I always love it when folks send me photos of a rod I've made in action. It makes me smile! The other day was no exception, when I received this photo from Chris:

That's an awesome photo!!

If you look closely, you'll see a black bead head woolly bugger in the mouth of the fish. Let me tell you that is one of my favorite flies. Let me explain.....

If you told me that I could only ever use one fly again, I'd pick - without hesitation - a black woolly bugger. Pound for pound it's one of the most consistently effective fly patterns ever created. There are many reasons for this. First, the woolly bugger is one of those flies that look like it could be something, & it looks like nothing specific all at the same time. It could be a crayfish if you creep it along the bottom. It could be a bait fish if you strip it & give it motion. It could be a hellgrammite or some other large form of nymph or larva. Sometimes you can never be sure what the fish took it for, but take it they do. 

The palmered soft hackle & the marabou tail of this fly give it motion & life in the water. The slightest movement will make the feathers undulate in a very good way. It looks very much alive to the fish. Because of this, it's effective even when you drift this fly in a drag free drift down stream. You can also fish it sideways to the current, or even against it in some cases & this fly will produce. 

Okay, so why black? Well, because the black color gives a more definite silhouette in all kinds of water. It will show up in murky water, or when the sun is high & bright. It can easily be seen by the fish when the light is low & conditions are darker. If you could only pick one fly for fishing below the surface, choose a black one. 

The black woolly bugger has saved me from getting skunked more times than I can count through the years. It's the fly I fish when I don't know what to try, when I'm exploring new water, or on those days when nothing seems to work. Get a day along the stream where the flies that should be getting you fish aren't for some reason unknown to you? Tie on a black woolly bugger in an appropriate size for the water you're fishing. 

This was the first fly I ever learned to tie many years ago. It was my fist tie because it's so simple & basic. It's a great pattern to introduce someone to fly tying with. But it's one of those patterns you'll fish all your life because it just catches fish!!     

If I were forced to fish with only one dry fly, I would choose the Adams. It looks like nothing in particular & kinda like everything all at the same time. There are times when you just can't be sure what the fish took it for - but that's what makes it so great, because it just works.

This pattern has been around for a long time. The video below does a very good job of explaining how this fly pattern came to be, what the original version probably looked like, & briefly discusses the many variations of the Adams that have appeared through the years. If you're into history, dry flies, &/or fly tying I think you'll enjoy this short, but informative video below.  

I fish a soft hackle wet fly a lot. It's my favorite style of pattern for many reasons. They're also pretty simple to tie, no matter what the specific pattern. Hungarian partridge feathers are a typical hackle feather used on these flies. These feathers can be a little tricky to work with &/or to get the results you want tying with them. There are a few tricks you can use & the video below shows a pretty clear, straight forward way to handle them. 

Partridge & orange, partridge & green, partridge & yellow, etc, etc these three patterns can cover most of your year along the trout stream. Take just a few minuets to learn these quick tips on tying with partridge.  

​(I'm not affiliated in any way with the dealer who made this video. I show this only for the advice this video demonstrates).

Just the other evening, before the deluge of rain filled my local streams to conditions impossible to fish, I was having a ball fishing a hatch of light cahills. I love this hatch because its easy to see, predictable, & locally are in great abundance. The run that I was fishing called for a wet fly, at least for me as my skills with a dry fly in faster water are lacking. 

Below is a great video showing how to tie up a version of a Light Cahill wet fly. You can apply this same style to any bug on the water, mayfly or caddis, just by changing the color of materials used. It's a great pattern that will fool trout.

Here's a bit of trivia for you, about flies with hackle running all the way up the length of the body, like woolly buggers & others, which we call under the general term of palmer flies:

The palmer fly derives its name from the caterpillar. The caterpillar, in turn, gets its name from the term that used to be used for a pilgrim who had traveled to the Holy Land (think Chaucer's Canterbury Tales). Those pilgrims would then walk about, spreading their message while carrying a palm leaf, to show that they had been to their Holy Land. So a "palmer" was sort of a roaming preacher carrying a palm leaf. The caterpillar got its name because of how it moves about & never stays in one place. The category of fly derives the name because hackle tied in that style resembles a caterpillar.

​Did you follow all that? Good. 

Incidentally, I stumbled onto this information while reading "The Complete Fly Tier" by Rube Cross, an absolutely excellent older book which I'll share with you in a future article.  

