Flies

I attended the WA FFI Casting Fair and tied some deer hair in the afternoon. I had never done anything like that before, but they asked me if I would be part of the demonstrators, and it worked out to head down. It was great fun and the best part is that I learned more than I imparted. One of their featured tiers was Dan West who happens to live in Issaquah, so close enough to get further instruction, and he demonstrated his techniques for tying extended body mayflies. He is featured in the October WA FFI newsletter (Oct 2024 Washington State Council Newsletter – wscffi). I am heading out today to get the materials that he uses. I have recently been playing around with this style of fly using deer hair but his techniques surpass anything that I have seen so far. They look great and you …

I found this online.  I find it helps take the confusion on threads and application. I also have ones for hooks if anyone is interested.

I fished Ala Spit yesterday during an outgoing tide in the early afternoon. I caught a gorgeous Dolly Varden! This was special for me for several reasons. It may have been my first fish caught there. More special is that it took one of my deer hair poppers that I have focused on for the last couple of years. I have given a lot of these away but have not heard that anyone caught anything on one of them yet. I certainly hoped they would work, but really had no proof until yesterday. It's one thing to tie your own style of flies, but another thing that they actually fool a fish. Here is the fly that worked:

I didn't get a picture of the fish because he inhaled it. After removing the fly, I was just tickled that he swam away. I didn't want to torture him anymore but…

A few years ago a friend of mine came up with this fly we call the YKM. It is probably one of the simplest flies you will ever tie, but it is also very effective on local lakes later in the Spring. It has been the hot fly on Lone Lake in the May/June time period for a number of years now. Check it out:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13uT6urYHqfY2W54g4jBc8VBmaVH2IC_Y/view?usp=sharing