I like to position myself on the side of the lake the wind blows towards – as the emergent adults are content to ride the breeze for great distances – instead of popping off the water immediately like a stream borne insect. The breeze will deliver all that food right to me and in the right bay or shallows the fishing can be spectacular.

For most lake mayflies I’ll toss the classic proportions and make special flies tailored for an extended float. A traditional size 16 will get the wing and hackle of a 15 (sometimes even larger if the lake is known gusty) – as the tall wing is what fish see when cruising for prey.

… and it allows me to pick my fly out from the pack, allowing me the courtesy of setting the hook when it’s eaten – rather than yanking when it’s the natural next to mine … On breezy lakes, the tall wing allows me to maintain visual contact despite the fly dipping into a wave trough – increasing my chances of seeing the strike.

I cast about two thirds less than the average fellow, as once positioned on the windward side I’ll usually find the fish cruising at my feet. As that ever-present breeze blows my “sailboat” back towards me I’ll slowly take up the slack and recast only when the fly is within a rod’s length.

It’s flirting with bait fishing, but that extra breadth of hackle and light dressing allows a greased fly to float forever.

I’ve settled on both brown and a grey bodied flies for the same hatch. One will have a distinct brownish appearance, the other will be tied mostly gray – and as the emergence is midday – there’s ample light to discern color. I’ve given up theorizing or second guessing and just make sure I have a couple dozen of each.

The nymph is the easiest part; somewhere between a Pheasant Tail, a Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear, and a Zug Bug is the proper flavor, and like the dry fly it varies a bit each year.

I like the speckled hen saddle wings as they present the perfect opaque silhouette, and when riding among naturals are nearly indistinguishable. Note the oversized wing and hackle mentioned earlier. Once damp those wings can overpower a traditional hackle and flop the fly on its side. The broad footprint of the oversized hackle stabilizes the fly and ensures it’ll ride upright with wings prominent.

All these unknown experimental made-it-yourself flies comes with a hideous burden, after the fellow next to you inquires and you tell him to “try an Adams” – you’re obliged to hand over a double-fistful, it’s the law.

Tags: Adams, stillwater dry flies, oversized wing, speckled hen saddle, Calibaetis mayfly, parachute flies, hairwing, dyed elk, grizzly hackle, fly tying

… and they swim like true fish, not awkward or ungainly like other aquatic insects. That elongated body with the three-bladed gill tail is put to good use. And it makes perfect sense that a stillwater insect that swims as gracefully as a minnow would have his gills where the tail should be – as the swimming motion would allow those appendages to slurp all the oxygen needed – even more when flight was necessary.

I liken them to Stoneflies of the Lake, larger than most of the Caddis and Mayflies, yet slender and elongated – giving a fly tyer the opportunity to practice his craft with larger hooks and plenty of shank – versus the minutiae that comprises the balance of a fish’s diet.

I don’t favor the traditional “wooden” long-shank mayfly imitation, as a small tuft of marabou just cannot substitute for the graceful swimming motion so characteristic to this species.

Instead I’ll opt for the tail and body as a single unit, coupled with a short shank hook to provide just enough room for lead wire and a wingcase. Three or four strands of medium olive with a like amount of brown over the top gives me a couple of colors that are proven tasty.

Most of the damsel nymphs I’ve fished over are dark Olive – but occasionally I’ll find them in brown. I take my cue from the lake bottom and its weeds – as the naturals are tailored to match. Putting both colors in the wing allows you to remove one later by simply tearing the fibers off – a modification you can do on the water.

Motion is the key, especially when faced with the color dampening effects of deep water, where warm starts to dull and the fish measured in pounds cluster.

Tags: Damselfly nymphs, fly fishing in stillwater, lake flies, fly fishing for trout, marabou, baitfish, graceful swimmer, sink tip, short shank hook

Now I’ve abandoned any pretense of tradition – any thoughts of skill or science, instead I’ll fin myself around the Pristine on a soft inflatable recliner and tow flies into the waiting maw of Them as Would be Fed.

… and if that don’t work, there’s always the California nouveau cuisine luncheon – featuring the caviar Velveeta sand. I’ll let the wind blow me out of visual range and add an obligatory marshmallow indicator.

