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Yard Sale

Yard Sale

Life of the Party
Planning on spending some serious time getting into the trout spey gig this year after dabbing my toe in it last year and need some go to patterns. Since I plan to go light so I'm hoping to stay away from the wet tube sock style that so many trout streamers seem to be these days and stay with something a little nicer to cast but it still fishy/buggy. I'm especially interested in streamers but love some soft hackles and whatever else works for you.

Lets see what ya got!
 
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I don’t tie but I really like pocket rockets and skittish smolts for trout Spey streamers. They don’t hold a lot of water. Easy to cast. I also like sculpzillas but haven’t had great success getting the hooks to stick.
 
I only fish for trout a few days a year outside AK, but when I do, the first (and usually last) fly I fish is a scaled-down version of my Goblin. The "Non-Alaska-Trout" Goblin uses a Sz6 Owner Needlepoint and is tied on a 1" shank, and should be considered a platform rather than a pattern - case in point, the fly on top has lead eyes and gold flash, whereas the one in the fish face has bead-chain eyes and a bit of copper flash. I tie 'em in white, black, and olive, with a whole rainbow of different flash colors, and usually have 2 or 3 different weight eyes and hook sizes for each color combo... It can be a sculpin, a smolt, a flesh fly...and pretty much whatever else trout eat, and boy do they eat the hell out of it.

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G_Smolt said:
I only fish for trout a few days a year outside AK, but when I do, the first (and usually last) fly I fish is a scaled-down version of my Goblin. The "Non-Alaska-Trout" Goblin uses a Sz6 Owner Needlepoint and is tied on a 1" shank, and should be considered a platform rather than a pattern - case in point, the fly on top has lead eyes and gold flash, whereas the one in the fish face has bead-chain eyes and a bit of copper flash. I tie 'em in white, black, and olive, with a whole rainbow of different flash colors, and usually have 2 or 3 different weight eyes and hook sizes for each color combo... It can be a sculpin, a smolt, a flesh fly...and pretty much whatever else trout eat, and boy do they eat the hell out of it.

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Is it basically some sort of tinsel wrap on the shank, flash underneath with a bunny strip on top and a palmered bunny strip?
 
Here are some of mine that I donated in a Wheatley Slim Line box and were recently sold in an auction to support the Deschutes River Alliance. The sculpins are tied on micro tubes, allowing hooks to be replaced.

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mcswny said:
Is it basically some sort of tinsel wrap on the shank, flash underneath with a bunny strip on top and a palmered bunny strip?
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That sounds like the start of a good fly, but that ingredients list (and how bad they suck to cast on small gear) is pretty much why the Goblin exists. My whole tying ethos revolves around making the biggest, proudest profile flies that retain the least water during casting...come out of the water easy, fly a mile, then poof out and look like food when they hit the water.

The Goblin, back to front, is sz4/6 Owner needlepoint (ssw in a pinch, but always Owner) on medium Senyo wire, 1" shank body with diamond braid wrap, large cactus chenille as a wing prop, 6-10 pieces krystalflash as an underwing, 3 BirdFur rachis with the downy barbs removed, tied in stacked with cup side down as a wing, lead eyes, 12-30 pieces flashabou for the belly, finished off with 2" of standard rabbit zones in a loop, figure 8-ed about the eyes.

When I'm not fishing this fly (so, like...10% of the time), I fish a small (1"), heavily weighted olive sculpin.
 
G_Smolt said:
That sounds like the start of a good fly, but that ingredients list (and how bad they suck to cast on small gear) is pretty much why the Goblin exists. My whole tying ethos revolves around making the biggest, proudest profile flies that retain the least water during casting...come out of the water easy, fly a mile, then poof out and look like food when they hit the water.

The Goblin, back to front, is sz4/6 Owner needlepoint (ssw in a pinch, but always Owner) on medium Senyo wire, 1" shank body with diamond braid wrap, large cactus chenille as a wing prop, 6-10 pieces krystalflash as an underwing, 3 BirdFur rachis with the downy barbs removed, tied in stacked with cup side down as a wing, lead eyes, 12-30 pieces flashabou for the belly, finished off with 2" of standard rabbit zones in a loop, figure 8-ed about the eyes.

When I'm not fishing this fly (so, like...10% of the time), I fish a small (1"), heavily weighted olive sculpin.
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Appreciate the write up, thank ya kindly.
 
Bob Rankin said:
Soft hackles on a 11’9” 4wt Meiser and big junk on a 12’6” 5wt Meiser. Love the grab of a swung fly!
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Dig it. I've only got a 11' 4wt to start with so I'm wondering what I can chuck with it. Those first flies you posted seem to be my sweet spot.

After getting my steelhead rigs right and falling in love with Mesiers I may have a new excuse to get more of them for trout spey.
 
Yard Sale said:
Dig it. I've only got a 11' 4wt to start with so I'm wondering what I can chuck with it. Those first flies you posted seem to be my sweet spot.

After getting my steelhead rigs right and falling in love with Mesiers I may have a new excuse to get more of them for trout spey.
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I try and stick to unweighted flys with my 4wt and just solely fish a Scandi with it. The 5wt I can throw Skagit’s with T8 and some 3” flys. I like the 4wt but more often than not I like to throw junk on a 5wt 😎
 
Yard Sale said:
Dig it all folks! Thanks for the inspiration.

Maybe mention what rig you are throwing these on?
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Troy and Eli throw that fly with CF Burkheimer 11-12 ft 5 wt two-handers. Check out their YouTube channel … Watershed Fly Shop for more intel.
 
My trout spey is an 11’ 7” 4wt Meiser, or an Echo OHS 6wt (single hand rated), either casts my tie above and variations with no problems.
 
I personally don't use a trout THer, but when I utilize spey-style techniques it normally falls under the skagit umbrella where I'm throwing a commando head (240 for my 7wt glass SHer) and a short section of airflo T-7 (usually 7-8'). I'm a fan of using unweighted flies with this setup because they just cast so damn easy. Lately I've been using these for both swinging and my standard "rip it" technique where I'm dredging & they produce quite well. I started playing around with mallard with my trout streamers because when you twitch it or strip it, gives it some crazy darting action but still moves nicely on a standard swing.

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If running weighted flies, I like how effective sculpzillas are, but I never do super well with keeping fish pinned on them.
 
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