Fly of the Week: Humpy

The humpy's development and history is shrouded in mystery and controversy. Essentially what I am saying is that no one really knows when the fly came into existence. Furthermore, a number of groups have tried to credit the several people for being the master creator behind the fly. Here is what I do know about it's history. The first time the flies pattern was documented was in the 1920's when the description of the flies unique hump shaped abdomen is clearly described in a fishing journal somewhere on the east coast. This would however lead on to believe that the flies origins would lead back over seas to Europe where there is not current record. Other publications during the 1940's in the Midwest actually brought the famous dry fly to be regarded as one of the most popular and useful flies in country. There are also stories of old timers tying humpys during this time period in a number of areas. However, it still took the marketing and business savvy of a California fly shop owner to finally bring the fly to the west coast making the fly a true national phenomenon. Today tiers enjoy a large variety of materials and colors in which to tie the humpy. It is probably one of my favorite dry flies because of the ease of tying one and the number of materials and colors one can tye with this fly. Here is Eric from one of my favorite fly shops in town doing a video demonstration of how to tie a Humpy.

Fly Tyer Magazine, Fly Tying, Fly Recipes, Fly Patterns, Fly Fishing - Runoff in the Rockies

Fly Tyer Magazine, Fly Tying, Fly Recipes, Fly Patterns, Fly Fishing - Runoff in the Rockies
Here is an interesting article from Flytyer magazine for fishing swollen rivers in the spring. Though I personally do not fish rivers much it is good information for the future and for those that do.

Fly of the Week: Pheasant-tail Nymph

Along with the gold ribbed hares ear, the pheasant tail nymph is one of my favorite flies for fly tying and nymphing. It's also one of the most productive trout flies in fly fishing. Frank Sawyer, an English river keeper, invented this fly pattern more than 60 years ago and used only pheasant tail and copper wire to tie his version of this simple fly, a deadly imitation of the Baetis nymph.Al Troth is credited with creating what has become the more standard (American) version, adding peacock herl and legs. Today, the pheasant tail nymph, or PT nymph, has many variations in the world of fly tying. Some fly tyers use different materials and colors for a thorax, some will add a bead head, and some will add a flash back to create the PT Flashback (I prefer the flashback myself.) Although not quite as simple as the hare's ear, the pheasant tail nymph requires some of the same fly tying techniques, and is equally as enjoyable a fly to tie.

INSTRUCTIONS:

HOOK: Standard Heavy Wire (TMC 3769)
THREAD: Brown
TAIL: Pheasant Tail Fibers (4-6 strands)
RIB: Medium Copper Wire (Small in sizes 16 -18)
BODY: Wrapped Pheasant Tail Herl
THORAX: Peacock Herl
WING CASE: Pheasant Tail
LEGS: Pheasant Tail (The ends used for the wing case, tied back)
OPTIONAL: Lead for weight, or a bead head, flash back

Tie in your thread and wind back to the bend. Tie in your Pheasant Tail. The tail should extend from the rear a half to a full hook length - make sure the tips are even before you tie them in. Tie in your copper wire. Wrap the Pheasant Tail forward evenly and tightly to just past the half way mark and tie them down. Now wrap the copper wire forward in the opposite direction and tie it down. The wire will leave you a slightly shiny segmentation and it will also keep the pheasant tail fibers secure. Now, if you want to add your flash do so where the PT ends and make sure the flash is on top of the hook and extending towards the rear. Tie down your pheasant tail, about 6 strands, with the tips extending over the hook eye. These ends will become the legs, so make sure they extend about one half of a hook length beyond the eye. The butt ends should be extending toward the rear. They will be pulled over and trimmed later to create the shell back. Wrap the thread back to where the body ends and tie in your peacock herl. Wrap the herl to create a thorax and tie off about a hook eye's length from the eye. Pull over the pheasant tail shell back. Tie off the PT and trim. Now pull over and tie down the flash if you added it, trimming the excess. Now split the Pheasant tail tips you left extending forward into two even groups on the sides and then carefully sweep them back along the sides and towards the shank. Tie down with about three wraps moving towards the rear, then build up a small head. This should create proper the legs that make this fly unique. Whip finish and add head cement. Useful for both Trout and Steel head applications

Fly of the Week:Judson Stone

This weeks fly is a new one I am going to try out this summer. Al and Gretchen Beatty featured this one on their "From the Fly Box" located at Idahoflyfisher.com. Since I am an Al and Gretchen Beatty fan I decided to make it this weeks fly of the week.