Friday I’ll be headed North to try some of my favorite lake venues. Streams are shot, rivers are worse, and I’m tired of fishless fishing trips. Maybe a month of dry weather will restore some of the local water to a semblance of their former selves.

I’ve got the traditional lake fare covered. The Calibaetis mayflies – dry and wet, and the generalist flies that resemble most of the other fare. Float tubes and breeze means you’re going to hook as many fish with the fly being towed as being cast – and those searching patterns are lake fishing staples.

Modeled on the J.Fair Wiggle nymph, a proven lake pattern of long standing, featuring a wisp of marabou for a tail and some sparkle chenille with a hackle rib, it’s the fly of choice for twitching over weeds, or simply finning from one side of the impoundment to the other.

These are dressed very lightly compared to a traditional Wooly Bugger or Leech, using just 5-6 strands of marabou and a pencil thin body. I’ve always assumed it was a combination of damselfly and small baitfish – in between asking pals if they could spare another handful.

I tie them in Olive, Black, Peacock, Brown, and the tail is left intentionally long – so you’ll get the occasional short strike. Shortening the tails makes them less effective, so endure.

I use the bead version so I can merely lengthen the leader and fish them with a floating line. In between the morning, midday, evening, mayfly activity I’ll use the lull following to tow these over weedbeds.

The darker colors are perfect for deeper water and sinktip fishing. A slow retrieve to seduce those reticent fish that are busy digesting an early insect snack and don’t expect to see a steak this close to home.

Tags: J Fair Wiggle Nymph, fly fishing stillwater, Wooly Bugger, leech, Calibaetis, lake fishing, trout

Utah Fly Guides posted a video of Green Drake nymphs struggling to the surface – and as the video plainly demonstrates, they’re tumbling around in the water column and in the unfamiliar medium stability only comes with a solid anchor.

If this is what the fish sees; first a flash of light belly, then a split second of dark back, enduring all that effort to separate colors may be worth the effort. Then again, woven bodies involve considerable pain and suffering and share a certain stiffness coupled with a tendency to rotate around the hook with abuse.

With an upcoming foray into the Pristine scheduled, and a couple of ideas, I brushed the Orange and Pink materials out of the way to see what I could dream up.

As always efficiency is better than painstaking detail, and if they prove successful you’ll be better off with a couple dozen versus a couple period…

I started with the traditional color for the Drakes I’ve fished over in California, and the color of its underbelly. I made a quick blend of 1/2 belly – 1/2 back, and 3/4 belly – 1/4 back, then used all four colors to dub the body in short stages.

The effect is a nice harmony – a color spectrum that shifts from light to dark (in Olives) – and should make both back and belly colors visible to matter what attitude the fish has to the fly.

In watching the video a couple times, I noticed the belly color offers the starkest contrast with the surrounding water – allowing me to pick out the “food” from the bits of leaves rather quickly.

We’ll never know what the trout sees, but transitioning colors in this manner yields no additional complexity and a rather striking end result.

Tags: Green Drakes, fly tying, color transition, trout fishing, blended dubbing, fly tying complexity,

While I blistered those soft pasty fingers on shovels, lawn mowers, and hedge trimmers, I was framing my response to last week’s revelation that Shad ate in fresh water …

Shad eat in fresh water. They just don’t eat enough.

… and with plenty of the bright, cornea-damaging Shad flies from last season, I’m thinking a fistful of drab and semi-natural looking flies might be that changeup needed on some slow mid-morning.

Add a liberal dose of the Czech style of realistic attractor, throw in some of the time honored Shad colors, and it ought to please the fish and may even lure some half-pounders into biting. All I needed was less blisters on my tying fingers, less water spilling over Folsom Dam, and a smattering of vacation to test all these unknowns.

Locate the fish using traditional patterns and then add a dropper with the experimentals and see whether it’s the semi-attractor or the eyeball wrenching Pink that becomes the preferred fly.

The opportunistic nature of feeding explains why the Shad has a yen for anything bright flung in its direction. Just like small trout rush out to smack the fly first, a large school of Shad probably behaves identically, only with greater urgency – as each fish is competing with 100,000 of its brethren and knows it will fall prey to another if not eaten immediately.

… and if I’d spent most of my existence seining plankton in 300 feet of water, how the hell would I know what freshwater chow looks and acts like?

