Fly Tying Blog - Ryan's Winter Tying

This is the time of year that I start restocking my boxes for the summer, but I often get sidetracked by tying flies for nearly immediate use. My usual MO is to decide I'm going to go fishing, and sit down and tie a frantic half dozen of this or that, even though I probably have a perfectly adequate selection in my ridiculous duffel bag full of fly boxes. Either way, because I'm a full blown tying addict I've discovered a few new-to-me patterns that I've become pretty fond of, as well as did some twists on some old favorites - here's a few from the past couple days, hot off the vise! The Klinkhamer has been a favorite of mine for quite a few years now, as it seems to work for nearly every hatch and it makes a great sighter fly even if they aren't eating it. I'd gotten to the point where I almost always fished a size 14 black and grizzly version, and never felt the need to branch out much. I've been using quill body on a lot of nymph patterns and figured I'd wrap some on a Klink, and I'm happy with the results. The two quill variations above are tied with Hareline Synthetic Quill Body Wrap, but I'm going to tie up a few with Polish Quills for a little different look. Following the same theme as the Klinkhamer variations, I tied up a few traditional BWO style patterns, both in size 18. The upper one is a CDC Thorax Dun with a quill body, and Coq De Leon for a tail. I'm a big fan of CDL for it's mottling and it's great durability, both on nymphs and dries. On the bottom pattern, I went for more of a standard style BWO dry, with a little fancier wings. I tied in a clump of CDC and split the wings like you would on a standard hair-wing dry, like a Humpy wing. The tail is dun hackle, and the body is Nature's Spirit Fine Natural Dubbing in Baetis. The spring Blue Winged Olive hatch will be upon us in just a couple weeks, and I'm looking forward to making a few casts with these! Switching over to the nymph side of things, I've had great luck with these three incredibly simple patterns over the past few weeks. The upper pattern is a Three Dollar Dip, and the one directly below it is a non-beaded version of the same. Super simple, almost too easy to tie, but they catch a hell of a lot of fish. The thread body ones work great, but I'm going to tie a couple with Veevus Body Quill for a more translucent, flashy look. The bottom fly is a Boat Anchor Scud of Hans fame, which most of you are familiar with. It uses a tungsten bead as well as a lead-wrapped underbody, which plummets it to the bottom and makes you not have to use a half-pound of split shot on your leader. Handy, huh? The Boat Anchor is one of my go-to lead flies, but it's a lot more than just weight - it catches a ton of fish, especially in the UV Shrimp Pink Ice Dub flavor. I've been tying it in a size 14 as of late, but as the water rises in the spring I'll tie them up to a size 8 for weight purposes. Here's a video from a while back on how to craft it. That's what's been coming off my Renzetti lately, and I've been having a ton of fun tying a few new patterns as well as some old standbys. Tie up a few and get out and fish them, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Ryan