It's a must have pattern for Idaho streams where stoneflies live and that includes almost all of them. This pattern is particularly effective from early winter until it hatches into an adult in early spring. We like to fish it dead-drift through holding water. As spring approaches cast the nymph closer to the stream bank because the insects crawl out of the water to hatch on streamside vegetation. They often take up to a month to move to the waters edge from their homes in the more central part of the stream. The closer your offering is to their actual location spells success.
Judson Stone

Tied by: Merne R. Judson, Gunnison, CO
Hook: Size 12 to 16, Mustad C53S, 80050BR, Daiichi 1270, 1273, Eagle Claw LO52, TMC 200R, 2312, or DaiRiki 270
Thread: Brown Gudebrod BCS#66 or Uni-Thread Rusty Brown
Weight: Lead .020
Tail: Brown biots
Abdomen: Brown Kaufman stone mix dubbing, brown biot back
Rib: Fine copper wire
Wing pads: Two brown biots
Thorax: Brown Kaufman dubbing
Legs: Whiting or Ewing hen hackle
Antenna: Biots from wing pad
Head: Brown Kaufman dubbing, thread

Tying Instruction

1. Place the hook in the vise and wrap the lead wire onto the front part of the shank. Be certain not to crowd the hook eye; you will need the extra space later. Flatten the lead wraps with a pair of pliers. Attach the tying thread in front of the shaped lead, criss cross wrap over the weighted area, and wrap to a point directly above the hook barb. Apply head cement to the thread covered lead wraps.

2. Tie on the biots for the tail and use a ball of dubbing to divide them. Trim the excess; then tie on a single biot by the tip to later form the abdomen back. Attach the copper wire at this location as well.

3. Apply dubbing to the back half of the hook shank. Fold over the biot back and anchor it in the center of the hook where the dubbed abdomen stops. Wrap the copper wire forward ribbing over the abdomen. Trim the excess wire and biot.

4. Measure two biots so they are about as long as the hook. Bind them to the shank with the tips pointing to the back. Prepare a hen feather by removing the fluff and stroking the fibers back so they are straight out from the stem. Tie the feather on by the tip (concave side up) in the center of the hook shank.

5. Mentally divide the front part of the hook into three equal parts. Apply dubbing to the center most part, fold over the hen feather, and then the two biots. Bind all in place with a couple of thread wraps then fold the feather and biots back again.

6. Dub the next part of the thorax. Fold the hen feather over this second section, bind it to the hook, and trim the excess. Now fold over the two biots and bind them to the hook wrapping all the way to the eye covering the front third of our thorax. The remaining tips form the antenna. Dub over the thread wraps to form the head, whip finish, and trim the excess thread. Apply Aqua Head or head cement as needed.

Fly Of My Dreams

Fly of the Week: EMERGENT SPARKLE CADDIS

Spring is the time when we all look for the great hatches of mayflies, stoneflies, midges and most important for many of us caddis flies. Gary LaFontaine and his team studied caddis flies, and his book Caddisflies is the standard on the subject. He describes many fly patterns to imitate caddis species. Two of those are Deep Pupa and Emergent Pupa. If you have an opportunity to read Caddisflies do it. There is much there to help you be a better fly angler. You will also see there are many more great patterns and many variations of the Deep Pupa and Emergent Pupa patterns.


