As a young, impressionable teenager hanging out at the only fly shop in town I learned a lot of things…and some of them were about fishing. From the time I was 14 until I could drive myself, my mom would drop me off at the shop for whole Saturdays and I would sit in the back and tie flies. The guys at Spinner Fall Fly Shop (which sadly no longer exists as a shop, but they do still operate a fantastic guiding service) really helped me refine my fly tying skills. One thing they taught me, which I thought was cool, was how to blend my own dubbing to get just the right texture and color. They kept a little electric coffee grinder there and we would add synthetic and natural fibers and then mix it up. You can imagine what my parents thought when their 14 year old son asked for a mini-coffee grinder for Christmas.

A recent use case for this is for the cranefly larva that I featured a couple weeks back. The dubbing needs to have a little more glow and depth than I can find in anything off-the-shelf. Here are the ingredients I use for the cranefly dubbing:

• 25% – African Goat Cream – the long guard hairs give an impression of fat translucency
• 15% – Nutria – natural
• 10% – Phoenix Dubbing – peacock tan from Montana Fly Company – this provides some random red and blue fibers that add to the translucency and texture
• 50% – Some kind of light tan, gray, or yellow colored natural dubbing

… Continue Reading

My last post featured a stellar outing on the Provo River with great success deep nymphing a cranefly larva pattern. I don’t think there are many places that sell a cranefly larva, so you may have to tie it yourself or pay a buddy to do it for you. This fly can be tied in a number of different color variations. I favor patterns in the light gray, light tan, and light olive range. I like to tie on hooks with a slight bend to give the larva a bit more natural look, such as:

• Tiemco 200R
• Dia-Riki #270
• Mustad C53S

I think to imitate a cranefly larva successfully, you need to make sure you have a few things in your fly, a short marabou tail, a lighter colored body about 2/3 to 3/4 the length of the hook with a good ribbing, and a darker thorax/head. For the body I like to blend my own dubbing using some synthetic and some natural fibers like angora. You want a body that can frizz out a little bit to give the impression of a semi translucent body and I like to tease out the fibers a little bit with a small hooked piece of Velcro. Additionally I like a few colored fibers such as blue, red or green to give it a rich colo. For a rib I use wire (heavy gold or copper) and ostrich herl usually just a natural gray. I also add a few wraps of lead under the body so that this fly gets down deep.Here are a couple of color variations that I fish. The top fly is a little more tan … Continue Reading

I had a great outing today on the Lower Provo River in Provo Canyon, UT.  It started off rather sketchy as the day was really snowy and I wasn’t sure if my 20 year old Honda Accord was up to the task, but I figured if I just took it easy I could get there without any issue.  My usual 40 minute drive was more like 80 minutes, but once I got there I found I had the whole stretch to myself.  I went to Vivian Park and fished up from the bridge.  Given then weather I determined I would be nymphing.  It was about 18-20 degrees Fahrenheit and a constant snow was falling.  I had in mind to fish a fly I haven’t used in a while; a big, juicy cranefly larva pattern about size 6.  I trailed it with a size 14 red fox squirrel nymph.  For weight I used a BB size split shot and an 8 ft leader with 5x tippet.  On my fifth cast of the day, I took a nice brown trout about 15 in long.  It took to the air straight away after being hooked.  Once I landed it, I could see that he had eaten the cranefly larva.  Over the next 10 minutes minutes I landed two more fish both were mountain whitefish of decent size and both foul hooked.  I think they were taking the cranefly and I was hooking them with the RFSN.  The cranefly was big enough they couldn’t fit it in their tiny mouths.  I hooked 3 or 4 more browns ranging from 11-14 inches and all on the cranefly.  The fish of day had to be the 18 inch rainbow that was a healthy slab of … Continue Reading