Just thought I’d share a cool photo I snapped on my phone this evening. This dragon fly was buzzing around the yard, but sat still long enough for me to get a picture. The post processing was done in the app TiltShiftGen. Check it out.

A rainbow of Fish Sculls (TM)

Have you seen Fish Sculls before? These are the evolutionary next step in fly tying beads.  The Flymen Fishing Co. has created these formed and colored heads for flies that look really compelling.  They are specifically weighted to provide a keel to your streamers and the cool thing is that you don’t put them on as the first step for tying a fly, like a traditional bead.  These slip on at the end of the tie and as a result allow some interesting interaction with your materials such as hackles, rabbit strips, or long dubbing.

Scull Fracture Rainbow

Utah on the Fly contributing user RnF posted a cool tutorial for a pattern he calls the Scull Fracture.  Along with the tutorial you can find the full material listing and some other variations of the pattern.  Looks like a great fly.  I would love to fish the rainbow trout version on the Green River in the summer time after they stock the river.  I have seen several large browns eat little stock trout right off the hook when anglers were reeling them in.  Click here for the full post.  Video below:

Frito's Bungie Buzzer

I have previously expressed my admiration for the Idaho Statesman newspaper for promoting fly fishing and fly tying by publishing a fly pattern weekly.  I can now show some love to my own local newspaper, The Salt Lake Tribune, for following suit.  Pretty cool.

So this week’s fly is called Frito’s Bungie Buzzer.  Quite a name.  It is a riff on the zebra midge and looks like plenty of fish will find it to their liking.

Here is my entry for the week. I realized just after kicking off the drawing that my kids had misplaced my white pencil so I had to improvise. I was able to quickly find a white out correction pen, which I used for the highlights on the hook and head, and part of the wing tip, but then it ran out of fluid.  I was forced to raid the crayon box and finished it with a white crayola.  So this is a colored pencil (and some other stuff) on matte board drawing.  Also unfortunate is the fact that my scanner made the image look streaky, so ignore that part.

Week 10 McGinty - colored pencil on matte board

Kate decided to give this week’s fly a go and again another cute bug from her.

Week 10: McGinty Crayon on craft paper

Here are Jeff’s and Jason’s drawings for this week.  Stellar as always!

I have been inspired by this beautiful spring time weather of the past few days to share one of my most successful spring time patterns.  I don’t really know what it is called, but I know it catches fish.  I first learned this pattern from a guy in the fly shop I used to frequent when I was a kid.  I have come to call it the compar-a-merger.  I guess because it is a little like a compar-a-dun but the wing is tied back and the body is a little fatter.  I have had trips on the San Juan River in NM, as well as the Green and Provo Rivers in Utah where this little fly caught fish after fish.  I tend to fish it, like most emerger patterns near the surface, but have also had success fishing it deeper, particularly when the only fish that are up are the little guys.  Getting it down 18-24″ under the surface can really get you to the bigger fish.

Compar-a-merger baetis

The compar-a-merger, like most of my flies, is a fairly simple pattern.  I start with a basic nymph style hook in sizes 16-20.  The recipe is as follows:

• Thread: Olive or brown
• Tail: dun colored microfibetts, 3-5 pieces tied flat, together
• Body: olive dubbing remove guard hairs (I prefer olive died squirrel)
• Ribbing: fine gold, brass, or copper wire
• Wing: deer hair length shouldn’t exceed the hook bend
• Thorax: olive dubbing with guard hairs, tied slightly fat

Brown trout enjoying the taste of the compar-a-merger

The dubbing, thread, tail colors and hook size can all be adjusted for various mayfly species … Continue Reading

Caddis fly larva. Credit Deseret News.

The Deseret News in Salt Lake City has a story about caddis fly larva silk as a new surgical tape due to it’s strength and adhesive properties when wet.  Sounds like a pretty interesting venture, just so long as they don’t come raid my local stream for product.  The article also contains some nice close up images of cased caddis larvae.  Let’s hope they pull out all of the rocks first .

To read more click the link:
Caddisfly larvae spun into surgical tape (via Deseret News)

Another all digital offering for this week’s fly.  This was drawn in Window’s Paint to get the old-school pixel look of a video game.  I limited myself to the default 28 color set and in some cases drew in pixel-by-pixel, especially the shading and highlights on hook and head.  Not much else to say here.

Lefty's Deceiver Video Game style

Here is the original on Flickr and a zoomed view.

This is an admittedly weak effort in my opinion.  I was trying again for something Charlie Harper-like, but I think I missed.  This is an all digital image again.

Orange and Partridge

You can see Jeff’s and Jason’s flies by clicking the links.

I need to play catch up this week (and probably next) to get back on schedule with the others drawing flies weekly.  The challenge for week 7 was to draw a hexagenia dun.  It made me think back one of my earliest fly tying masterpieces, the deadly, Leaden Mayfly.  There is a back story to this fly which you can read here.  This image tries my best to document and lampoon that fly I tied so many years ago.  The fly is a pencil sketch that I scanned into Fireworks where I added the text.  I think this might make a funny t-shirt.

The Leaden Mayfly

The Leaden Mayfly on flickr.

You can see Jeff’s and Jason’s flies by clicking the links.

My 5 year old daughter wanted to try her hand at this week’s fly, the muddler minnow.  She opted for a sparse design.  I am guessing she is planning to use it for some winter steelheading.  Way to go kiddo!