More on Mercer's Missing Link From the Man Himself

Here's a link to a recent Fly Fisherman Magazine article by Mike Mercer on the Missing Link caddis as a follow up to my last post; thanks to an unknown reader.

LINK: Fly Fisherman Magazine / Fly-tying / Mercer's Missing Link 

I'm off to Montana, see you on the return.  Look for reports on my Instagram account - @mattgrobert

And sharpen your hooks!

Tips on Tying the Missing Link Caddis

I posted a couple of  photos recently on Instagram of Mercer's Missing Link Caddis and afterwards I got a bunch of emails and messages from folks that are having trouble tying it - specifically getting the hackle wrapped cleanly.  Here's how I do it and it works quite well - pardon my photography skills.

The trick here is to leave the wings - both the spent and the elk hair wing materials long until the hackle is completely wound and tied off.

Spent wings - wrap tight to a ball of dubbing to flare them.  

Elk Hair - Tie in on top of a nice even platform formed when tying in the spent wings.

Hackle - Tie in in front of the elk hair butts and wrap counter-clockwise looking from above for a right handed tyer, and tie off behind the hook eye.  The longer wing materials will allow you to wrap the hackle over the spent wings and around the base of the elk hair wing and butts without catching it. Make the spent wings about 2X the hook shank length, and cut the elk hair right at the skin so you have plenty of length.    

The finished fly from angle above.

Side view.

And here's the video we did with Tim Flagler on tying it from start to finish. 

Hope that helps!

We're headed to Montana in a couple of days, so we hope to have some posts from Big Sky country when we return since the computer is staying home.  We'll try to post stuff from the trip daily to Instagram though - @mattgrobert 

Sharpen your hooks.

Tying the Bluegill Belly Bean

With our local trout streams at their usual summer levels and warm temperatures, we turn our attention to warm water species - bass, bluegills and, sunnies.  Here's a great video with Tim Flagler tying our friend Paul Beel's Bluegill Belly Bean pattern.   We recently featured another of Paul's patterns here - his FrankenFrog. This is a fairly simple pattern to tie and by all accounts it's a fish getter.  Tie some up!
       

Sharpen your hooks!

Tying Flies for Montana

It has been many years since I first went to Montana for the first time with a good friend, Don, to fish the Madison River and the surrounding trout waters, and I still get just as excited today as I did then.  This year I'm going with the usual crowd, albeit without my son and a couple of the others.  We going to be spending half the trip on the Madison River, and the other half up on the Missouri River.  In preparation, I'm tying all the flies I typically use when on those waters in late July.  

Here's my Sawyer's Pheasant Tail nymph.  For me, this is a must have fly as it aptly imitates the PMD nymphs so common and available just about anywhere in Montana in July.  I typically fish it by itself on the end of a long leader casting it straight upstream at the heads of pools and in the riffles; depending on the water depth and speed, I may put a split shot or two on the leader above it.  It works great.       

This is Kelly Galloup's Improved Blue-winged Olive nymph, which is a variation on the Sawyer Pheasant Tail nymph.  It has a peacock herl thorax and gills of a white, sparse dubbing material.  I used Senyo's Laser Dub here.  This fly has been very effective for me the last few years both here in the East and in Montana.    

Here's the Iris Caddis, which as you may know is one of my very favorite patterns.  It was introduced to me that first year I went to Montana by Don, and like many of you, it took a few years for me to recognize its full potential.  I tied the thorax with touch-dubbed hare's mask, but the original is tied with the hare's mask just dubbed on the thread.  I like the touch-dub method because it give the fly a buggier look and the wax helps improve the way the fly floats without the use of floatant.    

Here's a Pale Morning Dun snowshoe rabbit dry.  The body here is dubbed with a mixture of yellow and light olive beaver fur mixed 50/50.  The lighting in the photo makes it appear bright yellow/olive, but its really a paler yellow/olive.  I like beaver because its a natural fur that holds its color very well even when wet.  

Here's a PMD sparkle dun side and front view.  Make sure you are using a high quality deer comparadun hair for the wing - short black intact tips like you see in the front view. If the hair tips are broken or long, don't use it, it is likely dried out and brittle or won't float very well.    

Front view of PMD sparkle dun.

Here's a fairly good photo of the colors I mix for the PMD dun for reference.

Sharpen your hooks!

The FrankenFrog

Our Friend from Indiana, Paul Beel aka FrankenFly, has come up with a great looking frog imitation that I want to share with you all.  Paul is a fellow fly tyer/fly fisherman who has developed a number of trout and warm water flies and shares our passion for improving fly designs to overcome tough fishing situations and hatches.