Zelon or Antron have a trilobal (three sided) fiber structure which has many advantages. Does it make good flies? You become a believer when you read pages 32-39 in Caddisflies. Statements like: “…in clear water the Sparkle Caddis Pupa drew the attention of trout three and a half feet away, while in the same situation a standard pupa drew the attention of fish no farther than a foot away.” and “The Emergent Pupa…on the stream was roughly three times better than a fly lacking the imitation of an air sack,…” It doesn’t clump or matt like other materials. It makes the fly carry air bubbles, and “The Emergent, hanging half I and half out of the water, kicks off a constant stream of bubbles.” This was part of the patterns unexpected effectiveness. At times the Emergent Pupa even broke selective feeding cycles. What more do you want?

Fish feeding on emergers are often mistakenly thought to be feeding on adults. Several years ago I watched a couple of fly anglers fishing over a bunch of rising fish. Since they were fishing the water I desired I watched them from a high spot. Through binoculars I could see the actively rising fish, and their floating flies drifting along untouched. However, most important I could see adult caddis floating unscathed for several hundred feet before they took flight. After the frustrated anglers left, they caught no fish, my friend and I went down and proceeded to hook and release many fish on pupa and nymph imitations.

How do you fish the Emergent Sparkle Caddis? Read pages 99 – 114 in Caddisflies for a complete discussion, but I’ll try to condense it a little. First is the dead drift approach. The fly is kept awash in the surface film where a trout can porpoise and eat it. For the caddis that does not ride quietly on the surface Gary recommends “the stutter and drift method,” which is more active. Put a slack line curve cast up and across with the fly landing downstream of the line. Then make a quick mend before the fly starts to drag. The mend should do no more than make the fly stutter sideways a little. Release a little line to extend the drift. Some species of caddis Gary calls runners or paddlers; Canadians call them traveling sedges. These caddis move across the surface more or less in a straight line and either take off or are recycled into trout with an explosive rise. Grease the fly, and retrieve it with long pulls to move it across the water surface. I have also watched caddis swim around in circles before taking off, but I have never figured a way to move the fly like that.

Enough talk, let’s tie it.

Materials & Equipment:

Hook: Dry Fly hook
Thread: 6/0 brown
Bubble or over body: Micro Zelon, a new product, was used to tie the pictured fly, but Zelon or Antron yarn are normally used, tan or caddis gold
Underbody: Mole hair and Quick Fingers Touch Dubbing
Head: Dubbed mole or peacock


Step 1: Start thread about mid shank, and wind rearward to the bend which on most regular dry fly hooks is a point right over the barb.

Step 2: Attach two clumps of Zelon or Antron at the bend of the hook. Place one bundle of Zelon or Antron on each side of the hook. As you tie, try to spread the fibers around the hook. Antron yarn might need to be combed out to fluff it enough to make a good over body.

Step 3: Ellen uses a variety of colors for the underbody, but on this fly she used mixed mole and Quick Fingers Touch Dubbing. Most tiers put a tacky dubbing wax on the thread and just touch the thread with a dubbing ball. She said that the touch technique was developed by Gary LaFontaine. Don’t roll it down like making a tight noodle. Note, about one quarter shank length is uncovered.

Step 4: Bring the bunches of Anton forward along the sides of the hook. Put a couple of not too tight thread winds just a front of underbody. Use a bodkin to pull out and bulk up the over body. Try to keep the over body evenly distributed around the hook.

Step 5: At this point you can put wing pads on the sides of the over body. Tie in dark soft hackles parallel to hook shank no more than three quarters shank length long. Sometimes a small bunch of lighter colored deer hair is added for a wing. Wrap mole fur dubbing or peacock herls for a head.

Closing Comments: Every fly angler needs this and other Gary LaFontaine patterns in their fly box. They are easy to tie and from the reports they are almost magic for catching trout. Then go out and fish them.

