As I continue to tie flies for our third book, Long Flies, I am amazed at the richness of all the long fly designs. Probably, no not probably, simply the most brilliant early development of streamers (long flies with feather wings) came from the vise of Ms. Carrie Stevens. Here’s a two paragraph excerpt from […]
My apologies for abandoning all of you for the last 10 days or so. Jason and I have been working rather intensely to get book # 2 press ready. Reading Waters will be going to the printer this week. As soon as we have a release date we will, of course, post that on our […]
Our second book, Reading Waters will be off to the printers next week. Expect it out by the third week in May. Watch this blog for updates along the way. In the meantime, I’m cranking away on books three and four. Our third volume is entitled. Long Flies and covers the development of long fly […]
Volume 3, Long Flies, in our series, Fly Fishing, is reaching its final writing destination. Here’s a short excerpt from Long Flies on a design I call the Hen Matuka, It harkens back to the original fly tied with the feathers of the matuku bittern. The Matuka, a New Zealand imitation, solves the wing/hook-bend tangling […]
I’m just back from the Great Waters Expo in Minneapolis to find a nice email from Jane Grivna asking for more details on the Marabou Damsel Nymph. Damsel nymphs are very strong swimmers, moving through the water with a strong side to side sweeping motion of the abdomen and tails. They don’t rip along like […]
The winter has released its grip on the Lake States, and steelhead time is upon us. As I get ready for the first steelhead trip of the year, I am tying some of Walt Mueller’s new Embryo Egg designs. This concept can be applied in two ways: (1) as a single egg on a hook, […]
While at the Somerset New Jersey Show, I met Morten Bundgasard, Managing Director of Pro Tubefly System. Now here’s innovation. I can’t believe that someone actually has made plastic propellor blades for tubes. WOW is all I have to say. At long last, someone is thinking. In addition, they have a variety of cone head […]
At the Somerset Show this past weekend, I gave a presentation on “Nymphing,” and was asked several times about the pattern for the Snail Fly. It’s so easy that it’s almost embarrassingly so. Here’s the pattern for the Snail Fly: Hook: Sizes 10-14, standard shank length hook (I like a heavier wire nymph hook because […]
Book Three in the Fly Fishing series is entitled Long Flies. It is a look back and a look forward of the design of flies to imitate minnows, leeches, salamanders, eels, squid, and other elongate food prey of our sport fishes. The look back is to glean what we can from the thinking of long […]
This is the icicle reduced to its bare bones. Actually this is the “stage” of the icicle that I fish most often because it works just as well as the others and is super fast to tie. In addition, like the “reduced” version, there is no tail and no body, eliminating the hassle of tearing […]