Fly of the Month

Now I’ve got an interesting dry fly for you today, that you probably won't find in a lot of books out there. I came across it recently when flipping through Kenneth Bay's 1979 American Fly Tier's Handbook.

This tactical pattern is most useful in flat, slow-moving water where trout get a long look at the fly before making an eat-or-don’t-eat decision. It suggests a “stuck-in-the-shuck” dun, and can work well when targeting rising trout that have refused more conventional patterns.

by Matt O'Neal of Savage Flies: Find him on his YouTube channel at Savage Flies  This month’s pattern is a d...

by Matt O'Neal of Savage Flies: Find him on his YouTube channel at Savage Flies  Now there’s been a bit of c...

Learn to tie the Woodruff Dry Fly, a pattern with roots in the Catskill Mountains of New York

J. Stockard Pro Tyer: Paul Shurtleff, Springville UT, You can find Paul @: www.instagram.com/insectinside/, ...

by Matt O'Neal of Savage Flies: Find him on his YouTube channel at Savage Flies  Merry Chris...

This Sulphur nymph variation is a trout pleaser. With a tungsten bead, it gets down in the zone quickly and goes right to work. The flashback not only helps to draw attention, but also helps minic the splitting thorax during emergence. If Sulphur Mayflies are in your watershed, this is a great one to tie on as part of your nymph rig.

by Nathan Wight, Durham ME, J. Stockard Pro Tyer Again this year we called on the talents of the J. Stockard...

The flies that I tie are made out of necessity, the necessity to create art, and the necessity to create fishable flies. Sometimes both of those driving forces combine and align, The All Night Diner is a great example of this. Named after one of my favorite Modest Mouse songs, The All Night Diner is fun to tie and an effective dry fly. This parachute emerger pattern is a great example of how the tying art flies leads to new techniques for effective fishable patterns. I first tied this pattern late at night on a long project fly using a VKsteelworks hook.

This is a fly originally designed by Bob Clouser as is obvious by the name. This is how Bob himself describes the fly.

Euro nymphing, tight line nymphing or high-stick nymphing, no matter what you choose to call it, can be an extremely effective way to catch fish. The key is to get the fly to the bottom and into the feeding lane of the fish. I, like a lot of trout fishers, grew up fishing the classic nymph patterns like Pheasant Tails and Hare’s Ears. Although these patterns are exceptional at mimicking the naturals as closely as possible in shape and color, I soon discovered with euro style flies, shape and weight were more important. I believe it is better to have four patterns in various weights than 100 of the same flies in the same weight. I often fish flashier flies when in high pressured waters for nothing else than to show the fish something different. I say all this based on my experiences. Not everyone will be the same and there are always exceptions.