Fly of the Week: Taylor's Shrimp

The Taylors shrimp is one of the first flies I learned how to tie. It is very effective especially in water there scud and fresh water shrimp can be found. I also know a fisherman who ties this pattern on larger hooks for steel head and Salmon on the Columbia River and in fishing ocean bays. As the creator is Marv Taylor I give all the credit to him and this past month I got the story on how he developed the pattern. Marv was fishing a tex favorite on Horsethief Reservoir for a couple of days. he tried other patterns but found the tex to be the most effective. After some more research Marv discovered the fish where taking the Tex favorite as a scud. SO he tied this up with some materials he had with him and it worked even better than the Tex. You will notice that it is tied on a curved hook but as Marv explains you need some on curved to simulate swimming scud and some on straight hooks to show the scud in a resting state. Fish it Deep!!!! that where the scud hang out. This fly is easy to tie in fact of you can tie a Woolly Bugger you can tie the Taylors Shrimp. Colors: yellow and black variegated is best but I have found an olive and black chenille with a sparkle that I think works even better. Don't tell Marv! Also pale light yellow or light pink, natural Orange and very light tan and even a light off white or cream.

Hook: Regular shank (at rest) 8 - 14, weighted with .020 fuse wire; Standard 1X long (swimming) 8 - 14, also weighted.
Thread: Light olive, prewaxed 6/0.

Tail: Light-olive saddle hackle, tied on by the butt, half way down the bend.

Body: Dark-olive and gold (Dark-olive and yellow will work) variegated chenille, size small (Danvilles 0 size) tied halfway down the bend, and wrapped forward.

Legs: Light-olive saddle hackle, tied on at the bend and wrapped forward over the chenille, and trimmed on the top and on the sides.

HEAD: Light olive.

Where did I go?

Sorry all been busy with School and work. Updates will be coming very soon!

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Me and Marv

Marv Taylor and I at the Western Idaho Flyfishing Expo last weekend. Marv is some what of a stillwater pioneer and local legend. He wrote the outdoor column for the Idaho statesman for a number of years and published 7 books dealing with fishing and entomology. I personally have learned a great deal from his literature and he is some what of a hero of mine. He develop a number of flies that I use and tie and was instrumental in helping to popularize many of his peers work in fly tieing and fishing. Marv is now 84 years old and "going strong" according to his statement. He is currently spending his time traveling to shows and conclaves around the west and doing a bit of fishing when he can.......go figure. More on Marv his flies and stories to follow later.

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Boise Valley Woolly Buggers

Tonight I took Rose and Caleb to there first meeting with the Boise Valley Woolly Buggers.The Boise Valley Woolly Buggers is a young oriented fly fishing club that I have been interested in for quit some time. They teach the kids fly fishing skills, fly tying, and conservation. There motto is "There is more to fishing than catching fish". The youth lead the meetings with adult supervision. The group was start by Boise native and fly fishing legend Clayne Baker whom I first met while fishing out on Warm Lake a few years ago. Clayne's hope is that the youth involved learn about leadership and being a team player. Tonights meetings the kids had an art contest and had to create there own picture of a fish. The winner won a small box of flies that had been provided by one of the fathers. The meeting also featured an inclusive update on area fishing trends and techniques to use in winter weather. The kids also shared fishing stories with each other and at the end had a door prize drawing. Caleb won a large sack full of fly tying materials and drew a second time and won some flies. Rose also won a large sack of tying materials. Both of my kids showed excited attitude before during and after the meeting, in fact they were dang near impossible to get to bed! As a father I am excited to see them interested as much as they are and look forward to more meetings. Our next goal is waiting for a decent day to try out a pond recommended by Clayne to catch some bluegill. Probably try some small midge dry fly patterns or tiny chironomid nymph patterns. My over all impressions of the meeting: The kids ran the whole meeting and all the kids were attentive and non-disruptive. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves even the adults who kind of watched while sitting at the back of the room or conversing in the hall way while the kids carried on with the meeting. The youth leaders seemed to be conscience and appreciative and complimented each kid as they presented stories, pictures, and came up to accept prizes. I was thoroughly impressed at how well the meeting ran and look forward to seeing my ids participate in a fantastic organization.