See it, eat it, or spit it out.

The hard part is marrying the attributes of tiny nymphs to a much larger Shad hook. While the native waters are host to all manner of small fish, and the occasional Hexagenia mayfly, it’s a limited palette. I opted to err on the side of voracious hunger, figuring “buggy” was all that is really needed.

The Underwear River Caddis marries the soft hackle and fur collar to traditional shad orange, it’s an homage to classic shad colors with a bit of trout food chaser.

All are tied on ancient Mustad iron, a 3116A size 7, (2 extra strong, 2X short, Limerick bend). The odd size is exactly between the sizes I fish most – #6, and #8’s, which makes a nice intermediary hook with the properties of both.

All the reports featuring terrestrials allowed me to dust off the old traditional attractors. We’ve added opalescent wing stubs and soft hackle to the classic McGinty, hoping the bright mix of yellow and black might give something a serious mad …

… and for the minnow crowd we assumed a bit of shiny mixed with a lean silhouette would cover all the possible fry that might stumble into a pod of ravenous herring.

The Eastern Bloc featured at right, is a marriage of classic Czech colors with the traditional Shad wet fly. It’ll slim down to a nice minnow shape and features enough dyed black Angelina to offer plenty of eye-catching sparkle.

The other dozen patterns I’ll hold until we start the research in earnest, which will be shortly after the shovel blisters recede and expose the Lilly-white paper pushing flesh beneath.

Precious fly tier’s fingers, don’t mess with ‘em …

Tags: American River, shad flies, Czech Nymphs, Wet Flies, limerick bend, Mustad fly hooks, McGinty, fly fishing blog, soft hackle, fly tying

I’ve got a handful of bulky and garish panfish flies and we’re supposed to assaulting one of California’s pristine spring creeks…

I’m thinking my leg’s being pulled. Gossamer and precise I could handle, small and delicate I was expecting, but large-lumpy with a taste of cathouse was what I got.

Chenille has been one of many casualties over the last couple of decades. Once common on all manner of trout flies – wet or dry, it’s now mostly relegated to large flies. Smaller synthetic chenille saw a brief resurgence, but the steady onslaught of synthetics with similar yet more forgiving qualities have eroded its use considerably.

I keep skeins stashed in most of the colors, but my fishing has the diversity that warrants such a collection.

After that evening on the creek I called it the “Forbidden Color” – whose name can only be whispered among life-long pals, as everyone else is slapping their knee and laughing at your sincerity.

“Honest, this stuff is patented fish death!” and strangers backpedal making helpless motions when you offer some – like you were insisting “they’re eating Vienna sausages, just put one on a treble hook.”

If it had a name I’ve forgotten it, and Gary never claimed ownership, only insisting that no better stonefly nymph had ever seen fresh water …

If any, the secret is getting the fly wet (above). Garish oranges become shades of brown and giggles are stifled as it’s suddenly predatory and eatable.

Early season I’ll carry no less than a dozen. It’s heavy, packed with lead or in bead head variant, one of those classic “money” flies that look right at home once you wedge it repeatedly in a trout’s maw.

Tags: variegated orange and black chenille, gary warren, stonefly nymph, early season nymphing, weighted nymph, bead head

I’m minding my own

“What elements of a natural fly are absolutely essential for the trout brain to use…”

… to recognize food.

Better yet, what elements of a natural (or successful imitation) are essential when it’s moving at eight or ten miles an hour, in concert with millions of oxygen bubbles, scraps of moss and twigs, and the sediment your buddy upstream added?

Does a fish eating stonefly nymphs take your nymph because of its size, or because it’s both big and black? Does the grab you just missed on your Pheasant Tail mean the nymph represents the predominant hatching insect – or was it merely the closest, and the fish was bored of the olive ones ….

Hence the quandary, the simplest of all questions – and there’s no single authority to ask for a definitive answer.

Anglers never look a gift horse in the mouth, we’re free with what little fact we’ve established. Some fellow sees us playing a fish and inquires what they’re eating, and the fact that we’ve caught four on a #14 Pale Morning Dun cannot be denied. If our new found pal knots one on and scratches a fish or two, it’s unanimous, the fish are eating PMD’s …

… but are they?

Caddis are dancing under the overhanging brush, there’s something in the water column headed for the surface, and just above us could be slack water with a spinner fall.

