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Fly tying: The Flying Squirrel Nymph
I love "mash-up" flies—inventions at the vise that work on trout for no particular reason at all. Just this week, I tried a simple wet fly pattern I "created" at the vise a couple weeks ago for Firehole River trout, and I was rewarded with some of the most aggressive brown trout takes I'd ever…
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Fly Tying: The Crackleback
While I love spending time tinkering at the vise, I'm always looking for ways to cut down on the number of patterns I tie regularly. Ed Story's Crackleback fits my style of fishing perfectly. Part dry fly, part wet fly and part micro-bugger, this easy-to-tie pattern mimics naturals on the surface, emerging caddis and just…
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Fly tying: The Muskrat Nymph
Tying flies that don't really imitate anything specific, but might contain a hint of this or that is always fun for me. When a fly isn't supposed to represent a specific prey base, I almost feel as if I have license to be a bit creative at the vise. As expected, the results have been…
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Fly tying: The Adams
It's almost summer, which means it's almost time to get out on the small waters here in the West and prospect for wild and native trout. There may be no better "attractor" pattern for trout than the venerable Adams. First tied in 1922 by Leonard Halladay to imitate a basic mayfly, and first fished on…
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Fly tying: The Insult
Some flies are so simple to tie that you wonder how, with such little effort at the vise, they can be effective. The Insult, tied below by Tim Flagler, is such a fly. Designed to imitate active nymphs that either swim or end up in the current quite often, The Insult is a great pattern…
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Fly tying: SBR Sulphur Nymph
Nymphing has come a long way over the last couple of decades—many fly anglers will start with attractor nymphs on new water, simply because they make great searching patterns and tend to be top-of-mind when nothing is obviously hatching. But, even searching with attractors like a Prince or a basic hare's ear or pheasant tail…
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Skills: Cording and uncording fly-tying thread
Those of us who tie flies have dealt with the challenges of uncooperative thread, and it's possible that many of us don't even know that "we're doing it wrong." In the video below, Tim Flagler shows us how to cord and uncord tying thread for various situations. Corded thread—or twisted thread—is smaller in diameter and…
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