So, I confess. I tie more flies than I ever use. When preparing for a trip (or simply using that as an excuse for tying), I fill fly boxes with all manner of flies. But, when I arrive at my fishing destination, I usually only use a handful of those flies. This is particularly true if some of the hatches I prepared for do not happen for one reason or another.

For example, I recently was fortunate enough to spend 6 days in the Patagonia Region of Chile. We fished a variety of water; and, yet, we only used about 6 common patterns. The most productive pattern on nearly all the water was a "hopper/dropper" set-up with a bead head as the dropper.

If you fish the Madison (and there is no hatch going on), you will most likely fish a similar set-up.

Probably the most often used dropper on the Madison in recent years is the simple Shop-vac.

There is an excellent, short video of tying this proven producer on Youtube done by Arrick of Arrick's Fly Shop in West Yellowstone, Montana. at the link provided below. He is a really excellent, no nonsense fly tier (in my opinion).

So, tie away, but be sure to tie some of the high producing flies for your area of fishing as they might be the few flies you will actually use.......LOL






Arrick's Youtube video link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjZRTuZB_aU