It could be that the PMD’s are emerging upstream and only getting to the surface in the fifty yards we’re camped in – perhaps that caddis has a similar body color, and your mayfly imitation is the next best thing to Nature, accidental like …

… or maybe the outflow from the slack water is bunching the spinners into small rafts of wings and tails and the fish are keyed to anything that looks semi-edible and floats.

… but we’ll never know, as we’re intent on sliding that PMD under that big tree limb where the dimples appear larger.

I love posing the impossible question, and hate being the recipient. Friend Reed has dropped an imponderable in my lap and I can’t tease it loose.

Compounding the problem is my binocular vision, and while I can’t see as a fish can, I’ve got a couple hundred years of succesful flies to inspect for those common fish appealing attributes.

If you bounce some mayfly nymphs off your desk the impression you get may be a hint of color, perhaps a lumpy front and a thin rear. Throwing some caddis nymphs yields less singularity, tubelike and a flash of color. Stonefly nymphs give you BIG, and dark – and well defined legs, but only if the pattern is biot based or contains rubberlegs.

Dry flies are like caddis, very little detail other than “stuff in front” and a hint of color, sometimes hackle – sometimes it’s the body.

We’ve always been enamored of the static view of flies, and matching the frozen natural, something a fish never sees. Instead, fish have to cull food items from the moving litany of leaves, bubbles, and debris that accompany them, and if they’re not right 90% of the time they starve to death.

Looking at the patterns and construction we’ve used to imitate the Big Three food groups, reveals many common elements that reduce the singularities to a manageable number. Mayfly nymphs use the traditional construction of tail, body, and folded wingcase, and then eight or nine million different things for legs.

Caddis stages mostly look wormlike and almost always have a light body and a dark head – unless it’s a cased pattern.

Stonefly nymphs are big, also dark.

Therein is the crux – those few necessary features that distinguish one bug family from another. An enormous leap of faith is required, but we’ve already done that; that fish eat selectively, whether they feed on the most numerous bug, or the insect that requires the fewest calories to capture.

I started off conventional enough, but the experimental flies looked just like the stuff we’ve been using for decades, which shouldn’t be terribly surprising – as I was imitating imitations.

Then the Czech Nymph book threw me for a tailspin, as I’d overlooked the entire attractor paradigm. I started integrating attractor elements with physical design and came out with stunning bugs – that looked like all the other stunning bugs I’d seen …

… and while I patiently waited for the flood waters to subside, towing first one fly then another through stained puddles on the creek bank – I glanced down at the fly box and the Angels sang …

… a medley actually, featuring Eminem and Jay-Z compliments of the boom box rattling the parking lot.

First Law of Fusion : The best elements of flies can be contained on a single fly – and the result serves as multiple insects, rather than a single imitation.

We’ve trod that ground before, employing countless flies that imitate nothing yet resemble everything. Most of the better nondescript flies like the Bird’s Nest, Burlap, Casual Dress, and Adams, all fit this mold.

Second Law of Fusion : Combine two bugs on the same hook.

That … is truly different.

Above is a minor variation of the traditional Hare’s Ear, I’ve added some attractor elements; a little flash blended into the body dubbing, and a hint of Claret and Yellow to the front of the thorax…

Here’s a glimpse of the same fly only a bottom view. We’ve fused the traditional Czech nymph attributes – the caddis “worm” shellback, with the traditional “mayfly” design of the Hare’s Ear. The hint of claret and yellow is revealed to be the traditional multi-color Czech element, part attractor, part tradition.

Here is a smaller size Czech nymph (tied on a traditional Knapek Scud hook), and the underside is revealed to be the venerable Hare’s Ear.

The idea is sound enough – with the complimentary flies needing a shared body color – although the shellback of the Czech-style eliminates even that restriction.

Tugging flies through puddles demonstrated that anything tied on scud wire, competition or otherwise, rides upside down. Allowing me a blank canvas to build the mayfly on top.

… and for the rest, it’s a homework assignment. There’s infinite possible ways to combine two insect groups on a single fly. Giant stoneflies are troublesome as their size restricts fusion to either Crane fly larvae or baitfish on the underside.

Which of you stalwarts is willing to risk public castigation to offer a better fused mousetrap?

