Been a little remiss in posting these flies that brought many fish to hand at the 2008 Idaho Fish-In. We were a bit early, I believe, for the heavy October Caddis hatch that we were shooting for, due to weather and water conditions. The trouts were ready for October Caddis, there just weren’t many about.
As usual, I turned to my go-to wet fly, a black Baillie’s Spider. This picture shows a Black, Red and Dun version. Pretty hard to tell them apart. These flies are deadly fished on a dead drift just in or slightly under the surface film. I prefer these flies tied on a Daiichi 1640 2XShort dry fly hook, size 14.
The Black Spider uses Brown Pearsall’s Silk heavily waxed or black thread and Starling Hackle. The Red version uses Pearsall’s Primrose Yellow Silk, heavily waxed and a red hen feather for hackle. The Dun version uses heavily waxed Pearsall’s Primrose Yellow Silk and a honey dun hen hackle. For both the red and dun versions a light olive thread can be used instead of the silk.
We, VEE and I, also found these flies very useefull for bringing trout to hand.
Tied on a size 8 TMC 200, this fly uses Burnt Orange Squirrel and SLF dubbing for the abdomen and Black Squirrel and SLF dubbing for the thorax. A black hen hackle is semi palmered through the thorax.
Fished on a dead drift or wet fly swing this fly seldomed failed to draw a fish.
A second version of that fly also worked well fished the same way. The dressing is the same, but a rib through the abdomen of pearl mylar tinsel is added.
SLF is Synthetic Living Fiber, kind of a trilobal man made material that gives regular dubbing a bit of flash and shine when added to it. That dubbing already had the SLF added by the maker.
Fish-In dates for '09 are 20 - 26 September, Lowell, Idaho, at the meeting of the Lochsa and the Selway Rivers to form the Clearwater.
I know, John, my turn to bring the October Caddis dries (with the longer hook shank).
Nice spiders, and I really like the squirrel orange and black. I just know that would be a killer in New Zealand for sure. Will see what I can put together here in NS and try them when the times comes.
September is right around the corner. Never too early. If you would like to bring the dries, I will bring a mess o’wet flies that have worked well and will work well. Let me know.
Those are great looking flies. Good job! Maybe Gretchen and I can make the trip (ID Fish In) this year. We’ll see if family responsibilities will give us a short break so we can do so. Take care & …
I know it can be difficult at times to post secret weapons.
It’s really cool you made public some of the go-to flies for the Idaho Fish In.
Great patterns.