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Bergman Fontinalis
Bergman Fontinalis. An interesting pattern tied in honor of Ray Bergman as the name obviously suggests. Bergman’s friend Phil Armstrong designed and named the pattern and it’s part of the trout fin series which represent the fins of a brook trout that apparently was a proven bait in the US. To my knowledge it was…
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Royal Coachman Wet Fly
Royal Coachman. Originally a variant of course from the Coachman wet fly was commercialized and named by the Orvis family in the last quarter of the 19th century. The red band of silk was originally added to protect the herls but the way I tie my herl bodies with a reinforcing thread I think this…
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Butcher Wet Fly
Butcher This famous wet fly was originally called Moon’s Fly after a butcher called Moon whose favorite pattern it was. Developed by John Jewhurst the fly was newly named by William Blacker around 1838 as per Moon’s profession arguably as a marketing gimmick. Well the name change worked well as it became one of the…
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Kalkkisten Vaalea & Tumma
Kalkkisten Vaalea & Kalkkisten Tumma We are continuing with traditional Finnish trout flies. I have tied quite a lot of these because Kalkkisten Vaalea has been one of the flies I like to teach in my workshops. It’s pretty fast to tie and has many of the basic components of a classic strip winged salmon…
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Huopana
Huopana This is an interesting pattern from a Finnish perspective as it was designed in Great Britain based on insect samples from Huopanankoski (Huopana rapids), Finland in the early 1900’s. It is one of those early places in our fly fishing history where fly fishing and sport fishing in general started to play a major…
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Bergman Wet Flies Tied by Rane Olsen
Ray Bergman’s wet flies tied by Rane Olsen This is such a great feat completed by a Finnish tyer Rane Olsen that I had to share it with my readers. 234 wet fly patterns from Bergman’s books as listed in the Bergman collection by Don Bastian. I have many times played with the idea of…
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Pheasant Tail Nymph
Pheasant Tail Nymph This fly doesn’t need much of introduction. It’s one of the most successful patterns for trout throughout the world and the original was designed by the famous Frank Sawyer. The PT nymphs pictured are my most used variations on the subject. They differ from the original a bit since I’ve used tying…
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Silver & Gold March Brown
Silver & Gold March Brown We continue with the classic wet flies for the moment. Here’s a couple that you all should recognize. As deadly as the March Brown is with a brown dubbed body it’s often worth it to try also the more flashy cousins of March Brown. Here’s the recipe (replace silver with…