There you go. Now you can dazzle all your friends at your next fly tying gathering or whenever you bump into other fly anglers. Folks will be amazed at your vast knowledge & you're sure to be the life of the party!

Coq De Leon feathers are taken from a specific line of chickens that originated in the village of Leon in northern Spain. For those of you not familiar, these birds grow some very special feathers. Hackles made on them are the cleanest, neatest hackles you will ever use. Each barb of each feather is perfect & so very fine - like gossamer silk. This makes for a superior hackle on wet flies, streamers, & nymphs, as the feather moves so well in the water. No feather looks as life-like in the water as the Coq De Leon.

Spain has a very rich history of fly fishing - especially in the northern mountain region. Anglers from all over the world have coveted these feathers for generations because they're the best you can get. Some believe that it has something to do with the soil & environment in Leon that made these chickens grow special feathers. At any rate, these extremely desirable feathers were rarely available to fly tiers on the market until Whiting Farms in Colorado got involved in breeding these birds.

Below is a video taken on Whiting Farms explaining all about how they got into raising these birds & all about their special feathers. To anyone who ties their own flies, this is very interesting. 

There are times & places you'll want to get the color of a fly exactly the same as the natural bug. These are times when any old brown, olive, or cream color just won't do.

To get dubbing in a color you can't buy you're going to have make it yourself, which will require some research. If you're lucky you can find a recipe for the proper color mix in a reference book (Hatches II, et al). Lacking that you'll need a photo of the bug you're trying to copy - or even a real life sample. Some experimentation will have to happen before you get the color just right.

Fortunately, mixing dubbing is easy to do. Start with the colors of dubbing you'll be mixing together, in the correct proportions. Here, I'm mixing up some dubbing to get the color of the Whitefly (Ephoron leukon) nymph which calls for 1 part cream; 1 part yellow; 2 parts brown.

Put the pieces of dubbing you want to mix together in a jar with a good, tight fitting lid. Pour in some hot water (not boiling) until the jar is about two-thirds full. Let this sit for a few minutes to allow the dubbing to soften in the warm water.

​Now shake the jar vigorously for at least a minute or two. You'll see the colors of the dubbing begin to mix together.

Drain the water out of the jar & pat dry the dubbing mix on an absorbent towel. Examine your results.

Chances are you'll need to do this at least one more time to get the colors mixed through. Each time you do this you can see the dubbing softening in the water & mixing together more & more. Compare this photo below of the dubbing in the water to the one above. You can see the colors mixing even more on my second time through.

You can see just how much more the colors are mixed through after a second time in the jar:

I'm pretty happy with this color, so I'll stop here. It's pretty close to the color of the natural Whitefly nymph, which is a burrowing nymph & lives in areas of the stream that have a sandy bottom. This should work.

Remember, nature is rarely perfect so a few mild streaks of color in your mix is fine. Also note that you should let the dubbing air dry for a while. Some mixes will change color a bit after the dubbing is completely dry. Certainly make sure it's totally dry before you store it away in an air tight container or bag!

Mixing dubbing to a custom color (once you have the proper recipe) is quite easy. You'll be able to tie flies that match the color of the natural bug more closely than anything you could buy in a store or from a catalog. Happy mixing!!

An absolutely fantastic early season fly for me has been the Orange Fish Hawk. This is a very old pattern, dating back to at least the early 1930's. It caught trout back then & it will do so now.

As you might have guessed, I'm a big fan of the old soft hackle wet flies & the Orange Fish Hawk is one of those. I think, to the fish, it looks like certain caddis flies & certain types of mayflies that hatch out in early to mid April. Either way, I know it works. (one friend once compared it to what some bait fisherman use for trout, calling it 'the orange salmon egg of fly fishing', which of course it wouldn't be, as we actually have orange salmon egg flies, haha!!)

If you haven't tried this pattern before, you're missing out. Use this fly when the water's still a bit cold & the trout aren't feeding on any visible hatch. Here's the recipe:

Tag: Flat gold tinsel
Ribbing: Flat gold tinsel
Body: Orange floss
Hackle: Badger hen hackle, two wraps - no more than three.
Hook: Wet fly sizes 10 - 14

You can substitute orange yarn for the body if you wish & you can also use different feathers such as partridge, grizzly, or grouse for the hackle. As you can see, this is just a very old modification to the Partridge & Orange fly pattern.

