Body: Blended Light Hare’s Ear dubbing, such as Hareline Hare’s Ear Color
Thread: Tan or Gray
Tying Notes: Make sure to use a dubbing that has a nice mix of underfur and guard hairs, to get that “buggy” look. I tie most of these heavily weighted. I do leave some unweighted for those occasions when I want to drift it in shallow or slow moving water.
General Notes:This pattern was originated by Central Pennsylvania Fly Fishing star Walt Young. He created it as a simple crane fly larva pattern. However, it is so effective, in so many places that I think it is taken by the trout as many different things (sow-bugs, scuds, crane-fly larvae, caddis larvae). That general effectiveness is the reason it is a staple in many fly-boxes. Tie these up in size 10 through 16. make sure you fish it dead-drifting right along the bottom.
I use Walt’s Worm most often as a sow-bug imitation on Pennsylvania’s Spring Creek. There are more elaborate imitations available of course – but Walt’s Worm has caught more fish for me on Spring Creek than anything else.
About the Blog In the writer’s own words
This blog is primarily designed to record my time fly fishing for trout in the northeastern United States; however, I write and post about anything I encounter during my fishing expeditions.
Just as it says, Matt, presents a sort of online fishing journal, complete with pics of more than just fish. In his latest post on Pennsylvania’s Penns , Elk and Fishing Creeks we get fish pics, info on the hatches and some wildflower pics (with identification).
The inclusion of insect hatch info and wildflower pics should be a great help to the fly fisherman interested in Phenology (as we all should be).
From Wikipedia
Phenology is the study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate.
So, check out the wildflower pictures, review the hatch info and take notes. Next year when you see those flowers blooming you’ll know just what flies to tie.
If you’re in the North Carolina Area check out the 2009 1st Annual Fly-Fishing Masters Tourney. The fishing tournament is part of the Hickory Nut Gorge Olympiad.
The tournament is touted as family friendly and takes place over May 2nd and May 3rd, 2009. The first day is at Lake Lure, NC and the second at the Rocky Broad River in Chimney Rock, NC.
Mix together a large dose of Reggae, some New Orleans Funk, some classic R&B, a bit of a punk ethic, and you get some idea of what Michael Franti and Spearhead sound like. This show is a great soundboard recording from Pittsburgh (my hometown). Check out the mash-up of Sublime’s “Love is What I got” and the Sesame Street Theme.
Book Review: Fly Fishing Guide to the Upper Delaware River by Paul Weamer
From the book jacket
The trout that inhabit the upper Delaware River are large, wild and highly selective, with fighting skills so legendary that many well-traveled anglers consider them to be among the most athletic in the world.
I just got my hands on Paul Weamer’s Fly Fishing Guide to the Upper Delaware River – and it’s a sweet book. It’s the best book on fishing a single river system that I have ever seen. And I’d say it ranks very high as one of the best fly-fishing guide books out there.
The book features chapters on each of the branches; The East, The West and the Upper Main Stem. These chapters present the best Floats (including times and distances), Access points (with Maps and GPS coordinates), fishabilty based on the water flows, and great pictures and descriptions of all the various sections. This is very thorough and usable information – this is not a coffee table book.
Also included are chapters on:The fish and how to catch them (with Delaware specific fly patterns);The Hatches (covering all seasons and including color pictures of the bugs).
The Appendices provide the balance of what you’ll need to plan your trip such as:Lodging, camping, restaurants, fly shops etc.
In short, if you’ve been pondering a trip to the Delaware for some of the East’s best trout fishing, you should get this book. I’ve never fished the Delaware, but after seeing this book I’m ready to go and I feel confident that I’ll be well prepared.
Hook: Standard Light Wire Dry Fly or Stout Wet Fly Hook, sizes 10 to 20 Abdomen: Yellow Floss Rib: Fine Copper Wire Thorax: Hare’s Ear Dubbing Collar: Hungarian Partridge
Notes: Use light-wire standard dry-fly hooks for some and stout wet fly hooks for others. This will give you the ability to fish in the surface film, or deeper depending on the hook.
The thorax of hare’s ear dubbing should be dubbed large enough so that it can support the soft hackle -the thorax is there primarily to prevent the partridge hackle from collapsing against the body.
I like the effect of using a copper rib for the appearance of segmentation – not all tyers do this. I feel more confident fishing it with the ribbing though.
Make sure to tie the partridge in very sparse – stripping the hackle fibers from one side of the feather can help to keep it sparse.
Fishing Notes: I haven’t fished this color variation as much as the Green and Partridge. I include it though because I’ve had success with it during yellow crane-fly activity. I haven’t yet used it for the Sulphur Hatch, however Dave Hughes in his book Wet Flies, recommends it for this.
I was just looking through my pictures and this one caught my eye. It’s a channel cat caught on a cork popper. We were at my brother’s wedding rehearsal dinner and of course somebody brought a fly rod – who doesn’t for such events.
As the sun set the big cats came into shore. I advised the fisherman (my step-dad) to try a popper; these are dog-food fed fish in a private pond, so using a big popper was matching the hatch. After about 5-minutes he had a hook-up, 15 minutes or so later he finally brought it in.
That’s my daughter providing a surreal counterpoint to the catfish – and a product placement advert for Minute-Maid.
Need some Tenkara flies? Check out the TenkaraBum for flies by myself and others, as well as Tenkara lines, nets, other accessories, reviews, how-to and more...
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