You can find this one in the FOTW archives, but the August 10, 2009 FOTW FEB Hopper is a better presentation on how to tie it.
The salmonfly is usually tied with orange thread, orange and dark brown antron for the FEB, medium brown foam for the forward body, orange speckled Montana Fly Company centipede legs, and deer or elk hair for the wing.
A couple days ago, I went for a change of pace with the colors and tied it on a size 8 3x long hopper hook, with bright red tying thread, bright red and olive brown antron for the FEB, red foam for the forward body, yellow with red speckle MFC centipede legs, and light blond elk rump hair for the wing.
Fished it on my home water yesterday, and several fishies thought the color combination was just fine.
Speaking of color … as in 18" plus Westslope cutthroat …
The whole series of flies ( skwala, salmonfly, golden stone, hopper, and October caddis ) tied on the FEB platform have served me well going on nine years. I fish these flies practically year round, somewhere around eighty days a year, and they have caught fish every month of the year, winter weather conditions permitting, in Northern Idaho.
John
P. S. Yesterday I had a very unusual experience. Saw a wolverine at very close range. First one ever for me, hopefully not the last.
… by a bright red salmonfly look-alike. How upsetting would that be to any self respecting cutthroat ??
Anyway, the fly was unusual since I mostly stick to natural colors, and the fish is unusual only for the depth of its color and the particularly heavy spotting.
But the real story last Wednesday was the wolverine. It has been my hope for years that I would someday see one in the wild, and in a matter of seconds it finally happened.
John
P.S. Doug - I’m not sure what makes a great fly, but I do know that oftentimes I cut the hook off the FEB platform flies and just go “hunting.” It gets to be a such bother to spend so much time landing and releasing fishies instead of moving and fishing.:sad:
… to a yellow version today - bright yellow antron extended body, bright yellow foam forward body, with red barred yellow leggy stuff, one tied with the elk rump hair and one tied with deer hair for the wing.
Second cast this afternoon brought up a really big cutt, which proceeded to take the fly and then quickly break off and take half of my supply of yellow flies for a ride.
The second fly, the one with a deer hair wing, got lots of action the next couple hours in several different spots. It accounted for close to two dozen fishies before it was broken off when the tippet got wrapped around a small log that protruded out over the bank.
So much for the importance of color - at least for the cutts in the river I’ve been fishing.
After losing the second yellow fly, I went with a regular salmonfly colored version for an hour or so and it also did quite well.
The FEB style is new to me, and I like it a lot. I’m not sure how I missed it, as I’ve been reading this forum and FOTW for many years. Since I have a box of Antron in many colors thanks to Jim Ternent’s generous gift many years ago.
For some reason, I had a hard time finding the FOTW August 10, 2009 FEB Hopper page using the FOTW index. Here is a direct link:
If you are going to be in Montana during the stonefly ( salmon or golden ) hatches or the hopper season, the FEB patterns might be an interesting experiment on the cricks you fish ??
If your offer from a few years ago to ride along still stands, I might be able to bring along a supply of flies for you and your friend to work out.
Bruce -
Thanks for the link to the FEB Hopper. Also, I got your PM regarding the “remember me” thing. Glad to hear that it works for you.
One of my priorities in fly tying, especially since I don’t much like fly tying and I’m not very good at it, is DURABILITY.
The FEB is a really solid platform for durable flies. Last Wednesday, I tied on my standard salmonfly with the elk rump hair wing. Three hours and a couple dozen fish later, I put it back in the fly box for my next outing. On Sunday, after another three hours and about twenty more fish, I lost it while in the process of retying the tippet to continue fishing with it. Yeah, it was kind of beat up, but the fishies were still going after it regularly and with gusto. :shock:
I would love to see your FEB Hopper in action in our part of the state.
We expect to arrive in MT the last week of this month, and be there until the end of September/early October.
The Salmonflies have been arriving where we are in Paradise Valley the end of June, but fishing for them then can be iffy, since the water is ordinarily too high and muddy still from runoff. Last year was great though, and this year might be as well, with the lower than normal snowpack. As soon as the water clears here though, then fish begin looking up most of the rest of the summer. There haven’t been many hoppers around the past 2 years, unfortunately, so hopper fishing has largely been a bust.
Regardless of the time of the year, I know a couple other places not far from here that would be reasonably good places to test out your FEB Hopper on Browns to 18"-20", and perhaps a Cutthroat or two to 20"+.
