What's in your vise?

Jack Devlin

Life of the Party
Interesting, for such an old fly I’ve never seen one. Modern deviations we’ve all come across in shops while the original is probably just as effective.

Gives me the Carry Special vibes, aka an effective fly that for whatever reason I skip over too often in the box. Neat patterns.
The pattern goes back to the '50's. I think the original pattern had just the deer hair for a body while I am using peacock herl for the body. Popular dry fly in BC.
 

Cowlitz Bottomfeeder

Life of the Party
Interesting, for such an old fly I’ve never seen one. Modern deviations we’ve all come across in shops while the original is probably just as effective.

Gives me the Carry Special vibes, aka an effective fly that for whatever reason I skip over too often in the box. Neat patterns.
I’ve used that fly around Y2K around Merritt BC. The traveling sedges emerge and stick their wings forward like that to dry them while really big trout come up for dinner. Peterhope Lake I believe.
 

Norm Frechette

Googlemeister
Forum Supporter
Chameleon-Black-Side-1080-side.jpg


Chameleon

Hook - Single salmon
Tag - Oval silver tinsel
Rib - Oval silver tinsel
Body - Back wool or floss, on one side a strip of wide, flat silver tinsel
Wing - Black quill segment on one side, yellow quill segment on the other side
Throat - Black hen hackle on one side, yellow on the other

The idea for this fly was hatched in Sweden by Zsigmond Kovacs as a way of showing the fish a light and dark colored fly at the same time. As the fly approaches the fish on the swing, he will see one color of the fly. When the fly passes the fish, it will see a different color of the fly. Hopefully one of the colors will trigger a strike.
 

Norm Frechette

Googlemeister
Forum Supporter
Besure-1080.jpg


Besure

This fly was invented by Robert Chaisson, a guide living in Cheticamp, NS.

It is a simple pattern that works well on most of the rivers of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.

Hook - Single salmon
Thread - Red
Tip - Oval silver tinsel
Tag - Pink floss
Body - Bright green wool
Rib - Oval silver tinsel
Wing - Gray Squirrel
Hackle - Bright green hackle wound as a collar
 

Mike Cline

Life of the Party
Forum Supporter
Soft Hackle DeStreamer
4A0E7E35-FC90-4CD4-A249-2A216889CC7F.jpeg

In the spirit of “Flies that fish” I’ll put up what I laughingly call my Soft Hackle DeStreamer. It really is merely a traditional soft hackle streamer with the addition of cape hackle to extend the length of the fly Deceiver style and provide additional body contrasts. This pattern and all its variations has been extraordinarily productive on all the SW Montana rivers I fish. Unweighted and fished on a sink tip with short tippet, the Soft Hackle DeStreamer is an effective baitfish pattern. With the exception of the Firehole and Gibbon Rivers in YNP above the falls, all SW Montana rivers hold a variety of forage fish like whitefish fry, sculpins, and sucker fry in addition to annual explosions of trout fry—rainbow, brown and cutthroat. In YNP above the Firehole and Gibbon falls, these rivers hold only trout fry as there are no other forage species available. During the season it is not unusual to see hoards of fry cruising around shallows in these rivers. In most of these rivers large leeches are also present in good numbers and the movement of this fly probably functions as a leech as well.

The keys to this pattern are contrasts and movement. Movement comes from the use of marabou for the body and mallard, teal or gadwall flank for the collar. Contrasts come from the orange head, flash, body braid, layered barred marabou and the cape hackle. The fly when dropped inches from deep undercuts and swung along the river bank will draw fish out of their protective hides. When allowed to sink deep into the depths of buckets and pools, it gets sucked up by trout lurking there. FYI, this pattern is equally effective for saltwater species when tied large with bright colors.

Pattern:
Hook: Any medium shank streamer hook: #1/0 - #6
Body (optional): Flat braid tied on rear 2/3rds of hook shank
Flash: Crystal flash, Flashabou or equivalent (tied in 1/3rd hook shank behind hook eye).
Hackle: Pair of Grizzly or Cree cape hackle tied in at 1/3rd hook shank behind hook eye. Hackle should extend just beyond the length of the flash.
Fore body: Barred marabou. The marabou can be used as a single color palmered on the hook shank or bi-colored with contrasting colored clumps tied on the top and bottom of the hook shank leaving at least 1/4” of hook shank for the collar and head.
Collar: Mallard, teal of gadwall flank palmered at the head of the fly.

Fly with body flash, flash and hackle tied in
4E6C4619-0597-47BE-B994-E6D55B9C6257.jpeg

Fly with two clumps of contrasting marabou tied in ready for collar.
451619F7-757F-44EB-87B7-B428560E67A6.jpeg
Slender when wet
F0704225-B5F0-4246-85A7-DE99B6DD3BB9.jpeg
 
Top