At some point we all flirt with the individual fibers, knotted legs, and artificial or synthetic everything – mostly because the flies look much too delicious to ignore…

… about our third fly we begin to wonder about synthetic reality and whether something that takes forty-five minutes to tie can outfish something made from a lumpy dog ear and owl feather.

About the half-dozen mark we’re willing to go back to the imprecise impressionism that is the Royal Coachman Fanwing, and we’re the luckier for it …

Not this fellow, I admire his work very much, and admire his resolve even more ..

He’s got quite a few videos as well as the wing burners and tools to speed the realism, always worth an eyeball.

It was so much easier when I lived on the banks of Hat Creek and could fiddle with the fly before throwing it at the same fish I’d thrown it at the night before. If they ate it, it was success. If they didn’t, we kept fiddling with it.

With no fish visible last night I had to eat my own creation, and absent my glasses, proof of concept is casting the fly rod left handed and upstream, poking the camera into the water as the fly draws near hoping we get a couple of good shots.

At left is proof of landing correctly despite being cast forty times, the fly being soaked, yet I’ve got enough stabilization to keep the proper attitude.

The wings are in the Mayfly configuration, and as the camera lens is bisected by the water you can see the blob of upright dyed gray elk, exactly as planned.

At right is the view we see, the wings are dry and absent the wax I’d original used to clump the fibers a little more.

Two turns of hackle, a bit of my special dry fly dubbing, some dyed gray elk, and we’re looking at something designed from the ground up to be a really efficient killer.

What determines the best and most effective flies is not how many fish they’ve caught and where, it’s how confident the owning angler is using the fly – and whether he leaves it on for a few casts or a few hours.

As a guide I’ve heard many learned anglers mention the killing qualities of their favorite flies, I’d nod knowingly as each was completely correct in their assessment.

“I catch all my fish on the Adam’s …” – and if that’s all you ever put on – it’s a prophecy.

It’s the simplest of all games really, each Saturday evening I sit down at the vise to invent the next great dry fly series that will revolutionize the surface game, and make everyone forget them ancient fuddy-duddies like Skues, Halford, or Ronald McDonald …

Rules are simpler yet; it has to be as fast or faster to tie than a traditional dry fly, and it has to use at least one waste byproduct of fly tying – some butt end or common scrap we’ve discarded routinely.

That way I can insist mine’s better than Theodore Gordon’s halting imitations as my fly is “green” as well as guaranteeing an early supper …

I’m not sure I was supposed to come up with anything at all, it was the challenge that drew me to the vise week after week.

I reversed the wing from a Quigley Cripple using deer hair trimmings as the discard material. His Cripple uses the trimmed stub over the body, and the long end over the eye of the hook. I added a dab of tacky wax to the wing … just enough to add a bit of clumping (for the mayfly version) and allows me to pull the wing down over the body to turn the fly into a caddis imitation.

Pull the wing up for the mayfly hatch and down for the caddis grab – neither requires you to retie the knot when it’s near dark.

What’s not to like in a fly that can imitate two of the major trout food groups?

The real test of a great fly is not in its design or function but in the hidden meaning of its name, which will naturally be lost over time, yet adds mystery and illusion to a pedestrian effort.

There were two royal coachmen for each carriage, so which inspired the fly?

I call it the “Hovering Predator” which we’ll know as the drone that’s kept Osama behind them high walls and rooted to the compound, and the rest of history will have to guess at – while wadding handfuls of #16’s into their fly boxes.

Better yet, I’ve shown you mine, now I want to see yours …

I’ve oft wondered at all the toil and expense for the rod maker to remove a sixteenth of an ounce and whether all that engineering and measurement made enough difference to matter. Likewise for that disc drag and aircraft grade titanium that the reel maker boasts is so much more sturdy and durable, and whether he too wasn’t simply enamored with differences versus any tangible effect.

The line maker insists that slick or pebbled is the one true finish, and countless scientists struggle to define slick, in hopes of making it more so.

Heavy butted, limp, monofilament or fluorocarbon to transfer the line’s energy to the fly, but there the refinement and science dies, as fly choice is a mixture of semi-educated premise, intuition, and guesswork.

Figure the average outfit has been tuned by forty or fifty scientists, each with their own ideas on action, stiffness, and weight. Many thousands spent on rare earths and minerals to coat and build the ensemble, and when it finally gets to you, you can’t decide whether to use one or two split shot to drag sharp stuff through deep stuff?

I find it just a bit humorous, and why I can’t stifle a giggle when some rod engineer uses terms like “pure” and “essence”.”

As a fly tier I find fault with overtly heavy rigs or flies. Early Spring fishing is largely dominated by weighted, beaded, thick and heavy, all of which yanks at me when I yank at it, and makes fishing a series of flop casts that carry the weight due to energy imparted by my arm, versus imparted by a fly line – or something that bent the blank.

Like all those engineers are likely to tell you, there’s more than a single way to do anything – including sinking a fly.

