Cate's Turkey | www.johnkreft.com

Cates Turkey

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Since it is Thanksgiving, my wife thought is appropriate this week’s TBT would be the Cates Turkey. I tied one years ago on Thanksgiving. It was developed by Jerry Cate in the 1960’s at Davis Lake for Callibaetis. I think I’ll have to try it next summer! Hope you like it.

Rainbow & $3 Dip | www.johnkreft.com

Serendipity and $3 Dip

The Serendipity and $3 Dip, originally known as the $3 Bridge Serendipity are effective patterns to have in your fly box. I posted the following picture on my RiverKeeper Flies Facebook recently to share its effectiveness… …and received a comment asking two questions: I thought about it for a few seconds and said “there’s the topic for my next…

Prince Nymph | www.johnkreft.com

Prince Nymph

This week’s TBT fly is the Prince Nymph. It originally was known as the Brown Forked Tail and created by Doug Prince from Monterey, CA in 1941. It’s a great pattern today anytime you want to put a nymph on your leader. The original pattern used black ostrich herl instead of peacock. I began tying…

Matts Fur | www.johnkreft.com

Matts Fur

Here is a Matts Fur fly I tied and fished in the 1970’s. Found it in Kaufmann’s Tying Nymphs book which was my bible in those days.  It still works! Use it for a Golden Stone nymph imitation.

Nymph Box | www.johnkreft.com

What Nymphs Should I Use?

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog entitled New to Fly Fishing? What Flies Should I Use? It was my way of suggesting a dozen dry flies to start filling your fly box. And for full disclosure, they were a list of DRY flies. Well, someone asked “what about NYMPHS”? Thanks for asking! So I…

Zug Bug | www.johnkreft.com

Zug Bug

Zug Bug is the next fly for Thow Back Thursday. I tied it on an old Mustad 3906 hook. This fly was created by Cliff Zug in the 1930s. It was one of a handful of nymphs I started to tie and fish with.  For some reason, you won’t see it in my fly box…

Golden Stone Adult | www.johnkreft.com

Golden Stoneflies

Golden Stoneflies were out in force along the Lower Deschutes River when I floated from Warm Springs to Trout Creek last week. Goldens are a very important part of a trout’s diet. A couple species are lumped under the heading “Golden Stonefly” – the Hesperoperla pacifica and Calineuria californica. Who cares what the scientific names are,…

Jimmy Legs Nymph | www.johnkreft.com

Spring Skwala Stoneflies

I noticed green grass beginning to grow the last couple of days. That can only mean one thing…it’s SPRING. Longer and warmer days also brings out more bugs for us to imitate. Beside the obvious March Brown, there is an important hatch on many rivers of the first large stonefly of the season. Yes, the…