Fly of the Week: Humpy

The Humpy is a good all around attractor pattern. It can be tied in any color. Some people tie it with a very slim body. Not me, I say if you want a slim bodied, high floater, use a Wulff. Humpys should be big and fat. They float like a cork. They work very well in the summer and fall as they imitate a number of terrestrials. They are also a good searching pattern when no hatch is evident. Generally, it is fished dead drift. But, sometimes I like to use the Humpy as an indicator when fishing small emergers or midges in rougher water and a dropper nymph.
The important thing to remember about this fly is that it is a pattern so you should tie it in a wide variety of sizes and colors. My advice go out to where you are fishing and simply copy color combinations that you see! Good Luck and tight lines.

Materials:

Thread: 8/0, to match body color
Hook: dry fly sizes 10 to 18
Tail: Moose.
Body: Thread.
Overbody and wing: Elk cow.
Hackle: Silver Saddle, furnace and grizzly.

Tying Instructions: Humpy

1. Start the thread halfway at the hook shank. This is important, as it is the reference point for the body. Wrap to the bend, tie in tail, wrap to halfway point. (*You can use 6/0, but I've found that 8/0, because of its smaller diameter, "bites" into the material better than 6/0.)

2. Take a bunch of Elk, remove all underfur, stack well, size (correct size is from tip of the tail to hook eye), and cut to length.

3. Tie the Elk to the hook, wrap towards the bend, keeping the Elk on top of the hook. Wrap until you've completely covered the thread wraps for the tail. Never mind the stubs at the tie-in point - they will disappear later on.

4. Wrap the underbody with thread. Pray that it doesn't break, which happened to me... Lift the Elk, give it a quarter turn, fold it over and tie down on top of the hook shank. This should be at the halfway point. After three thread wraps I lift the wing and put two wraps under the wing around the shank, then three wraps over the wing again. I finish with one wrap around the shank only.

5. Divide the wing, put thread wraps around the base of each wing, post the wings. Lay a thread foundation in front of the wing, making a smooth taper towards the eye. Without this thread foundation the hackle will be all over the place due to the big difference in diameter behind and in front of the wing.

6. Tie in the hackle(s), dull side facing forward. Don't tie the hackle down where the barbs start; leave a short length of bare stem, which will produce a cleaner start of the hackled collar. The ugly spot, where the thread broke, will be covered with the first wrap of the furnace hackle.

7. Palmer the hackles forward, starting with the hackle that was tied in last (here: the grizzly one). Tie off hackles and whip finish.

We need a little history to make sense of fly rod actions. The first so-called fly rods were wood, and pretty crude. Fly lines were braided horse hair, not very effective either. Eventually rods evolved to cane, then split cane into intricately designed casting tools. Works of art - then and now.Split bamboo soon became the ultimate fly rod and still today is used by traditionalists and collectors.
During World War II, many new products hit the market. Fiberglass was one of them. So was PVC. Dacron and Nylon came out of the war effort too. Lots of innovations that ended up in the fly fishing world.
Fiberglass fabric was wrapped on a wood rod. Epoxy finished and the fiberglass rod was on the market. When the inventors figured out how to do away with the wood center the first hollow rods were born.
Considering the choices available at the time, either split bamboo or steel, the fiberglass rods were designed to copy bamboo. Fake bamboo rods. With a similar action ... as close as possible. Cane fly rods have a soft to moderate action. Some fiberglass rods were very soft and often referred to as "noodley" and the longer the rod, the more noodley it became.
Follow through a couple more decades into the space age and we find the fly rod industry taking advantage of new technology again. This time it is graphite and boron. Almost any material can be formed into threads of some sort. Once it's thread, it can be woven into fabric ... just like fiberglass which appeared in drapes, patching material for cars and boats - and flyrods. Boron was tried and rejected because it was considerably heavier than graphite without additional strength.
Here comes the catch. Those companies who had been making fiberglass rods had everything set up to make those rods to imitate or at least be similar to bamboo. Now there is a new material. What will happen?
Most companies had their machinery, mandrills (steel forms the fabric is wrapped on to make the blanks,) and their reputations established. If you bought one of their rods you knew by reputation how the rod would feel.
Some companies replaced part of the threads in the fabric with graphite. That made the rods lighter, but only slightly changed the action.
New companies had the option to make the same slow or medium action rods already on the market - or to do something entirely different. That's where faster action rods started.
Fast rods that are lighter in your hand, use more of the tip to propel the line, and (if cast correctly) do the work for you. One of the major advantages in fast rods is the person casting it does less work. So you aren't as tired as quickly.
Fast rods are primarily designed with the butt and middle sections built to play the fish, the top one third to cast the line. That does make the tip section (which is tiny compared to rods just a few years ago) vulnerable to breakage if the rod is used incorrectly when playing or landing a fish.
Bottom line? What do you want to fish for? Under what conditions? What can you afford? If you are casting well enough to get the fly where you want it most of the time, you also probably have developed a style - a method that is comfortable for you.
From one who has been fishing for some years, a word of encouragement. There is no such thing as a bad graphite fly rod. All of us would have thought we had gone to heaven if we had been offered any of the rods on the market today 25 years ago. The fly rod industry has made giant leaps improving our sport.
Match the action of the rod, and the price, to what works for you. Final word of wisdom: Don't ever buy a rod you have not cast.

