Dark Spruce Hairwing

     A walk through the archives of ancient trout flies & we see hair was not that popular a material for trout flies in the British Isles. In an era when the Brits were still fastidiously marrying quills onto their trout flies, pioneer anglers of the American West were discovering that hairwings were more effective than the old quill winged wetflies, hair, a more suitable material for the larger sized flies needed to meet the big trout of the western freestones, & they were finding more creative ways to use it, developing new patterns that were uniquely American, like the streamer flies of Maine, informed by a regional need. Indigenous patterns. The earliest hairwinged trout flies of the West were simply favorite old-world wetfly & streamer patterns tied with hair wings, but things took off from there. The Trude, tied in 1901 by Carter Harrison for Alfred Trude, with some red yarn from the cabin rug & winged with retriever hair (as a joke, some say), was a landmark pattern, all the more so, as it is fished both dry & wet, foundational to an entirely new breed, now extensively fished throughout the Rocky Mountain Region & beyond. The squirrel-winged Picket Pin, tied by Montana tavern owner Jack Boehme in 1910, is another unique Western pattern that comes to mind. Meant to fish for stoneflies but also a good attractor. Like the Trude, the Picket Pin is fished both wet & dry – I’ve seen it classified as a streamer, & it does fish as a streamer, but I suspect its maker fished it in the Western style, as a dryfly, until it sank, then, a wetfly. The Godfrey Special, now known as the Spruce, is another Western design that proved, & survived as a favorite for over 100 years. Though originally tied as a streamer, not a hairwing, the Dark Spruce lends itself well to the style. Originally tied for sea-run cutthroat, I’ve found that inland cutthroat like this hairwing version as well. Brookies too. My brother caught a 9 pound brown on this pattern.

The original calls for a red floss butt, though the red mylar gives more flash. One can wind fine wire over the body, but having had trouble with it slipping down the mylar portion, I quit using it, instead, coating that portion of the fly with a thick, clear dope.

Dark Spruce Hairwing

Hook: I like TMC 200R, TMC 2312, & I still have some old-timey Mustad 3906B’s – ideally a wetfly/nymph hook 2x or 3x long, depending on design & size. In sizes smaller than #10, a 2x long or standard wetfly hook will give you more gape in the bend, which may be a better way to go in some waters. Paul Bruun, who also develops hairwings, & probably knows, tells me Jackson Hole cutthroats tend to twist off the TMC 200R. Which leads me to consider how various populations of trout have their distinctive fighting characteristics which, along with other variables, will dictate what the hook need be. In theory, the design functions much the same as a classic salmon/steelhead fly, & can be fished the same way. As the fly is often fished with quite a bit of movement, swung, lifted, stripped, I don’t want a lot of material trailing for chasing trout to snipe at. I don’t want to get short-bit. But, at the same time, the longer the wing the more action it has, so I want to maximize the length of the wing, which extends to the end of the hook bend.

Thread: Black UNI 8/0

Tail: Peacock sword tips

Butt: Red mylar tinsel

Body: Peacock herl

Wing: Pine squirrel tail

Hackle: Furnace hen  & finish

Flyfish NE Washington with Steven Bird: http://ucflyfishing.blogspot.com                

Hairwings For Trout ~ Guinea & Squirrel October Caddis

     We’ve been having a superb October caddis hatch this season, lots of caddis & good weather. Daily opportunity to try out new designs. The hairwings are outperforming wingless pupa patterns, by far. On the upper Columbia, most October caddis hatch from the water, rising swiftly from the bottom as winged adults. Liking the looks of the guinea hackle of Ray Bergman’s Sawtooth, I thought to try guinea on my own version. Tied one up, walked down to the river & tried it this evening, & it worked good. Fished about an hour & a half right up against dark, working down the bank with an 11’3” switch rod rigged with a 210 grain head made from an 8wt double taper line carrying a 12’ sinking leader made from the running section of an old fast-sink line, the head backed with Amnesia running line.

