This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is Stalcup’s Medallion Biot Green Drake Wet Fly.
I first learned of Stalcup’s flies in his book Mayflies “Top to Bottom” (2002). I thought the materials he used were creative and interesting. The flies he tied were close imitations of the real insects. It was the first time I had heard of Medallion sheeting. It wasn’t long before I had that material in several colors. Many of the flies in his book used biots for bodies and this fly is no exception.
Here is a Green Drake from the Metolius river a few days ago.
I tie and fish the Green Drake version. It’s an effective fly and you’ll receive savage strikes, so you might think about a little heavier tippet size when fishing the fly. I’ve lost several of these over the years, because I use 6X tippet when fishing fly on the Metolius River. The other caution I would share is the fly has a tendency to spin your leader if small tippet sizes.
While I’ve shown the Stalcup’s Medallion Biot Green Drake Wet Fly as a Green Drake imitation, it can be tied in sizes 8 – 16 using colors of olive, tan, and gray.
Stalcup created some wonderful fly tying videos and those videos can now be seen on my friend John Sherry’s Youtube NetKnots Fly Tying channel. I encourage you to take a look.
Unfortunately, Shane passed away prematurely in 2011 at the age of 48.
Many of his flies can still be purchased in your local fly shop. You might give them a try. Watch a video or two of Shane tying his flies. You’ll see how “fishy” they really are.
Enjoy…go fish!
