Different fly for every occasion

The fly patterns in the box seemed to come alive once I talked to the fly fisher who had tied them.

From a wealth of prizes in the Inland Empire Fly Fishing Club’s fundraising raffle Tuesday night, I struck a bit of angler’s gold when my ticket was drawn for an ultra-light W.W. Grigg box filled with seven dozen flies in 12 different patterns.

The flies were tied by club member George Potter based on his generous experience in what does and does not catch trout.

Each fly involves countless hours of observing streams, casting, catching and not catching, playing out hunches, borrowing ideas and then sitting down at a bench to modify, improvise and create.

Potter, 78, has been fishing since he was 6, but he didn’t start tying flies until he found the time after he retired in 1992.

I shook his hand and asked him about the patterns. He talked about them as though they were his grandchildren.

The left side of the box is devoted to stillwater patterns, starting with a small, skinny fly representing the aquatic stage of the midge.

“The Black Chironomid represents the pupae as it forms and rises up the water column,” he said. “This one works very well in almost all of our lakes.”

He used an even skinnier red wire hook to tie a small blood worm imitation that “worked like a charm” on West Medical Lake in late May.

“It’s easy to tie,” he said. “Slip on the bead head – I use tungsten because it’s heavier than standard beads and gets down faster. I lay a bed of very fine thread on the hook and wrap on red Flashabou and then add a little collar of peacock hurl, three turns just behind the bead, and cement it off.

“Real simple. Very effective.”

Next are two rows of big Bionic Worms, developed by club member Jerry McBride, and copied somewhat indignantly by Potter.

“This pattern’s extremely effective at Fourth of July Lake right now,” Potter said, wincing slightly at the huge worm imitations with orange bead heads, red ribbed bodies and puffs of fuchsia Marabou for a tail.

“I’ve never liked the damned thing, but it catches fish so I have to resort to it on occasion,” Potter said. “If your partner’s catching more fish, what are you going to do?”

The olive-green Six Packs might be the only flies I’ll need the next time I go to Lake Lenore.

“They’re especially good at area lakes early in the season when the damselflies start moving, but they always seem to be good at Lenore,” he said.

Rounding out the stillwater flies is a row of water boatmen, in a pattern developed by club member Al Cunningham: black tungsten bead, a shell of synthetic back material, rubber legs and two or three sprigs of Krystal Flash out the back.

“It’s very durable and works as an attractor for weeks after the natural boatmen disappear,” Potter said.

Flies for rivers dominate the right side of the box. Potter used many of the patterns to great advantage on the St. Joe and Coeur d’Alene rivers this year, particularly in September and October.

The little Black Ant, size 24-26, so small you need a magnifying glass to thread the tippet through the hook eye, has duped and landed remarkably large trout, he said.

“Once in a while on the (St.) Joe, you’ll be in a long run and see the occasional fish sipping but not really coming out. I saw this a couple years ago and wondered what on earth they were going for. In the stiller water, I saw a few of these tiny natural ants with this little clear wing that lies flat on the water when they’re floating by.

“When you see them on the water, you’d better tie one on. Cast up to the incoming current, and if the fish don’t take, let it go down and swing. The current will take it under, and you’ll feel them trying to take it.

“I’ve caught in excess of 20 fish in a stretch when the trout are keyed into it.”

Potter fishes the tiny foam-bodied flies on a 12-foot leader tapered down to 6X and adds a 2-pound fluorocarbon tippet.

“You gotta be careful, but you’d be surprised at what you can land.”

The Blue Winged Olives, size 16-24, “are an absolute must on the St. Joe,” he said, moving down another row. “Like so many things on the Joe, if there’s no hatch they won’t pay any attention to that little fly, but if you see a few in the air you better put one on.”

Parachute Adams are flies that will often produce cutthroats and rainbows when the trout won’t take anything else, he said, noting that he added some black parachute flies with a little brown shuck on the tails simply because “I’ve had times on the Joe when they work particularly well.”

Ditto for the workhorse Elk Hair Caddis, which he ties with black Angora goat dubbing that gives the body a scraggly look that’s particularly effective.

My fly box prize is topped off with a couple rows of flies that are working right now on Rocky Ford Creek, including scuds and mini versions of the black and red chironomids, which Potter fishes 18-24 inches under a strike indicator.

“Believe it,” he said, noting that he landed a rainbow running nearly 30 inches long on a size 24 red chrionomid small enough to dupe a minnow.

Potter has provided me a box chock full of anticipation. While professionals tie excellent patterns and even create flies with a meticulousness that rivals the Creator’s, nothing tops a fly born from a passion for the sport.

They are handsome and personal works of art made to be deployed and destroyed by trout.