Tying Flies at the Vise

I’ve been tying flies at the vise recently, filling orders for my patient customers. Between my trips and periodic surge of orders, my list of flies to tie grew. If you are looking for flies, be sure to contact me in the near future and I can add you to the list. I’ve stopped providing an estimate when I can complete orders. I contact the next customer and see if they are still interested before starting to tie their order.

One of the things I really enjoy in my fly tying is the diversity of flies customers ask me to tie. The Picture Province is a perfect example. The original fly pattern didn’t have the blue thorax. It’s something I added for my customer after a couple emails. He ordered 24 of them and I’m pleased how they turned out. I’ll add the fly pattern sheet in the near future.

The order I’m tying now are for size 20, 22, and 26 flies. I must say, it’s quite a shock moving from the Daiichi 1.5 salmon/steelhead hook to a size 20 for the Mighty Midget Emerger!

Here are a dozen with a chocolate chip for reference. The Starling feather used for the hackle is quite difficult to use in this small size.

Here are two more fly patterns with the same chocolate chip for size reference.

Mercury Black Beauty #20

Bead Head Pheasant Tail Nymph in #20 and one 22 in the middle.

The Bead Head Pheasant Tail Nymph in #20 and #22 are the smallest I’ve ever tied these.

I have a few more of these #22 Pheasant Tail Nymphs to complete and will move to #26 GS Midge…remember those?

My prop here is an Ibupropin tablet.

A couple of weeks ago, I demonstrated several flies at the NW Fly Tying & Fly Fishing Expo in Albany, OR. Several of you stopped to say “hi” and share how much you enjoy reading my posts. It was wonderful receiving your feedback! Here are a few of the flies I tied which fit into my “simple but effective” strategy for fly fishing.

• Clark’s Lady Stone
• Purple Haze
• Improved Sparkle Dun PMD and a variant with CDC wing to imitate a BWO
• Chubby Chernobyl
• IOBO Humpy

For you fly tyers who were unable to attend my class, here are links to my RiverKeeper Flies YouTube channel where I demonstrate how I tie my two favorite flies to imitate the Golden Stone hatch – Clark’s Lady Stone and Chubby Chernobyl.

Of particular interest with the students was how I tie the deer or elk wing on the Clark’s Lady Stone. You can see for yourself beginning at the 8:55 mark on the video.

The other fly I taught was the Chubby Chernobyl to imitate a Golden Stone. I showed how I blend Ice Dub Orange and STS Trilobal Dub Olive Brown for a custom color used in the body. As always, you can find these at your local fly shop, but if there isn’t one where you live, I’ve provided an Amazon link. (John Kreft is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.)

The video below is the purple version, one I use during the Golden Stone hatch. Why does purple work for these? I have no idea…it just does.

I hope you are spending some time at the vise filling your own provider boxes!

Enjoy…go fish!