Damn you Reed Curry, you’re the stealthy hand that forced inspiration past the normal cranial pathways and into the realm of outright mirth, as if they’re not giggling yet they certainly will be when I debut the Loch Ness dry fly series.

Tags: fusion flies, Knapek scud hooks, crane fly larvae, Hare’s Ear nymph, Reed Curry, The New Scientific Angling, Eminem, Jay-Z, inspirational fly tying, shellback,

Czech nymphing has  fascinated me for a variety of reasons. It’s the “Cinderella” story mostly; small team emerges to dominate traditional fly fishing competition, remains virtually unbeatable in successive years, and the rest of the angling planet alternately “pooh-pooh’s” their meat oriented fishing style, while desperately begging for similar tackle from domestic makers.

Despite their monopoly of the long light rod, the resurgence of the multiple fly rig, coiled Stren indicators, and 24-30 foot leaders, scud hooks, and the preformed lead inlay – what sets the Czech nymph apart from most fly styles is their elegant blend of color and precise imitation.

Quite simply, they have incorporated the finer elements of attractors, yet have retained the shape and styles consistent with our modern realistic imitations.

… and as a reformed whore former commercial fly tier, tying many hundreds of drab dull flies can be onerous. A hint of sparkle or color is just enough to make that chair less hard ….

“Secret Flies of the Czech and Slovak Fly-Tiers” is a pattern encyclopedia featuring twenty one current or former Czech competitors and nearly 350 of their favorite flies.  There is very little preamble and almost no text. Each tier gives a brief explanation of past accomplishments on the World stage, and presents a dozen or more of his favorite flies. Both the patterns and text are in Czech – which is translated into English as a footnote to each pattern.

It’s the largest single compendium of Czech patterns that I’ve seen to date, and provides a glimpse of enough Caddis nymphs, wet flies, and streamers, for you to realize those elements common to all the featured flies.

Like color. Neither Rhycophilia nor Brachycentrus feature a tricolor abdomen highlighted by orange seal, but you’d still welcome a couple dozen in your fly box.

Many countries have a long history of colorful attractor flies, gradually slipping from prominence due to gleaming newer flies and the synthetics they contain. Scientific angling still holds sway, and colors our perception of what’s fishy and what’s not.

… and while we fiddle with knotted legs and precision, some Eastern Bloc kindred spirit adds a dab of maroon seal to his Olive Caddis and eats our competitive lunch …

Czech patterns and fishing style is slowly entering our mainstream arsenal, almost like Spey rods – which we held at arm’s length for a couple hundred years, then claim we invented them …

But the typical Czech nymph tied by American fly tier’s is missing the delicate profile of the european original. As many of the featured flies in the book portray, the authentic flies feature a double-tapered body – lightly tapered body, thick middle, and tapered front. It’s a trifling detail for most, but lends itself to a couple fortnights of inspired tying – especially for those fellows willing to order the book from Europe to learn more …

The above photo shows a representative fly pattern, its translation, and scant narrative. 

While the photographs are detailed and quite excellent, this book is for an accomplished tier – one that can reproduce the pattern from a glimpse of a single photo …

… AND … knows enough of European materials (both hooks and synthetics) to make the appropriate substitution. Unfortunately, Wapsi and Umpqua are only known to the US, and many common synthetics like the vinyl/latex back may have a different vendor and therefore a different vended name for their product.

They’ll be cited in the translation but you may have to do a little leg work to verify your pet flavor of vinyl is appropriate.

Most of the hooks referenced are Skalka, Knapek, and Maruto. You can substitute similar hooks if you’re familiar with those makers and their models. US vendors like the Blue Quill Angler carry both the Skalka and Knapek competition hooks – and they’re not cheap.

All of these materials can be purchased at Czechnymph.com which was the source of the book, as I could not find it available anywhere in the United States.

In short, an advanced fly tying pattern encyclopedia - absent fishing techniques or step by step illustrations, requiring significant knowledge on the part of the reader – and containing about 350 patterns of Czech-Slovak origin.

As I’ve seen few Czech nymphing books contain this many patterns, I’d think it would be considered singular in that respect.

