I'm getting supplies readied to go on a tying binge for the year ahead. I'm seeking your advice on some good patterns for classic wet fly and soft hackle flies. Not leech or minnow patterns but buggy wet flies, Coachman, Sprately, etc...Thanks
Wet Flies for Lakes
- Thread starter Wetswinger
- Start date
Brian in OR.
Steelhead
How about a Monkey Faced Louise....
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I caught a couple on this. It's pheasant back with a mid- section bead. Intermediate line cast into shore and slow stripped back..
A good variation of the spider pattern posted above is a black version. I sub fine black dubbing for the pheasant tail body and add a red or silver wire rib. Mallard flank fibers are good tail material.
Use whatever your favorite chironomid bodies and rib colors are and tie them as soft hackles. Tie some with and without beads. Red with a silver rib has work especially well for me over the years.
SF
SF
Referring to Jack Gartside's Sparrow...
As I was typing an image I posted scrolled by below and reminded me that more recently, at other times of the year a fly I asked about in the post below that some responders said looks like a Roger's Reaper or Denny's Cali has been successful.
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That profile, tied by simply wrapping from the hook leaving a tail past the bend and a tuft at the eye with an olive Marabou on a TMC200, sometimes after attaching burnt mono eyes to the shank was a fly I think Kent Lufkin called a LGF, or Little Green F'r many years ago on the old site that has caught me (sometimes pretty darned big) fish over the years when damsels are migrating.
As I was typing an image I posted scrolled by below and reminded me that more recently, at other times of the year a fly I asked about in the post below that some responders said looks like a Roger's Reaper or Denny's Cali has been successful.
Fly ID Help Please?
I'm learning to fish lakes again and have the privilege of fishing a private lake that some members of a couple of local fly clubs have created a partnership to stock. Tuesday I was trolling a beadhead black & red SimiSeal leech on an intermediate line with no results when I got to a spot about...
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Richard Olmstead
Steelhead
For whatever reason, I've come to favor orange or burnt orange for our native coastal cutts in lakes. I'd like to think it is because that choice has been reinforced by positive feedback from the fishes, but I'm enough of a scientist to realize I have no statistically valid evidence for this. Nonetheless, I offer a simple fly that has worked well for me in recent years. I call it the ______ Lake Special. Burnt orange squirrel blend dubbing and English grouse hackle. I also like an orange bodied Doc Sprately, and for one particular lake that has a population of redside shiners, I like the classic Spruce fly.
I have had the orange bodied wet flies work well in one local lake with a population of native Coastals with access to the sound that may see SRCs.
And back in the early 1980s I visited one mountain lake in the fall and caught a very well nourished 14"-15" hook-jawed Brook Trout in beautiful spawn colors trolling a spruce fly with a lot of peacock in the abdomen like yours; may have had silver or gold fine wire ribbing over the floss. Missed the 1st strike, but hooked it solidly after I turned around to make a second pass.
And back in the early 1980s I visited one mountain lake in the fall and caught a very well nourished 14"-15" hook-jawed Brook Trout in beautiful spawn colors trolling a spruce fly with a lot of peacock in the abdomen like yours; may have had silver or gold fine wire ribbing over the floss. Missed the 1st strike, but hooked it solidly after I turned around to make a second pass.
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I ask myself just about every season...why didn't I fish a Spruce Fly more often? That thing has caught some hogs.
Another one that is a great searcher is the Pickett Pin. And you probably already have the ingredients-
