Yellow sally?

S

Shad

Life of the Party
I'm going back to Utah at the end of June, and as usual, I'm tying way too many flies in preparation. One thing I saw quite a bit of down there last year was yellow sallies, probably size 12-14. Regrettably, I didn't have any good imitations (not even a yellow stimulator), because the fish were chomping those things pretty good everywhere I saw them. As was the case with most of the "hot" bugs, I found what looked like good examples at the local fly shops, but only in the wrong sizes (mostly too big).

This year, I want to be ready, so I have started researching patterns and attempting to reproduce a couple I like. The Fly Fish Food dudes have a CDC pattern that they say fools 'em pretty good...

I got most of the way through with relative ease, but the last step is a CDC collar, formed by wrapping a dubbing loop. I've managed to live without any special dubbing brush tools up until now, but the CDC fibers are so small and delicate that I'm convinced I need some d-loop pliers for this one. Those are on order, so I'm working on some other stuff in the meantime.

I tried sort of a small stimulator thingy. I liked the idea for the thinner, ribbed body in the pattern referenced above, so I used that instead of the more traditional brown hackle. Needing something at the front, I opted for the stimulator-style, hackled thorax, cutting the fibers flat on the bottom to make the fly sit lower in the surface film. Not sure how it will fish, but it looks good in the sink LOL.
1000001294.jpg
I'll probably try something with some foam, too, mostly so I'll have something that will float a dropper fly, too.

What about the rest of you? Any trick patterns to share?
 
@Shad I like the looks of that CDC fly and I bet you could just wrap the CDC on the stem to good effect. CDC flies seem to work fine when they're just sort of a mess of fluff.
Another thing you can do is carry a red sharpie to add "egg sacks" or not, if you feel like it may make a difference.
 
Matt B said:
@Shad I like the looks of that CDC fly and I bet you could just wrap the CDC on the stem to good effect. CDC flies seem to work fine when they're just sort of a mess of fluff.
Another thing you can do is carry a red sharpie to add "egg sacks" or not, if you feel like it may make a difference.
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I tried that, but the fibers end up looking really long (and messy, to your point, but I don't care too much about that). Heck... I needed the pliers anyway. Only cost something like $13 and will save me tons of effort making dubbing brushes in the future, and it will make my brushes more consistent. I'm at that weird stage in my fly tying journey where I am starting to care more about how things look to my eye. Fish aren't usually hard to please... but I am getting that way.
 
Have you considered a Humpy? Easy to adjust for body color/thickness and hair/hackle color... Plus they are an easy tie that lasts forever...
 
Shad said:
I tried that, but the fibers end up looking really long (and messy, to your point, but I don't care too much about that). Heck... I needed the pliers anyway. Only cost something like $13 and will save me tons of effort making dubbing brushes in the future, and it will make my brushes more consistent. I'm at that weird stage in my fly tying journey where I am starting to care more about how things look to my eye. Fish aren't usually hard to please... but I am getting that way.
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What's in your vise?

Hover shrimp. Made some small adjustments based on materials on hand and preference…bye bye hackle, hello schlappen! Could have some very effective action fished on an intermediate or type 3 line. Had a lot of fun fishing these last December. Nice to be able to fish real slow. Check out the...
pnwflyfishing.com pnwflyfishing.com

What's in your vise?

Hover shrimp. Made some small adjustments based on materials on hand and preference…bye bye hackle, hello schlappen! Could have some very effective action fished on an intermediate or type 3 line. Had a lot of fun fishing these last December. Nice to be able to fish real slow. Check out the...
pnwflyfishing.com pnwflyfishing.com

"You hold a feather (cdc in this fly) by each end and force the quill of the feather into the appropriately sized slot. Doing so pushes the fibers on both sides of the quill straight up. Then you grasp the fibers with a clip, pull the feather from the foam slot, and trim off the quill with scissors. You are left with a bunch of spread out aligned fibers that can be inserted into a split thread or dubbing loop. Essentially, it lets you use both sides of the feather instead of putting the clip on one side of the feather at a time."
 
