What Are The Famous Flies...............

[Ard]

The famous flies you have tied for use salmon, steelhead or even trout fishing that you have never caught a fish on?

For me I can think of a few but I'm not so sure it's the fly pattern or design but more the colors. I first heard of the Scottish fly the Willie Gunn about 8 years ago and just the name was enough to intrigue me. So tie I did and I took them to the river, tried three different days with zero results so they went onto the far back burner.

About 25 years ago I decided I had missed the boat by never tying the Green Beauty a Carrie Stevens streamer pattern. So tie I did, about half a dozen really nice ones and I took them to the creeks and...….. you guessed it.

Color is something I've not figured out here in Alaska especially orange and chartreuse green, I do really well with hot pink, fuchsia and blue. Purple to some extent and black seems to work for everything that swims here.

I posted this topic because I just tied a couple new variations of the Willie Gunn or at least that's what I'm calling it, tied on orange Pro tubes. We'll see if they work Sunday I hope.

Here's one of the new Willie Gunn variants still on the pin, you can probably see that it looks suspiciously like other flies I catch with. More black than orange or yellow and it would be nice if a fish would grab one for me.



We are headed back out to where these things live at dawn Sunday.



I know they don't look really big in pictures but the fish we caught last time were all between 17 and 24 inches and very fat and healthy. Finding something that they just can't resist is something I work at year after year. They really like those big fat bunny fur sculpins I make with the sculpin helmet flat head weight but those things are a bugger to cast and take some of the fun outta fishing. I like to make more graceful casts and that means lighter flies.....

These are from the originals I made years ago that went fishless.



Most of the well known fly patterns I've made have worked well. All of the feather wings in the picture below caught fish, just a few flies have ended up as duds.

 

[ia_trouter]

Should be an interesting thread. I don't have enough experience to be making any serious proclamations, but there are a lot of nymphs I find ineffective around here. The famed pheasant tail nymph comes to mind, and I fished it pretty hard off an on for a few seasons. I have friends with a similar opinion of the copper John but that's been a decent fly for me some days.

I'm pretty convinced the color thing is regional, species and watershed dependent. You won't likely catch me without chartreuse and orange on upper Midwest water for most any species. Not much in the trout box though. Pink and orange seem better for my local trout if you need a brighter color. I can't speak to the entire Driftless though.

 

[ejsell]

Not really famous but zonkers, someone told me they were killer for steelhead and trout so when I first started tying I did about a dozen of them in the pattern suggested and never got a single hit. They sat in my box for about 5 years and 2 years ago I tied a different variation of them. One of the best cold water drifting flies I've ever used. The one that worked is below.

The other one that has never produced for me, "Eggs Over Easy" looks good and I have tied a couple dozen of them but never gotten a hit on a single rig with them and when I run it on a double they always hit the other fly.

YouTube

YouTube



Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[ia_trouter]

Ejsell, I was ready to start typing at you when I saw "zonkers" mentioned but you redeemed yourself. In my experience they are not all that amazing for trout, but oh do they crush warmwater fish on a pretty consistent basis. Almost all of my most effective pike and bass flies are bunny strip variations.

And good thing Ard limited this to flies, cuz I have enough money invested in "famous lures that actually suck" to buy a nice used car.

 

[huronfly]

I can't think of any specific patterns that have failed me... there are a handful of traditionals that I have yet to catch a fish on, although I don't fish them often enough to give them a fair chance. However, the colour pink has surprisingly not worked AT ALL for me in the past, swinging flies that is. This summer I finally gained confidence fishing pink while out in BC, it's one of those colours that just works there. Since coming home, for once I have successfully caught a steelhead on a swung pink fly.

 

[djfan]

I have fished the heck out of San Juan worms, but only have landed one fish. She was a bruiser, but the only one.

 

[lonigan]

mickey finn - but that may have had more to do with me than the fly. I think i still have a rusty one in a fly box tho, just in case

 

[JoJer]

A lot of the "famous ones"-always found in the "10 patterns you MUST carry"list- I first fished when I was very new to the fly rod. Chances are that I fished them unsuccessfully at the wrong water/time/weather/depth etc. I carried several of them for years, and never fished them again. Eggs and the Muddler Minnow are the top of that list.

 

[trev]

I have never caught a fish on a San Juan worm either , nor on any egg fuzz ball- i can stand right beside some one who is catching with those patterns and do what he does and still nada, consequently I don't use them much, so I'll probably never catch a fish on them.

 

[Ard]

mickey finn - but that may have had more to do with me than the fly. I think i still have a rusty one in a fly box tho, just in case

Ditto to that, I forgot that one and add to that the Thunder Creek series Dace, Red Fin etc. Also don't recall any caught on a Zonker.........