One of the primary reasons you might design a fly is to solve a particular problem. Many times, as a fly designer, there are various products that may give you an idea for a fly that you may not have thought of otherwise.

Through the years I have tried many times to design a frog fly. I was really trying to solve a problem which is to have a top water fly that resembled a frog, so bass would go crazy over it. I never was happy with what I designed for this type of fly or it didn’t swim or pop to my liking. Eventually I abandoned the thought of designing a frog and any time I wanted to fish this type of fly, I would just throw a larger popper.

Read the whole story on how Paul developed this pattern on his blog: FrankenFly

You can purchase this fly as well as his others here: FrankenFly Fly Shop

Nice job, Paul!

Ed Engle Ties His Bubble Wing BWO Emerger

For those of you that live in a cave don't know who Ed Engle is, he is a well known fly fishing author and guide from Colorado.   I've gotten to know him and his dry sense of humor from doing the Fly Fishing Shows over the last couple of decades, and seem to learn something new from him every time we talk.  In this great video from Tightline Productions, Ed talks about his inspiration for the Bubble Wing BWO Emerger, how he fishes it, and or course shows us how he ties this very effective pattern.  

      

Sharpen your hooks!

Sparse Grey Matter Tying Fest This Sunday

The Annual Sparse Grey Matter Fly Tying Festival will take place this Sunday February 25, 2018 at the Califon Firehouse, Califon, NJ from 10 AM to 3 PM.  The event is sponsored by Shannon's Fly & Tackle and Dette Flies of Roscoe, New York.  The event is a great way to break up the winter doldrums and hang out with local fly tyers and anglers alike.  Everyone is welcome to come tie or just show up and chat with like-minded folks.  The NJ Trout Unlimited Chapters will be well represented so if you are looking to know more about the organization or join, this is a good place to do so.  There will be tackle and related items raffled.  And food offered by the Califon Firefighters.

Come on out and join us for an hour or stay for the whole event.  Hope to see you there.    

Tying the Major Woody

Here's a very buggy wet fly/emerger trout pattern tied by Tim Flagler using woodduck and woodduck colored materials.
  

Sharpen your hooks.

 

Tying the BWO Improved Sparkle Dun

I finally had time recently to tie Craig Mathew's great mayfly pattern in front of Tim Flagler's camera.  I've written about this pattern many times over the last few years for good reason; it works very well when trout are feeding on olives.  It's fairly easy to tie with only three materials that are readily available.  

  

RECIPE

Hook: Dai Riki #125 size 18 -24

Thread: 6/0 Olive Danville

Wing: Dun dyed deer hair - fine

Shuck and Wing: Light dun Zelon or substitute such as EP Trigger Fibers or Antron

Abdomen: Thread

Thorax: Dark olive dubbing - I like Australian opossum  or beaver

Sharpen your hook.

Tying the WD-40 Plus

The WD-40 is a midge imitation that has stood the test of time.  The pattern has been around for decades and produces well anywhere that trout are found.  In this video, Tim takes the pattern one step further by adding a short wing bud of CDC protruding through the wing case.  It's an easy fly to tie and you can change the color simply by changing the thread you use and matching the dubbing to it.  

Tie some up and sharpen your hooks!

The Rivers Await

We spent another weekend doing lots of fly fishing related stuff but no fly fishing.  Our rivers were first frozen solid and then Friday it warmed into the 60's and rained like hell.  It took a full day for the rains to move the ice out, but by Saturday morning the rush of water cleared out the inches thick ice and filled the rivers bank to bank and then some.  So Saturday I went over to Tim Flagler's and tied for a video whose subject pattern has been long in coming.  While there we also covered lots of ground ranging from fly tying to fly fishing to equipment to the Denver Fly Fishing Show. 

After tying for the video and hanging out with Tim, I headed down to check out the South Branch.  It was a far cry from where it was the last couple of weekends.  Below is a photo I took about two weeks ago, and below that is one I took Saturday from the same exact location (sort of - I couldn't stand where I had the time before as it was under 2 feet of water).  To see how much the river had come up, check out the two snow covered big boulders in front of the trees in the first photo on the left side of the river a little more than half way up.   In the second photo you'll note that they are water bound.  Its all good; winter spates are nature's way of cleaning house on the rivers.  

