Arizona Flies

Fly Patterns
1

Howdy All,

My brother-in-law is a fly fisherman in the Phoenix area. I want to tie him an assortment of flies for Christmas and was wondering if I could get some pattern suggestions. I know he likes to go into the mountains n the summer to fish for trout, but I think he is getting interested in the warm water fisheries also.

Any advice is greatly appreciated! :smiley:

Happy Holidays,
Adam

2

I’ve been having lots of luck lately with olive wooly buggers with gold bead heads and small ones made with gold bead chain eyes.

You might want to make up a box for Lees Ferry.
This usually consists of size 16 or smaller zebra midges in red and black with combinations of gold, silver, and copper ribbing and bead heads,; red, brown, cheese, and “worm” colored San Juan worms,; OR Cheese and pink glue gun eggs; and of course, the deer hair backed “carpet scuds”. I usually use pink and burnt orange ostrich for the body with a copper rib. make about three different sizes-small medium and big. And some fat foam hoppers to use as indicators instead of those puff balls of yarn. They always seem to go after the foam hoppers when I’m up there anyway-the trailer hooks have really just been in the way :slight_smile:
Hope that helped.
Another good generic AZ fly I have been having succes with is a soft hackle wet with a peacock body and either hen pheasant or partridge hackle. This is easy and effective for some reason.

3

for white mountain lakes - az peacock ladies, carey special, gartsides sparrow, damsel and dragon nymphs and pheasant tail nymphs.

4

Thanks for the advice!! If any others want to chime in that would be great the box isn’t full yet.

Thanks,
Adam

5

Whenever I visit my parents in Phoenix during the winter I useually take my dad out to the Salt River and fish for the stockers. Attractor dris such as Stimulators and Wulfs seem to work good.

6

Highly recommend you go to azflyfishing.com and purview the site. Especially check “Fishing Reports” Then check out “Specialty Flies” and then “Fly Patterns” The fly patterns has six flies with step by step photo pics of how to tie each fly.

A good book for the lakes of the White Mountains is…
“Flies of the Southwest” by Mike Yeager. It is written strictly about his years fishing the White Mountain lakes with about 53 color photos of flies and the material list for each fly.

7

Thanks Alan and Gemrod.

Adam