The EGG :shocking: now there's one! My big problem there was the bundles of the colored Poly Yarn or whatever you call that stuff. You know the ones I'm talking about right? You strap it to a hook then stretch and trim and voila' it springs into a round ball. That part worked for me but I always thought the stuff would have been better sold as dubbing for dry flies because it floats like a cork! Oh yeah you can wrap the hook with lead wire or use split shot but come-on the stuff floats better than most dry fly materials.

Best producers over time have been Little Blue Quill dry in #18 - Nine Three or the Ard's Nine Three feather Wing Streamer - The Answer brown trout mini feather wing streamer - The big fat bunny fur Sculpin with Sculpin Helmet (the flat ones) Black Intruders - Black anything and for six years those Wilkinson Sunray and Dee Monkey tubes. For King Salmon the AK. Assassin in any form, standard hook tie or for 8 years now on tubes. They are the only fly I use or give others to use for kings.

Never even considered a San Juan Worm, only ever used a Wooly Bugger a few times and gave up on trying to get the egg stuff to sink back in 1979.......... No more Micky Fins either

 

[trev]

Wooly Buggers are one of my most productive flies, more for smallmouth than trout but trout eat them too, tied with almost all natural materials and imitative of a nymph or suggestive of baitfish, leech or crawdad they should work most anywhere?

Ard, thanks for the idea of using that kapok like egg yarn as dry fly body, I'm thinking bass bugs and hoppers. I tied 6 eggs about 25 years ago and have a big hank of "yarn" left.

 

[bigjim5589]

My nemesis is the Prince Nymph. I have caught fish on them, various fish species, but I simply dislike tying with the biots used in their construction. I've never felt that biots as legs, feelers, antenna or whatever they may be used for in that regard, adds anything positive to a fly. To me they're stiff & lifeless! This is just my own pet peeve, as it's a famous & very popular fly.

Unless I'm tying them for someone else, I generally substitute rubber or silicone skirt materials for the biots, which to me do have plenty of movement and don't get all mangled up like the biots will.

I've caught many fish on these modified versions, and very few on the original pattern, but that may be because of my dislike for the biots and never gave the fly pattern much chance to be good for me.

 

[bumble54]

Peter Ross, watched others around me catch on them and many anglers I knew declared it a killer pattern but tried for several years and never had so much as a look see from any fish.
Caught plenty on Dunkeld and Butchers but never on a Peter Ross. :noidea:

 

[flytie09]

For me it’s Muddlers, Mickey Finns, Zonkers, and egg flies. O-V-E-R-R-A-T-E-D.

 

[ia_trouter]

For me it’s Muddlers, Mickey Finns, Zonkers, and egg flies. O-V-E-R-R-A-T-E-D.

I was waiting for muddlers to be mentioned. I think it's redeeming feature is it's artsy and takes some skills to tie a nice one. Pretty sure Unknownflyman likes to swing Mickey Finns. I know he ties them.

 

[strmanglr scott]

Classic steelhead flies like freight train and green butt skunk.

Flies I tied when I first started fly fishing. The proportions were right with the flies, not sure my fishing technique was the best.

I pulled them from my box long ago and fish different streamers now.

 

[mtboiler]

So about 20 years ago a guide in Breckenridge, Jackson Streit, told me if I only carried 10 or 12 flies and learned to fish them correctly, I would catch more fish than if I bought/tied every fly of the day or must have fly and had no idea how to fish them. I finally caught on to what he was saying about 15 years ago. So, since then, I can honestly say I have not tied a fly or bought a fly I don't use and have confidence in. Now my selection has changed a bit but of the original 12 flies I started with, I still fish 8 with slight color or tying modifications that I came up with.
Ok, so most people will read this and say, that guy is lucky because that means he does not have a bunch of **** for tying he doesn't use. Unfortunately, I still buy materials for tying I will never use!! Clearance bins for fly tying are line crack to me...."oh, look, clearance **** no one else buys so I might as well buy it!!" I am in 'rehab' for it but I don't think I will ever stop!! My biggest problem is hooks. I bought clearance hooks down to size 24 last month for $2!! Box of 50!! I haven't tied a 24 in probably 10 years. Even worse, I still have a box of the exact same hook with at least half of them still in it I wont ever use.

 

[Rip Tide]

I was waiting for someone to mention the Muddler Minnow as well
Over the years, that's the one fly that I hear people mention the most when this topic comes up
.... I happen to think that they're great and fish them all the time

 

[jpbfly]

In 2009....my god !!!10 years ago:yikes::shocking: I created this fly for my friend Ard and tied a few for him.
The Alaskan Tsarina...it's not famous but it's one of the most beautiful flies I've ever made.

 

[Ard]

In 2009....my god !!!10 years ago:yikes::shocking: I created this fly for my friend Ard and tied a few for him.
The Alaskan Tsarina...it's not famous but it's one of the most beautiful flies I've ever made.
View attachment 19795

I did catch several really big rainbows using that exact fly JP and I still have the one you sent me because I just don't lose flies