Easy to tie & fun to fish, the Orange Fish Hawk just might make an early season day on the water a very memorable one, indeed.

The other day someone asked me if it's possible to tie a fly using common yarns sold at craft & hobby stores. The answer is most certainly yes!! Not only can you use all those yarns, but there are many different ways to use them in fly tying. 

First off, yarn can be used as a substitute for chenille in any fly calling for that. All those woolly buggers can be tied with yarn bodies. It can also be used in wet flies & nymphs, too. Simply separate the stands of the yarn (it's usually three stands twisted together) & use one strand of it as you would chenille to wrap about the hook. It's good practice when using yarn in place of chenille, to secure it down with wire or tinsel, wrapped in the opposite direction. Otherwise, it's fine. If you're making a body that's palmered with a hackle feather throughout its length, such as the woolly bugger, then that would work as well.

In addition, you can make your own dubbing out of yarn. Yep, that's right - all that yarn you see in the stores can be turned into bags & bags of dubbing at a fraction of the cost for normal dubbing. Plus you can mix different colors together to get the exact color you need. This is perfect for matching a specific local hatch, or for those rare fly patterns where dubbing from a catalog just won't do. Now you can make your own colors.

To do this, you basically cut the yarn into small pieces & put them in a coffee grinder. You use the coffee grinder to shred the yarn into dubbing. Again, you're not spending much money here, as you can get a coffee grinder fairly cheaply. Just be sure to dedicate one only for dubbing blending - you don't want coffee oils & smells on your flies!!

Here is a short, direct video that's straight to the point showing you how simple it is to turn yarn into dubbing with a coffee grinder:

This dubbing works great on everything from nymphs to dry flies & everything in between. Just realize that it will absorb water a bit differently than fur dubbing. For nymphs & wets, this means that it might take a bit longer to absorb the water, making it longer for your fly to sink. For dry flies, it can hold onto water a little longer than fur, so it might take a little longer to dry. You should always test the yarn ahead of time to see how the color will be effected when the yarn gets wet.

Acrylic, wool, synthetic wool, or any other type of yarn you see at the store can be used these ways. So the next time you're in a big chain store that sells yarn, stand back & look at the wall of yarn & know that you can turn all of that into dubbing for your flies!!!

Furnace hackle - brown with a distinct black stripe in the middle - is, to me, much under used in flies. The black middle section, when turned around a hook, looks like a small body with brown legs protruding. The barbs of the feathers have a fine quality to them & the contrast of black center to fine, brown legs gives the fly an appearance of life just sitting in the vise. You can imagine how much more life these feathers will imitate when pulsating in the moving water. Often, the trout will agree, too.

I like to use furnace hackle on a 'general' soft hackle wet fly ("spiders" to the British) that I fish when I don't know which bug to imitate. Basically, it's just a body of spun dubbing, a rib of wire turned on in the opposite direction,  no more than 3 (preferably 2) turns of furnace hackle. Simple. The only trick is to get the body not too thick - a nice, skinny body will do with just a few guard hairs sticking out randomly.

Here's an old trick for these wet flies: fish them during a hatch, when you'd normally be using a dry fly. This is especially good if you're not sure which bug the trout are taking. A good 'general' wet fly w/ a gold-ribbed hare's ear body & this furnace hackle can do wonders during a hatch of either caddis or mayflies. Sometimes the trout take these as emerging insects, other times I think they look like a crippled, or stillborn, bug. There are several ways to fish a soft hackle wet to a hatch........

You can grease everything - line, leader, fly - & float them up high (as high as a wet fly can be); or you can grease the line & leader & fish the fly just below the surface. This requires you drying the fly occasionally, like a dry fly w/ false casts, as it will become water logged & sink your line. You can also choose to grease the leader & the hackle only, so the body sits in, or just under, the surface film, imitating an emerging insect. There's a lot of ways to fish these flies.

One other trick: if you'll be fishing these flies up top, in or near the surface, tie them on a dry fly hook. (I can hear the intake of breath from the audience now). Seriously, if you know these flies will be used up higher than a wet fly is usually fished, then give yourself every advantage you can & use lighter, finer diameter dry fly hook. 

Furnace is a great hackle, which I almost always prefer to regular brown hackle when a fly's recipe calls for brown. To me it just looks a bit more life-like & that is the entire point of our flies.