I would always look forward to seeing and fishing with you.
Let’s think in terms of an early run off, which seems likely, and fishing some salmonfly stuff in June. Let me know what kind of streamflows are suitable, and I’ll be able to get a feel for when it can happen.
… doesn’t rock, when it comes to gaudy lime green JC’s Salmonflies. Conditions were certainly not great, but that is only a small part of the story.
I did catch some fish on the ones I tied and fished today, but there were more obvious refusals than I can recall ever getting on this basic pattern. I mean, most of the fish just took one look at all that bright green stuff and went back to what they were doing. There were a handful of those nearsighted, colorblind, dumb and starving fishies that I like to fish for that provided some action but it was pretty clear early on that the lime thing would be a one time thing.
After relegating the last limestone to the box for salvageable hooks, I tied on a fresh traditional color salmonfly.
Between improving conditions in the late afternoon and the traditional fly, things quickly turned from near bust to near epic. The last hour and a half was virtually nonstop catching. Somewhere around 25-30 fish hooked up before one finally got the best of the tippet in some really heavy water. And the quality was there again, with several 18" plus cutts, a bunch of 17" fish, and very few under 14".
John
P.S. Thinking I’m through with the rather radical color changes and will stick with the traditional color scheme - except I’m going to start playing tag more often than usual. That’s a good thing.
To some extent, perhaps. The bright green did seem to be a real turn off, based on the obvious refusals even though it did account for a number of fish. Not so with the bright yellow and bright red versions - there were very few, if any, obvious refusals with those colors and they both accounted for as many fish as I would have expected with the traditional colors.
In any event, color still remains at the bottom of my priority list in fly tying - behind size, silhouette, and action. And no doubt one of these days when the fishing has been consistently good and the conditions have been consistently favorable, I will give the green another go.
John,
The commonly accepted order of priority has been: size, shape (which provides silhouette), and lastly color. I’m pretty sure, to picky fish, during a hatch, color becomes quite important.
Just my belief.
It is my experience that “action” is more important, generally, than color. Action can include the movement of the hackle on a soft hackle wet fly, the flexible material representing antennae, tails, or legs on both dry flies, nymphs, and terrestrials, and the furled ( or other flexible ) extended bodies on virtually any fly.
Sandy Pittendrigh, who was one of the most experienced, talented, and creative anglers and fly tiers on this Forum until he was inexplicably banned by a former administrator, also emphasized “texture.” I wouldn’t put texture ahead of color, generally, but for some flies or approaches to fishing it probably is more important than color.
Sandy used to talk about soft foam salmonfly nymphs that the fishies in his neck of the woods would hold onto and swim around with, if not pulled away from them or until the hook was set, for some time / distance. I’ve had similar experience while “playing tag” with my hookless FEB dries - instead of fish “spitting” the fly when they feel a hook, some will actually hold onto the fly and take it to the bottom until it is forcibly pulled away from them.
This past Wednesday morning, I tied a fresh batch of three JC’s Salmonflies, and then headed out to my home water. The weather and conditions were excellent and while the fishies weren’t as big as they have been recently, there were lots of them, and they seemed to much enjoy playing with the salmonfly dry.
Over the course of four hours or so, a single fly was actually on the water for about three hours. ( The other hour was mostly spent moving from place to place. )
That single fly accounted for around 40 to 45 hits, most of which ate the fly, and most of those that ate were landed, although some didn’t quite make it to hand. Some of those that took a long distance release do illustrate one of the drawbacks of flies tied on the FEB platform - they bite on the FEB, don’t get the hook, and end up letting go of the FEB at some point. That is fine with me, since landing fish is not a priority, but it might be an aggravation for those who insist it ain’t caught until the fish is in hand.
Yesterday, under much less favorable conditions, very few fish were willing to play at all. But starting with the same fly that did well on Wednesday, I still managed another half dozen before the fly was broken off while landing a medium size cutt.
Bottom line - the one fly lasted about four hours on the water and accounted for close to 50 fish, and it was still fishable.
John
P.S. I had forgotten about this anecdote from a couple years ago until reminded yesterday by an acquaintance. I had gifted this fellow a couple JC’s Salmonflies and within a week or so he caught two B-run Clearwater steelhead on them. Those B-run steelhead are wild, native, make a 1500 mile roundtrip to the Pacific before coming home to spawn, and typically run 32-36".
