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. […]

Where the river meets the sea

– productive brackish water environments If you follow a river downstream, sooner or later you will reach the sea. But lots of rivers don’t enter the big salty oceans right away. More often they feed lots of freshwater into deltas, fjords, estuary or other waterscapes. These environments typically contain brackish water, and their salt content […]

Fat Bugger (Black’n’silver) – streamer fly tying – video

Streamer fly for trout, perch, bass and other predators. It has got a jigging action and lots of movement and flash. I like this color combo – especially for night fishing and dark days. It’s just an amazing searching pattern for rivers as well as lakes. Fat Bugger Black’n’silver  (with affiliate links) Hook: Ahrex NS110 […]

Loopy Leech – fly tying – video

This is the illegitimate offspring from a romance between a Fur Leech and a Woolly Bugger. Not really rocket science – but the dubbing loop technique give a lot of options for mixing colours, structures and materials. I use Woolly Sparkle Dub, which is a natural wool dubbing with some subtle sparkle in it. You […]

Loopy Leech – a reloaded Woolly Bugger

The Woolly Worm and the Woolly Bugger are some of my favourite flies – and recently I’ve worked a bit on the concept of making a Woolly Bugger that incorporated a bit more sparkle and flash than the original. Furthermore I wanted to make it a bit more flexible – by making it easy to […]

Tying and Fishing the Booby Fly – Firetail Booby – Sample from the book

Firetail Booby I invented this pattern more than a decade ago. I was inspired by flies like Jack Gartside’s Soft Hackle Streamer and a lot of the colourful steelhead flies. What I wanted was hot colours and flash, but I also wanted it to be a little bit subdued. The solution was to hide the […]