a simple fly to tie with the most difficult aspect is locating the natural materials of muskrat and beaver. This…

  • Buz’s Old Gray Mare

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Buz’s Old Gray Mare. This is another Buz Buszek fly pattern. If you are a regular here at RiverKeeper Flies, you’ve seen several TBT flies I’ve highlighted on these pages and you might be familiar with his story. If not, read on… Buz Buszek (1912 – 1965) opened…

  • Norm Wood Special Encore

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is a Norm Wood Special encore. If you read this week’s post, Water is Life on the Deschutes River, you’ll recall we used the Norm Wood Special as one of our successful flies. Here is what I wrote about the Norm Wood Special back in 2020. Norm Wood was…

  • McGinty Fly

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the McGinty fly. The McGinty is one of the images Wayne Luallen sent me of flies from Buz Buszek’s fly box. Some of the flies in his box were tied by Buz, while others were probably selected from bins in from his fly shop. It’s just a little…

  • Fish and Flies

    My life these days is centered around fish and flies. Just how I like it! I continue to tie customer flies when I’m not fishing. I was working on a fairly time-consuming post about the Metolius River being my home waters. Yes, I finally decided to share a little bit more about the river. It’s…

  • Sierra Bright Dot Fly

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Sierra Bright Dot fly. This is an attractor-style “fore and aft” fly pattern developed sometime in the 1950’s for the eastern slopes of the Southern Sierra mountains for Golden Trout. I was asked to tie a few dozen Sierra Bright Dots for a customer in sizes ranging…

  • Tying a Variety of Flies

    I’ve been spending quite a bit of time at the vise recently, tying a variety of flies for customers. Fishing will pick up soon and I’ll be off on this year’s fly fishing road trips, so I need to get as many flies tied as possible in the next month or less. If you read…

  • Black Forked Tail Nymph

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Black Forked Tail Nymph. Shortly after I posted the Prince Nymph encore, I received a note from my friend Wayne Luallen with additional information about the creator of both the Prince and Forked Tail nymphs, Doug Prince. Wayne received the following original fly pattern from Doug’s notebook…

  • Frank Johnson CDC Fly

    This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is a Frank Johnson CDC fly I found in a fly box Frank donated and I was fortunate to select during a Fly Tyer’s Rendezvous fly swap at the 50th Anniversary of the International Federation of Fly Fishers Fair in Bend, Oregon (2015). (Note: the IFFF has since changed its…