Western Idaho Fly Fishing Expo

This will be the Boise Valley Fly Fishermen's 40th year since its conception and this will be our 7th annual expo. Our mission to promote the sport of fly-fishing through education and conservation activities is dependent upon a successful Expo.
Instruction in fly tying, casting, and fly fishing ethics has been our strength over the years. This year's event will feature several new programs as well as workshops in these areas.
This is a gathering that will allow Idaho and other regional fly tiers to show their talents to the fly-fishing public and exchange ideas, new and old.
Saturday evening, there will be a banquet with a program, dinner, raffle and auction. The Boise Valley Fly Fishermen will earmark funds raised at this event for various regional conservation undertakings.
We've nearly doubled the size Expo Hall,and have a large number of fly tiers who are listed on our tiers page. You'll see demos from high floating dry flies to deep sinking nymphs and tiers that will show you techniques that are guaranteed to make your fly tying and fishing more rewarding.

slide show

A Step Closer

The Hunter Family reunion was, and still is, and annual event in my family and we often spent Labor Day or Memorial Day getting reacquainted with family members and having fun in the outdoors. A common place to hold the reunion was in the Hagerman Valley. Hagerman is nestled in the Snake River Canyon of central Idaho. The River valley offers many outdoor activities to those wishing to enjoy the outdoors and the area is an oasis in the middle of the southern Idaho dessert. There a hundreds of natural springs and waterfalls that litters the steep canyon walls as the Snake River Aquifer comes to an abrupt end and empties into the Snake River. One such place that we camped on a regular basis was Thousand Springs State Park which featured some of the same spectacular water features described above. On the far end of the park, there is the Thousand Springs Fish Hatchery, a place where my brothers, cousins, and I spent hours fishing in the hatcheries run-off pond, chasing wildlife, and generally causing some kind of trouble.

The run-off pond was actually located in front of the hatchery entrance and wound back towards the camping and picnic area of the park before tapering into a culvert that ran under the entrance road and emptied into the river. At the head of the slew right at the hatcheries front gate was an enormous concrete box with a platform and railing set on top. This was where we fished the most often because the runoff from the hatchery spilled out of the top of the concrete box just below the standing platform. The water cascaded down about a four or 5-foot drop before slamming into pool of clear water below. This of course created a slight current and the fish would congregate at the tail waters of the falls. Even back then I realized this was a great fishing hole because the fish were there because of the food that would run out of the hatchery with the runoff water was easy to get. Therefore, a bunch of kids with some globs of Power bait on the end of their lines could easily make a good day of fishing.

What we would do is stand on the platform, make long casts out past the current section of the falls, and then reel back in to position our hooks in the tail waters and wait. The key to this strategy however was being on the platform so casting and positioning your bait was easy. There were some spots just to the sides of the giant box but these spots where harder to cast from and harder to keep your bait in the tail waters. However on occasion, we would be forced to fish from these locations because other people had beaten us to the standing spots on the platform. There was one advantage though that took a fly rod and some old rusty flies to discover.