Full Disclosure: I paid 779.3 CZK for the book, with shipping it was about $42 retail. (changes in world currency are daily)

Tags: Czechnymph.com, Milo Janus, Skalka hooks, Knapek hooks, Maruto hooks, Blue Quill Angler, Secret Flies of the Czech and Slovak Fly-Tiers, fly tying pattern reference, Czech nymphing, Caddis

… which brings the Wrath of The Horribly Offended onto his narrow shoulders. The first half dozen comments point out someone else’s fly his resembles, albeit minus the red tail, and then all original thought is ignored as various fanbois attribute the tie to their respective Sensei.

In the meantime the next great fly tier backpedals back into anonymity swearing never to show his work again.

Ours isn’t the only sport where the word “invention” is four letters. Perhaps variation or derivation is more appropriate – but with 200 plus years of fly tying already behind us has anyone really invented anything in the last 50 years?

Of course they have, only we have trouble admitting it.

Discounting the new flies that arrive with each synthetic, most of the natural materials like fur and feathers are well known and documented. We’ve wrapped, clumped, bound, spiraled, tamped, straightened, and parachuted most everything already.

Fly patterns have this enormous gulf of Gray, with rabid partisans perched on every outcropping just waiting to tee off on the unwary. Us well intentioned tiers duck and evade the unguarded phrase containing “new” or “invented” – and are reminded how easy it is to lift the lid off Hell Incarnate.

I figure there are three basic issues within the larger question of “new”, and these revolve around colors, styles, and method.

Changing the tail on a Black Gnat from black to chartreuse will rarely work up much emotion. With only the single change, it’s a variant of the Black Gnat, and should be named similarly. “Bob’s Black Gnat” is appropriate, as is “Yellow-tailed Black Gnat.” The issue is straightforward – do you wish to pay homage to the original, or do you wish fame everlasting?

As with all vanity, it’s an individual thing – and is probably the source of the foment when the issue raises itself in the media. In the most virulent posts – and ensuing comments – affixing your name to an existing variation is unworthy, even if you made the fly better.

… but if you’re already famous it’s okay, as witnessed by the Royal Coachman and its derivative the Royal Wulff.

Variations caused by style are similar. No one raises an eyebrow at a Parachute Adams – unless it’s introduced as Bob’s Killer Bug. Fingers start pointing, flames erupt and in the blink of an eye – the forum thread is in shambles, with the incensed participants labeling each other with even better names …

Fly tying styles have always incorporated the traditional patterns, as they’re already the product of many years of tinkering and refinement.

We don’t like to think in those terms, how the original fly may have been slightly different and bore a different name – but history is written by the victor, and the venerable Adams may have originated as Finkle’s Wilson, until some SOB added grizzly wings …

… and was vilified by anglers when he dared rename it.

Which neatly explains how difficult it is to trace the original recipe on the timeless patterns of yesterday, likely each author took the variant he fished as gospel.

Style can be incurred by materials as well as tying method. Polypropylene made us retie everything, and we gleefully discarded muskrat, fox belly, and beaver bodies … until we learned Poly fur was coarse, unforgiving, and didn’t float much better than our old fur. That didn’t stop us from putting “Poly” in front half the old standby’s, but as the material proved a false prophet the renaming ceased once it became less popular.

Bead head flies are another example of how a functional style begats variation. Somehow the addition of a heavy bead didn’t warrant renaming the Prince nymph, and we merely added “bead head” to distinguish the functional change.

We’ve seen numerous styles in the last 50 years, most have occurred since we mastered the petroleum polymers, like Nylon, Banlon, Antron, and Z-lon – and the countless synthetics that have been adapted from carpet fibers and the upholstery trade.

We’ve replaced chicken fibers with Microfibbets, wings with Polypropylene or Z-lon, swapped fur dubbing for Antron carpet blends, and did away with hackle entirely – or tried to … We’ve endured the Yorkshire Flybody hook, Swedish dry flies, thorax duns, Waterwalkers, No Hackles, and dozens of different surface film flavors that only young eyes can see.

We’re so busy attempting to replace the Catskill dry and standard nymph, that our failure to find a glossy synthetic equivalent may play a part of the angst displayed when policing derivations and variants.

Structural method also spawns flies as new. Advances in hook design or the debut of a lightweight gossamer can spawn new styles of tying the older flies, and inspire much creativity.