Caught a nice redband, then came up empty on three hard strikes before checking my hook. I’d tinked off the point & better part of the hook bend on the rocks. By then it was too dark to tie on a fresh one & things were dying down anyway. Going to fish this one some more. I should note that they want it moving fairly rapidly, swung, stripped & lifted.

Guinea & Squirrel October Caddis

Hook: #8 TMC 200R (Or your choice. I like a 3x long hook for this pattern.)

Thread: Rust-brown UNI 8/0

Rib: Copper wire

Abdomen: Umpqua October Caddis (rusty orange) sparkle blend dubbing on a loop of the tying thread

Thorax: 2/3 natural bluish-gray rabbit & 1/3 orange sparkle blend dubbing on a loop of the tying thread

Wing: Pine squirrel – tie in a mottled turkey tail fiber on either side

Hackle: Guinea hen ~ & finish

Flyfish NE Washington with Steven Bird: http://ucflyfishing.blogspot.com

Hairwings For Trout ~ Messenger

     I’ve found that trout, generally, like a somewhat less flashy attractor pattern than their sea-run cousins. Still, they do appreciate a detail or two, something added to the fly so that the trout “might enjoy & appreciate it”, as Big Jim Leisenring prescribes.

Messenger

Hook: #8-#12 TMC 200R

Thread: Wine UNI 8/0

Tail: Crimson cock hackle

Body: Black rabbit with guard hair, mixed with crimson chopped angel hair tinsel, dubbed on a loop of the tying thread

Wing: Black calf tail topped with four red mallard flank fibers – I pair the mallard fibers & tie one each side of the wing

Hackle: Natural black/bronze hen  

Sawtooth (Ray Bergman)

John Veniard opens the chapter on hairwing wetflies for trout, thus: “The use of hair instead of feathers for wings has become increasingly popular for use in fast streams, especially on the west coast of America, mainly because it has more “life” when wet.”

I may have been mistaken thinking that only one (Cahill) of the twenty hairwing trout flies (wet) listed in the 1973 Veniard’s Fly Dressers’ Guide is a simulator type. When I glanced at the recipe I noticed it called for jungle cock cheeks, so I dismissed the Sawtooth as a cross-over seatrout, steelhead or salmon pattern, which is what most of the hairwings listed by Veniard as suitable & popular for trouting are. Also, the Sawtooth is the only pattern of the twenty listed that is not tied with cock hackle, but rather, it is tied with guinea hen hackle. A soft hackle. There is no picture of the Sawtooth in Veniard's, so another look at the recipe & I envisioned the fly, & I suspect Bergman fished this one as a salmonfly or October caddis, or for both. And I don’t think the jungle cock cheeks would hurt the pattern in either case. If it is true that Bergman tied this to simulate specific insects, then this is an innovative pattern from an era when there were only a handful of imitative hairwing designs tied specifically for trout. And the first recorded pattern, that I've found, which implements a soft hackle. Though Bergman probably tied it bearded, I couldn’t resist tying it in-the-round.   

Sawtooth (Ray Bergman)

