Boys Tying Flies..

We had a great weekend up at Camp Tahosa with the Fly Fishing Merit Badge program, Hooked on Tahosa. The boys soaked up everything we threw at them, including the tying.

My job is to teach the boys to tie at least two flies of two different types. Since the lake has been in recovery all summer, none of the normal stuff has worked and the fishing has pretty much sucked on flies. The only thing that has been working has been Kastmaster spinners. I tied up a couple of yellow-orange Woolly Buggers with a crystal chenille body to simulate the Kastmaster but that didn't work, either. I always want to have the boys tie something they have a chance of catching a fish on. I had no clue what we were going to tie when I got there.

Our Bug Guy, Fred, and I went down to the lake during a hatch of some sort that was coming off late Friday afternoon and he told me those were midges. He scooped up a handfull of lake bottom and pointed out the little red larvae. We went back to the cabin and looked through fly boxes and tried a couple of red emergers and had a winner.

The boys wound up tying a foam ant pattern and simple little red emergers on size 16 hooks. These little emergers are dead simple.

Mount your hook in the vise. Lay a base of red thread back to the bend of the hook, then forward again, stopping about the width of the eye behind the eye. Wind on a little lump, whip, cement. and done.

Lots of hits and one fish! The boys would have stayed up all night tying these things if we would have let them. This may not sound like much of a haul, but the fishing has been so bad after the work on the dam that we did not expect the boys to get so much as a bite, let alone anyone catch anything.

I will try to get some pics of the flies but I drowned my camera a while back and have not replaced it as yet.

Kevin, it sounds like you guys had a great time! I look forward to the pics if you can get 'em. Sounds like a basic thread midge of sorts.

Locally those are called Redrock worms here in Wyoming. Extremely popular for fishing the Grey Reef section of the N. Platte in the winter. And like you said, simple to tie!