Sea run brown on Mickey Finn

Mickey Finn, Skykomish Sunrise and Polar Shrimp

– A trio of hot flies for winter fishing Winter trout fishing in my home area, isn’t all bad. In the lakes, there can be a hectic period around ice-out, when the resident brown trout raid the shores chasing baitfish. In the rivers most fishing is on sea run brown, after breeding some of the […]

The Polar Shrimp

Polar Shrimp – Classic steelhead and salmon fly tying tutorial – video

Most fish loves shrimps! This is my slightly speyish version of the classic steelhead and salmon fly The Polar Shrimp. As much as I love the original pattern – designed way back in the 1930’s by Clarence Shoff, a gifted fly tier, long time tackle dealer and trout bum – I like to add the […]

Craig's Nighttime

Craig’s Nighttime – classic trout fly tying tutorial – video

A New Zealand streamer fly for hunting large rainbows and brown trout in the dark hours. I still got mental images of some monster brown trout slamming this large blue fly one night years ago in a secret river somewhere in Norway. Good memories, that always will make this a confidence fly for me. The […]

Skykomish Sunrise

Skykomish Sunrise – classic steelhead fly tying

Skykomish Sunrise I just love this classic beauty that was created as kind of a family team effort, by father and son Ken and George McLeod back in the late 1930’s. Famous Steelhead angler, Trey Combs rated this one of the most important steelhead flies of the century, and he told the story in his […]

Craig’s Nighttime – a streamer fly for large trout at dusk and dawn

Craig’s Nighttime – an old classic New Zealand Streamer Craig’s Nighttime is an old classic New Zealand streamer fly. I initially found the pattern in John Veniard’s book: Reservoir and Lake Flies – a book I highly recommend. Years ago on a dark night this large darkish blue fly got me into a bunch of […]

Amber Softhackle Streamer – salmon and steelhead fly tying – video

I’m a big fan of the late Jack Gartside, and I’ve tied a lot of his wonderful Soft Hackle Streamer. I have used it for decades for trout, perch, pike and a variety of saltwater predators as well. This is my own variations on Jack’s pattern, using blood quill marabou, schlappen feathers and jungle cock […]

Foxy Squirrel – for early season trout

This fly is basically an update on a no-name pattern I came up with a couple of seasons ago. It has produced quite well, but I felt that it needed a little tweaking to make it just right. The twist turned out to be the use of a silver tipped squirrel tail dyed orange instead […]

The Big Hole Demon – and the power of three

This fly was born on the banks of the Big Hole River in Montana, but somehow it crossed the Atlantic and became a super popular streamer fly in Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia. Over the years The Big Hole Demon has been tied in all kinds of variations in colour, materials and overall appearance. […]

Fashion changes – but style endures

Hooks are the backbones of most artificial flies, and we fly tiers tend to get kind of emotional about this particular piece of steel. Sure… we choose hooks out of practical purposes. We want them to be strong, light or heavy, have a sharp point and lots of other features – depending on their actual […]