Hook: #8 TMC 200R

Thread: Black UNI 8/0

Tail: Guinea hen

Rib: Oval gold tinsel

Body: Orange chenille

Wing: Pine squirrel tail

Hackle: Guinea hen

A Hairwing Wetfly For Trout ~ Curly's Envy

     Those who checked out the October Flame caddis pattern of my last post probably noted that it is constructed as a traditional hairwing wetfly, a type most often reserved for salmon & seatrout, yet in my own experience, also effective in sizes suitable for trouting. Here’s one of the attractor-style hairwings I like for fishing the water on freestone streams. This type works well swung & can be effective on water where larger streamers won’t produce. Depending on color choices, the basic pattern lends itself to two distinct modes: creating fanciful lures; & simulating winged emergers or drowned adults of specific insects. I like this style & give it a lot of play. Hairwings are built on the solid principles of the soft-hackle approach: natural materials, movement, enticing ambiguity (obfuscation) as prescribed by James Leisenring, who, incidentally, in addition to the flymphs, packed a few hairwing wets himself.  Though synthetic material might be used or incorporated as a topping, I still prefer natural fur for its taper, spine & action when wet, as well as the nuanced coloration it affords. Nature still does it better. Bucktail, squirrel tail & calf tail are indispensable basics, natural & dyed. Rabbit, skunk, raccoon, fox, mink, bear, angora & long, coarse underfur are also useful. A clipping from the kitty’s tail?… Well. Be gentle.

Over the next few posts I’ll run a series, of sorts, of hairwing wetflies tied for trout.

Curly’s Envy

Hook: #8-#12 TMC 200R

Thread: Yellow UNI 8/0

Tail: Golden pheasant crest feather

Butt: Yellow floss

Body: Green tinsel - wind a short thorax or ball of yellow dubbing before tying in the wing

Wing: Yellow calf tail topped with olive bucktail

Hackle: Olive grizzly hen

Flyfish NE Washington with Steven Bird: http://ucflyfishing.blogspot.com

October Flame Caddis Emerger

    Gary LaFontaine wrote that October caddis are the most important ‘big fish’ hatch of the West, & I lean toward his point-of-view on that, at least as regards my home water the upper Columbia, where OC imitations take some of the best trout of the year. Interesting though, there seems to be widely mixed feelings about this insect, ranging from the positive Gary LaFontaine end of the scale, all the way to: “Aint wortha sh*t. Never caught a fish on one. They don’t eat em.” And I do admit to hanging near the cynical end of the fish-O-meter during my early years living in October caddis country. I’m a painfully slow learner, but, hammer long enough, something will break & the nut is revealed to even the thickest among us. Maybe confessing a couple of the things I know (now) I did wrong might serve to shed light on why others struggle when meeting the enigmatic Dicosmoecus.

My first mistake was allowing myself (for too long a time) to be influenced by the Great Big Fuzzy approach, as in great big fuzzy dryflies, always alluring, & sometimes effective, though day-in day-out not the best call, at least not where I fish. I was guilty of trying to make the trout conform to the way I preferred to fish, while the trout, for the most part, blithely foraged on subsurface pupae & emergers. The big dries do take fish & that is a happy occurrence, though trout seem more inclined toward them in the latter portion of the emergence season when a lot of adults have accumulated & colder weather starts to knock them down onto the water. Adults are strong fliers & you seldom see them stranded on the water during the early half of the season. On my home water, & I know this to be true of other rivers in the Columbia drainage, October caddis emerge early September through October, & though steady through the season, the ‘hatch’ is widespread & generally sparse, occurring from mid-day into dark. Dryflies tend to work best early morning & right up against dark, while wet imitations will take fish throughout the day. Don’t get me wrong. Not saying one should dismiss any notion of fishing dries except during those times I say. O no. Good to put a dryfly on them every now & then to keep things honest.

But, most of the time, wet imitations will produce more trout. And that was another source of vexation, I spent a long time experimenting with patterns conceived in fog, due to my lack of understanding the natural’s behavior & actual appearance in the water. Slowly, year after year, hammering away, observation & revelatory stomach content checks informing, my fly patterns for OC & method of delivering them improved, & I started to feel great fondness for this insect, & anticipation of its appearance replaced perplexity. Not saying I’ve discovered any be-all, end-all patterns. There aint no such thing. Just saying I’m up the road a little further than where I started out with October caddis & am having more fun than befuddlement when meeting them, which makes me glad. 

There are actually, to my mind, two subsurface phases of October caddis that are important on my home water. Though the imitation has merit on some waters, the cased stage is not a great producer on the UC, rather, it’s the uncased pupa & winged emerger that get the nod.