On Sunday morning we taught the free fly tying class at Shannon's Fly and Tackle Shop and had a good turnout despite the frigid cold that made its way back in after the rains - it was 13 degrees F.  We tied a simple scud, Galloup's Improved Baetis nymph, Improved BWO Sparkle Dun, and a Pumpkinhead Midge.  It was a great time with some of the usual folks, and a few new tyers to the class that really turned out well tied flies.  This Sunday our friend John Collins will be teaching the class and I believe demonstrating how to tie his sculpin patterns

Today was back to work - you don't want to hear about that so I'll sign off.

Sharpen your hooks!

Shannon's Fly Tying Class This Sunday

For those of you in the area, I'll be doing the free fly tying class this Sunday morning at 9:30AM, at Shannon's Fly & Tackle in Califon, NJ.  Bring your vise and tools and tying thread (6/0 Olive Danville is preferred, but black will do).  I'll be tying a few winter trout patterns for our local rivers - usually we get in 3, sometimes 4 patterns.

Sharpen your hooks!

Tying JC's Electric Caddis Larva

Here's another great video by Tightline Productions - Tim Flagler - of our friend John Collins tying his Electric Caddis larva. In this case, John is tying a Rockworm larva - genus Rhyacophila, which are present throughout the year in Eastern rivers and streams.  By just changing the wire and tubing color, you can imitate any caddis larva you wish.  I can say from experience, these flies work.

Sharpen your hooks!

Tying A Micro Egg

We all know trout love the eggs of trout, salmon and other fish, and it seems they have a particular fondness for them in winter.  Most of the time anglers fish salmon egg size patterns, of which there are dozens of patterns.  Here Tim shows how to tie a micro egg pattern for times when the larger imitations just don't do the trick.  Once you get the hang of it, tying these should be fairly easy; after that, the biggest challenge for many of us will be seeing what we are doing.  As usual, Tim's instructions and camera work leave little to chance for those that want to tackle the micro egg.

It occurred to me while watching this video that there may be another use for a yellow or orange micro egg.  I always wondered if the trout feed on the bright yellow egg sacs that Hendrickson spinners drop on the water.  If you have ever seen a Hendrickson hatch, you know the females have bright yellow egg sacs on the end of their abdomens that fall off and sink to the bottom of the stream.  Do you think trout feed on them?  It would seem that its an easy meal.  I may have to tie a few of these up and try them next spring during a spinner fall.....you never know unless you try.

Sharpen your hooks!     

Flies We Are Tying

I've been doing a lot of fly tying lately, some for my own fishing, and others to fill wooden fly boxes that are gifts for a couple of friends.  There's nothing like spending an hour or two (or more) in front of warm fire on a cold evening tying flies and thinking about the days to come when you can tie one on the end of your tippet and tempt a trout or two.

Here's a few Pumpkinhead Midges that have become a winter fishing must-have for me.     

(Click images to enlarge)

And here are a few Mathew's Blue-winged Olive Improved Sparkle Duns.  This fly has been my most effective bwo pattern the past few years both here in the Northeast and in the Rocky Mountain trout streams.  The more they get chewed up, the better they seem to work.  Tied on a DaiRiki #125 in sizes 18-24 - these are 18's.

  

Black and red Smoke Jumpers imitate midges and small mayflies well.  I know a few guys that fish the Upper Delaware River system that love this pattern, especially when the trout get fussy.

And finally, a few Prince Nymphs round out the bunch.  This is a great pattern for just about any freestone river, particularly those with good populations of Isonychias.  I often fish these in tandem with a scud pattern right on the bottom.  And yes, for those of you that know I rarely use head cement, I used UV Bondic on the heads because it just looks right for this pattern.  After all, it has to look good to fish well. ; ) 

    

And sharpen your hooks!

The Perfect Body

I've been tying a lot of Catskill dries lately, and I thought I would share what I think is the key to getting a nice even body on a quill bodied fly. It's kind of like building a house; you have to start with a solid, level foundation so that the framing can be laid evenly on it.  In fly tying, that means making uniform, purposeful wraps of thread as you tie in the butts of the wing and the tail of the fly.  Simply put, every wrap of thread should have a purpose.  

Here's a Red Quill showing the before and after of the quill being wrapped.  I've coated the quill after wrapping it with head cement, which draws out the rich, red color of the natural red hackle stem.   I don't care for dyed quill quill bodies as they are too uniform in color.  Stripping a natural red/brown saddle hackle of the hackles, wrapping it, and then coating it after wrapping it brings out what is to me the perfect male hendrickson body imitation.        