Profile can act like more weight if it’s catered to in the fly’s design. Wide and fat increases resistance to motion in any direction, especially fast sinking and lifting the rig back to the surface. Extra shot can drive anything to the bottom quickly, but is never much fun to lob for any length of time -considering the wear and tear on knots and especially  lighter tippets.

Recognizing this from past seasons and planning to switch to a lighter line size this year, allows me to preplan some of the flies needed, given that I have the luxury of tying flies that will be lighter, yet sink as quickly as needed due to their slim profile.

Just as important, a slim profile allows me to get them out of the water with alacrity, something quite desirable in a hook set, and may allow the rod to roll cast the rig to the surface to position for the next cast.

Spring being host to all those big dark artificials, stoneflies mostly; many of us will be cracking out big pillow shaped chenille monstrosities, replete with rubber legs and tungsten beads. That’s less of a bother with #5’s and #6’s, but using a #3 or #4 line they’ll be effective only in lobbing flies given both their weight and water resistance.

I decided to “channel” some of the old Polly Rosborough Golden stone designs to different colors as his design is a lighter weight than traditional fare, and allows me some additional flexibility while I prepare for a high water Spring – and a light line mainstay.

The shank is covered in lead from tail to whip finish, with only a bit of combed fur to impede sinking. It’ll fish where the fish should be without extra beads and split shot, and ensures an enjoyable heave compared to the weighted hamburger the other fellow is throwing.

Thin silhouette is matched by other functional attributes consistent with a heavy nymph. Reinforcing wire on all the feather delicates, three coats of cement on the head, and a blood red tuft of fur making the underwing, adding a hint of attractor to the finished pattern.

Heavy wire is consistent with banging about the rocks, as is the thick spear point – on a fly destined to hook many things, some of which may be desirable.

Few anglers optimize their flies knowing what’ll be throwing it. Favorite patterns also restrict us a bit, given our reluctance to try anything new. On a big meal like a stonefly I’d suggest fish won’t be as selective, allowing us to add that additional dimension, something tailored for the characteristics of the rod.

That’s a lot of scientists insisting a few grams are worth many hundreds of dollars. No reason not to pay attention to the ease of your rig when fished, and the shape and style of its terminal tackle.

This was a reduction of a Upper Sacramento classic, Ted Fay’s Black Bomber. Plenty can be said of Ted Fay flies, most would say “really heavy.” They weren’t graceful or slender, and I dreaded a big order as it was the only fly I had to tie holding my nose. Not that the flies were bad, they just required so much lead they were unstable.

You could spin the brown or black chenille body around the hook with ease.

Gary Warren was a longtime resident of Burney, California, and knew both Joe Kimsey and Ted Fay. In between guiding Hat Creek and Fall River, he’d fish the Upper Sacramento and adapted the fly to Hat Creek and the Pit River by removing the grizzly wings and the second and third layer of lead wire.

Thankfully, you could now throw the fly without fear of concussion or outright amputation.

He kept the “Bomber” moniker, but I altered the name to distinguish the original and its adaptation.

Grizzly hackle tail, tied short. Brown or Black chenille for the body, and three turns of undersized grizzly saddle at the head. Gary preferred ring eyed hooks – as shown above.

In looking at all these flies there’s little question that simplicity rules. They sit in your fly box all alone until you’ve tried all the sexy stuff, and when you finally succumb and lash it to your leader, you remember all the superlatives your buddy used when he handed them to you.

As much as we’d like it to warn us, great flies have no aura about them when removed from the vise, no halo to clue its creator to cease embellishment, as his creation will be the bane of local gamefish for the next couple of decades.

We’ve taken it for granted we can spot fishy potential and great colors, most of us have fly boxes bulging with imitation bug parts, gooey soft textures, and colors dripping with authenticity.

The fact we carry so many is clue that we really can’t tell what a fish thinks, likes, or eats.

To remind me that I know nothing of fish vision, let alone what stimulates taste, I would add special flies to my driver’s side sun visor. Flies that caught 20” fish and those whose consistent greatness had earned them a place in what would become a testimonial to what large wary fish preferred …

… and why gooey textures, feelers, and bug parts didn’t appear in any of the really successful flies, most of which didn’t even look buggy to my eye.

Chartreuse floss body overwrapped with fine copper wire, no particular pattern – just lay on forty turns until about half the chartreuse has been covered. Two turns of dark partridge hackle and a grizzly tail completes this unknown work.

… no eyeballs, no individual legs, and a primary color that you’d be hard pressed to find in Mother Nature…

No name that I can remember, given to me by a client that swore by it, and after my lip curled uncontrollably, I let him try it just so he’d stop fidgeting with his flies and start fishing all my better ideas.

… fortunately we didn’t need any of my flies.

Tied in sizes from #10 – #14, he mentioned how he’d assumed the fish ate it as a green caddis.

As I’ve recently unearthed the box of flies I removed from that visor, I figured to share some of the nameless patterns you’ll never see in any fly shop, just to give those that are struggling with invention a glimpse of pure death – and how little refinement and entomology is really needed.