Some of the goals for this blog are to: 1. Be transparent and share what works for us, and 2. Help other anglers. So, I’d like to share the contents of my fly boxes. Many anglers will not, but I already have written about the patterns that work for me. I’ve kept my promise to
Category: Flies and fly tying
Farmington: Day 2
The day started early with some fly tying before dawn. I wanted to goof around with an emerger pattern. When I hit a favorite spot, fish already were rising consistently and Caddis were popping everywhere. The new emerger worked, as did the X-Caddis with some pink CDC. Yes: pink! I also hit some other spots
At the Bench: Syl’s Midge
TL;DR: Syl’s Midge is a go-to wet fly when trout are active but picky. One of my favorites. I first read about this pattern in Dave Hughes’ book, Handbook of Hatches: A Basic Guide to the Food Trout Eat and the Most Effective Flies to Match Them. He rapturously writes about how incredibly effective it
The JT Special Streamer (Re-Visited)
TL;DR: A good streamer for the Swift and Westfield rivers. When I was new to fly tying, I made a white marabou streamer for situations when I wanted to see the take. It miraculously worked (N.B.: many, many of my flies have been duds!), and I wrote a post about it. The JT Special has