Mini Chubby Fly Tying Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: The Mini Chubby Chernobyl was my best fly pattern in 2015. I started fishing this pattern in the middle of June and continued to fish it through September with tremendous results. I'm certain this pattern would have been effective through October...
The Cartman Stonefly and Hopper Tying Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: The Cartman is an easy to tie, realistic foam pattern that imitates stoneflies, crickets, and grasshoppers. I've been working on foam cylinder patterns for years, but was never really happy with the results until I started tapering the ends...
Simple Foam Caddis Tying Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: The Simple Foam Caddis is the best floating, easy to see caddis pattern that is simple to tie and simply catches fish. I've had tremendous luck during the Mother's Day Caddis hatch here on the Yellowstone River near Livingston, Montana with this...
Thunder Beetle Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: The Thunder Beetle is a high floating, buggy pattern made to imitate beetles and cicada's. Beetles are very common terrestrials, therefore make great patterns to fish in any type of water throughout the year. The bulky profile of a beetle is...
Slim Jim Hopper Tying Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: The Slim Jim is a versatile pattern that I came up with a few years ago and have been using ever since. It can be tied as an attractor, or fine tuned to imitate specific caddis or stoneflies. Bulky foam patterns like the Chubby Chernobyl or...
Chubby Ant Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: The Chubby Ant is a high floating, easy to see ant that really catches fish. An ant pattern can be a fantastic fly during the summer months fished as a searching pattern, or to imitate real ants, or flying ants that somehow, always end up in...
Morrish Hopper Step-by-Step
PATTEN DESCRIPTION: I first posted how to tie the Morrish Hopper in 2010 and have had great fishing results and fun tying different version of the realistic hopper pattern over the years. I had great success with different colored bodies like cream, flesh, green,...
Variations on Morrish Hopper
The Morrish Hopper has been the best hopper pattern the last few seasons, and for good reason. The sculptured, 5-6mm thick foam body of the Morrish, and knotted rubber legs, imitates the natural silhouette and bulk of the natural hopper, perfectly. It floats all...
The Easy E Hopper Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: The Easy-E Hopper is an easy to see, easy to keep floating, and easy to tie, foam pattern that caught lots of fish this past summer. I generally tie this foam bullet-head pattern in smaller sizes to imitate caddis, stoneflies and little hoppers....
What’s in my fly box: August
What's in my flybox for the Month of August? Hoppers, ants, spruce moths, tricos and beetles. Normally, my fly boxes are full of mainly hoppers for August fishing in Montana. This summer, with the low clear water conditions, fish are keying in on smaller insects...
Variations on the Chubby Chernobyl
The Chubby Chernobyl has been around for years, yet this fly is still the go-to fly for many fly fisherman and guides here in Montana. Chernobyl-style flies have been catching fish for decades, starting with the basic, but deadly chernobyl ant back in 80's, to the...
Carnage Hopper Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: The Carnage Hopper from MFC is a great hopper pattern that should be in everyone's terrestrial fly box. This realistic foam hopper has a unique segmented body, eye-catching red rubber legs, and a durable over-wing. There are days when the fish...
The Boulder Hopper Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: The Boulder Hopper is a newer pattern that I created for catching fussy fish in low, clear water. By using thin foam for the body and wing, this hopper looks very realistic in smaller sizes. I tie this hopper in sizes 8-16, but a size 12 seems...
Improved Thunder Thighs Hopper Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: The Improved Thunder Thighs Hopper was my go-to hopper pattern last summer in sizes 8-14 in tan, goldenrod, and flesh. As the summer went on, this hopper seemed to fish better and better. The realistic silhouette of this grasshopper pattern...
360º View of “New” Thunder Thighs Hopper
Enjoy the view! Tutorial coming soon.
12 Variations on the Pink Pookie
As a fishing guide, I enjoy tying the majority of the nymphs, streamers and dry flies for my clients. Not only is tying flies cost effective, but having clients catch fish on hand tied flies that are a little different than what can be found in every fly shop,...
The Hopper Store
It is a new year and I am excited to be able to share with all of you my new online hopper tying supply store. Over the years I have searched high and low for a variety of colors and thicknesses of foam for tying my own personal hoppers and other foam flies. Now with...
Green Machine Skwala Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: The Green Machine was originally tied to imitate a Skwala stonefly which is a late-winter to early-spring hatching stonefly here in Montana. The original Green Machine is tied with brown/olive two-tone foam, with the olive tied down as the...
Fuzzy Foam Grand Hopper Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: How to tie Rainy's High-Viz Grand Hopper. Rainy's Grand Hopper has been around for years, but the trout never seem to get tired of eating this realistic foam hopper. With it's wiggly, knotted rubber legs, thick foam body, and realistic...
Purple GFA Foam Hopper Tutorial
PATTERN DESCRIPTION: This hopper pattern was created by Walter Wiese out of Parks Fly Shop in Gardiner, Montana. The GFA Hopper reminds me of the Madam-X, but with a little foam thrown in for floatation and a splash of color. I really like this hopper in sz. 14 for...