The cased larvae accumulate near the edge of the river in July, where they seal themselves off in the case & pupate until ready to emerge. When mature, the pupae chew through the seal & emerge from the case to clamber & swim near the bottom. This occurs throughout mid-day. The naked pupae are robust & active, many of them crawling clear of the flow to complete emergence on shoreline rocks & vegetation, but also a good number of them, their biological clocks ticking down the big event, emerge fully winged from the bottom of the stream & struggle to the surface – & a portion of those will be crippled & riding helpless in the flow. I carry both winged & wingless versions of October caddis, though, lately, winged versions like the one featured here are getting a lot play.

The October Flame is meant to simulate an emerging winged adult, & might be taken for a pupa or drowned spinner as well. Though the fiery orange thorax is a departure from stark realism, for reasons known only to themselves the trout are liking it. I tie these un-weighted, & usually fish them deep with a sink-tip line or splitshot on the leader. For deep, swift water like the UC, I fish this one on a 12’ sink tip, working downstream, quartering, dead-drifting, swinging, lifting, dropping back, dangling. As the naturals move swiftly up the water column, a fast strip often works really good with this pattern. Trout feeding on October caddis can be very specific about how they want it presented. If you are fishing over October caddis with a decent pattern & not catching, the problem is usually not be the fly at all, but rather, how it is presented. Mix up the presentation until you find it. And always try the fast strip with this one.                             

October Flame

Hook: #8 TMC 200R or Dai-Riki 889 (Depending on location, naturals are #8-#10 – #8, where I fish – For big water holding large trout I like a heavy wire steelhead hook to aid in keeping the fly deep, though a lighter hook might be more appropriate for skinnier water & smaller sizes.)

Thread: Rust-brown UNI 8/0

Rib: Fine copper wire

Body: Mix of  2/3 Umpqua orange sparkle dubbing & 1/3 Wapsi Superfine sulfur yellow dubbing, dubbed in a loop of the tying thread (Pumpkin orange on my home water, & that seems to be fairly common over the northern regions, though color will vary with location, pale orange to tan & yellow more common to the south into California. A wingless version of this pattern will fish for the pre-emergent pupae, but keep in mind that these are paler in coloration than the adults – a common mistake tiers make is representing the pupa with adult coloration – mixing in more of the sulfur yellow will give the lighter coloration.

Thorax: Flue taken from the base of an orange-dyed mallard flank feather – tie in around the center of the puff then fold back & arrange around the hook shank – the flue from one side of the feather tied in on top, & the other side tied in on the bottom usually does it, though it might take a bit more – this will extend over about half the body & when wet creates an enticing shroud

Antennae (Hind legs?): 2 mottled turkey tail fibers extending well behind the hook bend

Wing: Pine squirrel tail

Hackle: Furnace hen ~ & finish.

Flyfish NE Washington with Steven Bird: http://ucflyfishing.blogspot.com  

Cedar Lake Dragon

     Dragonfly nymphs are a primary food source in virtually all of the trout lakes in my neighborhood, & I like to dredge the lakes, so I’m always messing around with approaches to simulating the big nymphs. The Carey Special style, in its many variants, originated in my region & the style works well here for lake-dwelling rainbows. My idea with the Cedar Lake Dragon is to achieve a bit more realism in the design employing a natural color scheme, highlighting the stippled barring of the natural nymphs using an over-body of olive-dyed mallard flank. 

Cedar Lake Dragon

Hook: #4-#8 TMC 200R 

Thread: Olive

Rib: Chartreuse or olive wire wound over the body

Body: Mix of dark & light olive rabbit dubbing, not blended too much, should look blotchy, mix in some chopped olive midge flash, dubbed on a loop of the tying thread

Over-body: Dyed olive mallard flank tied in as a clump wing – extending slightly beyond the hook bend – top with a couple strands of olive midge flash           

Hackle: Pheasant rump – mix 3 hackles of varied colorations ~ & finish.

Flyfish NE Washington with Steven Bird: http://ucflyfishing.blogspot.com