Sharpen your hooks.

International Fly Tying Symposium - This Saturday & Sunday Nov. 11 & 12 - Lancaster, PA

This weekend, November 11 & 12, The International Fly Tying Symposium will take place in the ballroom of the Marriott Hotel, Lancaster, Penn. The move was made necessary by the closing of the Garden State Exhibit Center in Somerset, NJ.  The 9,000-square foot ballroom is in the stately hotel on Downtown's Penn Square, 25 So. Queen St. Lancaster, PA.

The show will be open on Saturday 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. and on Sunday 9:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m. and will feature seminars, tying demos, vendors, and all things related to fly tying.

The exciting part for me is that my son Hunt will be tying also - look for him among the miscreants that I am mixed in with at these events.

I'll be doing one seminar on Sunday at 2:15 PM - “Dry Flies - Tying and Matching the Hatch for Trout” This is a power point presentation I put together on the flies I use to match common Northeastern hatches and specifics on tying them, along with how to fish them.

For the official brochure, click here: 2017 International Fly Tying Symposium     

See you at the show.

Some Flies We Tied Recently

We've been doing a lot of fly tying lately on the premise that we need to practice for the upcoming International Fly Tying Symposium next weekend in Lancaster, PA.  The truth is we tie flies just about everyday because that's what we do, and one of things that brings us great pleasure when we can't be out on the water casting them to the wily trout on rivers and streams.   After 50 years of tying it doesn't get old and we still try to tie the next fly better than the one we tied before that one.   As you can see, we stink at taking photos, and that's because we're using an iphone and also because we'd rather spend our time tying flies.  

Quill Gordon

Hendrickson

Red Quill

Tan X-Caddis

$3 Dip

We threw the dip in here because I've been tying them since they are a very effective fly just about everywhere we fish. I highly recommend it. Learn to tie it here: $3 Serendipity After viewing that video, you would think a little of Tim's photo ability might have rubbed off on me.........

Sharpen your hooks!

Partridge and Hare's Ear Soft Hackle

Sharpen your hooks!

Montana - Winter in September

We had early winter weather in September that Monday through Thursday of our trip.  When we woke on Monday, it was sunny but quite cold.   We went and got breakfast and planed our day.We decided that we would head over the Continental Divide at Raynold's Pass and fish the Henry's Fork in Idaho.  The Henry's Fork Angler in Island Park said it was cold over there, but the wind was calm and under cloudy skies.  They reported that blue-winged olives had been hatching the last few days along with mahogany duns "paraleps".   Of course, by the time we got there it was spitting and a steady breeze moved upriver, but olives were coming off and a few fish rose to take them in broken water.   Steve took a nice rainbow early on, but after that it was slim pickings - we did hook a couple before breaking them off in the thick weeds that cover the bottom of the river this time of the year.  Here's Paul in zeroing in on a riser.

By mid afternoon the mist had turned to wet snow and the wind was became steady, enough to screw up your cast and push your tippet and fly off target.  We left to go back to the Madison, while Paul and Steve stuck it out.  This was the first day of a weather pattern that stuck around all week.  A low pressure system sat over the Northwest and an outer band picked up moisture and drove it in a Northeasterly direction dropping snow and/or rain (depending on the hour) right over the Henry's Fork and Madison Valley just north of there.

Tuesday we woke to heavy clouds, snow and freezing temperatures.  Here's the view from my room.

Again, we headed over to the Henry's Fork, where it was colder with a good breeze and thunder snow.  We put up with that for a while before the snow really came down then we blew out of there and went into West Yellowstone to visit the fly shops and grab some lunch.  When we got back to the Madison, it was still snowing but not too windy, and we caught a few before dark on olive sparkle duns.  The hatch was sparse, but the fish seemed to want to eat every one that floated over their space below.

And then there was Wednesday.  Not much to be said about hump day; we fished the Madison in bright sun and gale force winds.  It was tough, lots of shot on the leader, which more often than not, did no good.  My line, leader and flies spent more time flying like a flag off my rod tip than in the water.  Again, we caught a few fish, had fun despite the conditions and I even finished up the day taking a nice rainbow on a dry.

Thursday the wind was down some, but the rain and snow was back.  We caught some fish, but again we had to work for every one.  It was a tough few days, but we dressed right and made the most of it.  Evenings were always fun as once we ate, we sat around the table for hours tying flies, talking about the day, having a few beers, and busting each others chops relentlessly.  

Sharpen your hooks.