After the falls come down off the concrete block and create the rapid something happens just to the sides of the current that you might find more common on a river or stream than you would on stillwater. Eddies! Two of them one on each side of the current that curved back towards the bank and created a couple deep pockets perfect for trout to sit and await food falling and drifting from the falls.. We always saw fish in these pockets of slack water but catching one was nearly impossible since the fish either spooked as you approached the edge of the water or saw your shadow and simply did not take any bait you threw at them.  The fish here often seemed larger than most we caught as well so they were very irresistible to a bunch of fished crazed boys. We had tried several ideas throughout the years ranging from regular baits, lures, and scents to outlandish things like threading gummy bears on the hook. Nothing worked but we never gave up.

One particular year when I was 11 my cousin Bob, who was only a couple months younger than I and often my counter-part in mischief, had acquired an old fly rod and box of old musky flies. As I recall the flies and the rod had once belong to his granddad that had passed on to the other side some years before. The rod was old fashioned with an auto reel and silk braided fly line. The flies were an assortment of wings, feathers, and a bit of rust colored stain blended into most of the fly bodies. We didn’t care however and hurried down to the sides of the platform to put the rod and other gear together. Bob picked out a random fly and lashed it onto the leader. He didn’t really cast it out on the water, it was more of a fling but it gave the line and leader enough distance to put the fly in the middle of the deep slack water. Within seconds of the fly laying on the water the first fish was hooked and Bob dragged in the line contained a very nice rainbow trout. We unhooked the fish put in on the stringer and readied for the next cast which resulting in the exact same result of the previous cast. With in about two or three minutes we had a good number of large fish on the stringer when Bob lost the fly we were using. We tried a couple others but the results were not as good. Instead, we packed everything up and headed back to camp proud as any two boys could be with our catch and feeling triumphant that we had finally cracked the secret to catching those fish out of the slack water.  

A few things contributed to our success that day. The first was just dumb luck I think. We really had no idea what we were doing and this was the first time either of us had used a fly rod or flies to catch fish. The second would be that we were able to get to the fish without being detected. The extra long length of the fly rod, being that it was about nine feet long,  made it possible to stand back further from the edge of the water and thus kept us from being detected by the fish. Lastly, we had picked a fly that was similar in some way to what the fish were already eating. This happened without either of us realizing it but the science behind fly-fishing is duplicating the natural food sources of the fish. Therefore, again by luck, we had simply matched the hatch and the results were, even now, astounding.

It was about this same time that my aunt Holly and Uncle Neil had moved into a house just up the street from where I lived. Neil was big into fly-fishing and fly tying, which was something my dad did not do. On a few occasions, Neil would invite me over to learn how to tie flies. The first was just a generic woolly bugger and some leech patterns. My tying lessons would be short lived however, as just before my 12^th birthday we moved from Meridian to a larger house just off the bench in Boise. This move from familiar territory to a new unfamiliar world with new friends, new surrounds, and many challenges for me personally would actually be the catalyst to pushing me further into art of fly-fishing. 

Cast off to stereotypes

I've never been much of a numbers guy. While I think statistics are great for helping us determine trends or the reasoning behind certain results in life, or business, or sports, figures can also be misleading and even guide us in the wrong direction if we put too much stock into them. Like with fly-fishing, for example. The stats suggest fly fishermen are just that. Men. Make that old men. Grumpy, old, white men, with money - in the $100,000 or more income bracket to be exact, according to The Special Report on Fishing and Boating published last year by the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation and The Outdoor Foundation. And as they say, the numbers don't lie, but I encourage my fellow anglers to be skeptical of stats, and the stereotypes they might create, and question the trends of recent years when it comes to the fly fishing community.

Fly of the Week: Lawson's Paradrake

The Lawson Paradrake was designed by the legendary Henry's Fork Guide and Outfitter Mike Lawson. Featured in a number of his books it has become a popular pattern with both still-water and river fisherman. 