Parachute flies are a great example. Most contain the identical ingredients of the traditional fly, and like bead heads we’ve added “parachute” to the name with little fanfare and no resistance.

… and it’s only because the Czech’s have been consistently eating our competitive lunch that we haven’t complained of their adaptation of a scud style (hook and style) into a bonafide Czech Nymph.

… like Kaiser Soze – we’re terrified of angering them.

Fly tiers have always approached invention with trepidation. Our first halting steps were necessity rather than genius, and added a taint not soon forgotten.

A new tier usually takes the glossy plates of books and magazines as his first muse. Consumed with creativity he’ll often overlook materials in the original recipe that he’s missing. With the fly two-thirds complete another four letter word, substitution, rears its ugly head.

Even if a Light Cahill is completed with Green hackle tips for wings he’ll view it as a failed attempt, as it’s not the original pattern. Months later when he’s more comfortable with skills and patterns he makes a minor modification, perhaps to customize it for his watershed or local insects, and we chew his ass for blasphemy.

A strange dichotomy, on the one hand we’re intent on discarding the old, and are incensed by anything new derived of their tradition.

The Royal Coachman Nymph, and I invented it

Later in a fly tier’s career it’s all about experimentals and variations of derivatives. After many years fishing you realize that traditional patterns are merely flies that have become popular, not that they’re better than everything else.

But all those test cases and oddballs are kept close to the vest. Metered out to strangers on the creek when you’re lucky enough to have something that’s better than most that afternoon, and the rest given a trial and buried into an overhanging tree limb or sunken log.

… and while the forum dwellers snarl at each other from the safety of their computer, attributing whatever appears as something their favorite author or fishing buddy tied first, half of them don’t tie at all – and the other half don’t tie well … which is most of the reason they’re not offering their flies for commentary.

Is it a new fly worthy of a name, whose pedigree can be traced to its originator? Usually not. Mostly they’re copies of copies whose original dressings were guessed at – contained frequent substitutions, which were fortunate enough to have their name and recipe contained in an early tome on fly fishing.

… and if its description involves naming a classic fly, then it’s a derivation regardless of what you call it.

Tags: fly tying, naming flies, Yorkshire flybody hook, Partridge hook company, Catskill dry, traditional fly patterns, fly fishing forums, Light Cahill, Royal Wulff, parachute flies, bead head, Czech nymphs

One of the more popular flies that Cal originated was the Bird’s Nest, where he’d use Tintex Maple Sugar dye to color heavily barred teal flank – and then use a modified distribution wrap to use feathers whose tips were crooked but whose sides were even.

The above is a reference color from a batch of teal flank that Cal dyed for me. Tintex “Maple Sugar” is no longer made but the color can be reproduced with a good warm amber or imitation wood duck dye.

Clip the tip and center stem of the feather and mount that fragment as the tail. The width of the sides sections determine whether the fly is lightly or heavily hackled. For the hook shown (#8) you will need about 3/8” segments on either side – about half of what’s shown.

The front hackle should extend half way down the tail. This is a reference measurement before clamping the near side of the feather to the hook shank with my thumb (to freeze the movement).

Left thumb clamps the fibers to the hook shank to prevent movement. The left forefinger will come down on the far side clump and pinch it to the far side of the fly.

Now that both segments are measured and secured with finger pressure, bring the thread up to roll them around the shank and even out the fibers.

The thread is shown distributing the feathers. The near side clump becomes the top half of the fly, the far side clump wraps the fibers around the belly of the fly.

The hackle collar is anchored. Like the original distribution wrap you can wind back towards the body to redistribute the fibers any way you like. Clip off the remainder of the feather once you’ve finalized the hackle placement.

The completed #8 Olive Bird’s Nest. Cal preferred the old Mustad 7957BX hook which was 1X long, 1X heavy, forged model Perfect bend.

Here’s the same wrap done on a #14 Woodcock & Orange. A collaborative effort; seal provided by [Unknown], Woodcock arrived at Christmas – compliments of the Roughfisher – and glue lump assisted by a holiday sugar rush coupled with unsteady hands.

For Monty Montana.

Tags: Woodcock, seal fur, maple sugar Tintex, teal flank, Cal Bird, Bird’s Nest, soft hackle, Roughfisher.com, Christmas sugar rush, distribution wrap