Elk hair caddis tied with…
Butt: red floss
Body: lemon yellow floss
Hackle: ginger dry fly
Wing/Head: bleached elk or light colored deer

Or tie it Stimulator style with a lower wing, yellow dubbing, and slightly darker front hackle.
 
Shad said:
I tried that, but the fibers end up looking really long (and messy, to your point, but I don't care too much about that). Heck... I needed the pliers anyway. Only cost something like $13 and will save me tons of effort making dubbing brushes in the future, and it will make my brushes more consistent. I'm at that weird stage in my fly tying journey where I am starting to care more about how things look to my eye. Fish aren't usually hard to please... but I am getting that way.
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If you pinch the wing really firmly you can tear off the excess CDC length and it looks pretty good to my eye, not like a bad barber job. You have some good CDC, sounds like. My box of CDC has feathers with short fibers, and feathers with long fibers. The long-fiber ones are becoming scarcer in the box. You might save them for flies that need long fibers and use the smaller feathers, if you have any.
 
i haven’t ever found trout to be really selective about yellow sally. But your destination may prove different. I carry some more realistic patterns tied slim and small like the naturals but also carry some more aggressive patterns like yellow micro chubbies. Yellow sally often overlap with other smaller bugs and I’ve found the oversized micro chubby makes a good point fly to a caddis emerger or mayfly cripple in a double dry rig and it still gets eats. Don’t sleep on yellow sally nymphs either, they can be productive on a dropper rig in the morning. A scaled down golden stone nymph is good enough.
 
Like Creatch'r said, I've never found them to be locked in on Sallies except one time on the Elk. I didn't have any dries around so threw PMDs at them and did okay
 
Shad said:
I was wondering about a parachute pattern. That looks great. I believe I'll be trying something very similar to that!
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Body is 0.5mm razor foam, cut into a 1/8" strip and wrapped. Photo is a little contrasty, so not sure if you were able to see that.

I have a grizzly dyed pale yellow saddle, which is what I used for the parachute hackle. I know that's not a common color, so if you don't have some I'm happy to send you a few feathers. If interested shoot me a DM. I'm sure regular grizzly would work just fine too.

@CougarZeke, I originally tied this pattern specifically for the Elk, after using some store bought ones in the previous year (2015 or so). The store bought ones worked well, but after 1 fish it was hard to get them to float again, so we were ripping through them and eventually running out of ones that would float. As you mentioned, that is really the only time I have seen fish keyed in specifically on Yellow Sally's, and very picky about only eating those. This thing slayed the following year, and has worked very well for me up there ever since. It's easy to dry out and floats very well.

It also worked very well for me in Sun Valley, Idaho on the Big Lost and some of its tributaries. Yellow sallies were out and about, along with many other bugs. They weren't necessarily keyed in on only the Yellow Sallies, but they didn't pass this up when presented in any likely spot, and I enjoyed fishing a caddis pupa off the back of it, as that accounted for many fish as well.
 
Normally I'm of the opinion that a Yellow Sally, a PTN, and a Hare's Ear are about all you need, but Utah in late June screams "Green Drake" to me.
 
Jake Watrous said:
Normally I'm of the opinion that a Yellow Sally, a PTN, and a Hare's Ear are about all you need, but Utah in late June screams "Green Drake" to me.
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I had better look into that. Green Drake hatches are legendary almost everywhere they occur. I barely missed them last year, but I'll he there about a week earlier this time. Thanks for the reminder!
 
Shad said:
Utah at the end of June,
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Don't know much about yellow Sally, but end of June screams, "Too hot!" to me. End of May is uncomfortably hot (why I like the first week of May), and the 4th of July is 105* by 10 AM. I love to visit Utah, but only in the spring.
 
Salmo_g said:
Don't know much about yellow Sally, but end of June screams, "Too hot!" to me. End of May is uncomfortably hot (why I like the first week of May), and the 4th of July is 105* by 10 AM. I love to visit Utah, but only in the spring.
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Not always that bad.

Three years ago I went fishing in Utah, hit the green drake hatch perfectly, and had pleasant 80* days on the Provo.

Meanwhile, back in Seattle, I-5 melted and it was 108*.
 
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