Mike Lawson was born and raised in southeastern Idaho, Mike and his wife, Sheralee are both four-generation natives of Southern Idaho. Mike has fished the local trout streams in this part of Idaho all of his life, especially the Henry's Fork. He taught school in St. Anthony for 6 years and worked as a fly-fishing guide during the summer months. Mike and Sheralee also tied flies commercially for many years. In 1977 they opened Henry's Fork Anglers fly shop at Last Chance, Idaho.

Hook: 14 - 10 Dry-fly

Thread 3/0 Black or Dark Olive

Body: Elk hair

Tail: Moose hair

Wing: Elk Hair or Buck-tail

Hackle: Grizzly

Colors: light and dark olive, pale yellow, dun, brown, grey 

1. Start the thread just passed the centre of the hook shank toward the bend. Wrap toward the bend to form a bed of thread and make one wrap back toward the hook eye. Let the thread bobbin hang.

2. Take a stacked bundle of elk hair about one to one and a half times the thickness of one matchstick. Holding it on the nearside of the hook, tips pointing about 30 degrees down, make one loose wrap around the hair and while holding the hair in place pull the thread tight. The hair will spin partially round the shank.

3. Keep the thread in tension and wrap the thread toward the hook eye in further tight turns, stopping short of the bare shank. Cut away the waste butts of hair with a tapering cut.

4. Gather and lift the elk hair to form a wing post. To avoid flaring the hair start the wraps tight and apply less tension for the last one or two wraps at the furthest point as you wrap away from the hook – apply increasing tension as you wrap back toward the hook.

5. Tie in tail material, either pheasant tail or moose hair, long enough that when the body is trimmed it leaves tails of length equal to that of the body. Then prepare and tie in a hackle having barbs the length of the hook. The hackle should be tied in on the wing post as illustrated having the concaved face of the feather toward you.

6. Take the thread to a point two or three wraps short of the hook eye. Take another bundle of stacked elk hair equivalent to approximately four or five matchsticks thickness. Hold the hair close to the ends as illustrated.

7. Cut the butts even and offer up to the hook where the thread hangs.

8. Make a couple loose wraps around the hair then pull the thread tight to spin the body material.

9. Bind the butts of elk hair and let the thread hang down two thirds of the way between the elk hair and the wing post.

10. By pressing your finger to the hook eye, fan out the elk hair like a hackle collar.

11. Stroke and pull the elk hair back around the hook shank and make one wrap of thread around the hair in front of the wing post. Then wrap the thread in a tight open spiral toward the tail.

12. Take the thread passed the bend of the hook to form the extended body and cross wrap the thread back to the front of the body and make a whip finish.

13. Turn the hook in the vice and let the thread hang at the base of the post.

14. Make three or four wraps of hackle and tie off around the wing post. Make a whip finish under the hackle around the post.

15. Add a drop of head cement to the whip finish at the base of the wing post.

16. Trim the tips of elk hair at the tail end of the body and trim away excess tail filaments. I leave three tails like the natural, though it’s doubtful the fish would mind if there were a few extra!? For durability I treat the body with Dave's Fleximent.

The paradrake is meant to represent the larger mayflies like the 'hex', and the green and brown drakes. It's a very buoyant fly that works in almost any flow. The pattern sits with the body on or in the meniscus and can often induce a strike where a heavier dressed pattern is ignored. 

Present the paradrake using standard dry fly tactics, mostly maintaining a drag free drift. Some suggests giving the rod a wiggle to impart movement to the fly during the drift. Emulating the motion of the dun struggling in the surface film this technique can bring a strike on those occasions where an otherwise faultless drift has drawn a blank.

The paradrake is very buoyant so will perform in most situations. Like other large air resistant patterns, it requires an appropriately built leader and a reasonably executed cast to achieve proper turnover. While some might try braided or furled leaders to assist with turnover and accuracy, these systems can also produce a significant amount of leader spray that can alert the trout especially in hard-fished waters. Using mono leaders helps eliminate this issue. It's hard to beat a basic nylon mono tapered leader with matched tippet (2x and 3x).