What would you say was the best fly you have ever tied, your own pattern and proved a succcss every season? Details and pics would be good with instruction on fishing.
For several years in the mid 1950’s, I thought that I had invented a soft hackle fly for brim. I tied my fly on a cheap Mustad hook in size 8, 10, or 12. It had a short, dyed-yellow grizzly tail, a yellow chenille body, and a generous collar of webby, yellow grizzly hackle canted back toward the tail. It was and still is one of my favorite flies for brim. I was horrified to find that George Herter credited his son Jacques with the invention of the same fly in a red and white color scheme :shock: :x :shock: . How could I fight the owner of my favorite store? 8T
Sorry, no camera no pictures
I wish I could say it was my 10cent popper. I tweeked and tuned it for 6-7 years before I knew I was done.
Hook…1/0 mustad 3407
Body…foam plug cut from lobster bouy foam with a 5/8" copper tube, then trimed and melted to shape
Tail… bucktail and flash, whipped into a bunch and then glued in a hole melted in the rear of the body
Cheap and simple, but most often it doesn’t work nearly as well as a gurgler
My squid fly works better than it should, as it is much less involved that most other squid flys.
Think a big deceiver only with a long, full, multi color collar and church window feathers tied in for eyes at the hook bend.
It works extremely well.
No one is more suprised than me :shock:
This would be my most successful pattern. I’ve been fishing it at least 10 years. It catches me trout and sunfish, and has worked here in PA, and in NY, VT and Ontario. I catch about 60% of my trout on this.
i seem to catch alot of bluegill on just a standard mosquito dry fly pattern.
Philly, your link isn’t working (at least for me) 
so we can’t see your fly. I’m curious about you fly. Is a name and description possible? 8T 
On most Northern Maine mud bottom ponds we have a hatch the locals call The Giant Green Drake. I had tried over the years to come up with an effective, easy to tie pattern for this amazing hatch. I tried extended bodies, giant classic style dries, and the biggest ugliest comparadun you have ever seen. About 10 years ago I was having pretty good results fishing a size 10 Royal Wulff during this hatch. My buddy and I were having a pretty fine week of fishing. We hit the hatch perfect. We thought we had the answer. On the last night of our vacation we shared the pond with an older gent who proceded to show us what fishing a Drake hatch could be. He caught (and released) 3 times as many fish as the 2 of us combined. He was catching Brookies on nearly every cast. Funny how you can go from happy and satisfied to feeling like a newbie in a couple of hours.
As soon as the fishing started to slow we hauled @$$ to shore to intercept the old gent. We asked him what he was using and all we could get was “modified Hornberger”.
So this fly started life as a Horberger and went downhill from there. This is the only pattern I now carry for the GGD hatch. I have had amazing results. I believe the Brookies mistake it for a drake emerger. As far as fishing methods go I fish it pretty much like a bass lure. Gink it up. Cast just beyong the rise and let it sit a couple of seconds. If no strike just twitch forward a couple of inches and let it sit again. That usually does the trick!
hook - Mustad 94831 #10 (or any 2xl 1 or 2 xfine)
body - dark olive dubbing fairly heavy
underwing - 8 or 10 yellow bucktail fibres
wing - clump of woodduck streamer style
hackle - brown dry fly grade (or dun or furnace or…)
Caddis16,
Thank you for listing your hook the way you did…[it’s relative to another thread going on hooks].
Caddis16,
It also looks a little like a St. Vrain caddis. Are there caddis on these ponds as well?
Joe
Thank you for listing your hook the way you did…[it’s relative to another thread going on hooks].
I understand. It drives me nuts when someone lists some obscure hook and I have no idea what they mean. Looking at the hook in the fly I posted I doubt that it is even a mustad :oops:. Barb looks too small. Maybe an Orvis 1638?
It also looks a little like a St. Vrain caddis. Are there caddis on these ponds as well
Yes there are. But this fly is used on a definite mayfly hatch. For caddis I use this style of fly
Crappy step by step here http://www.maineflyfish.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5620
Here’s mine.
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytyin … 4fotw.html
unless you prefer
http://www.sexyloops.com/articles/troutflydesign1.shtml
Tight lines,
Roy
Hi,
Here’s a picture of my most successful pattern:
HammLim Minnow
Tail : yellow fibres
Body : silver tinsel
Rib : silver wire
Throat: red fibres
Wing : Pine Squirrel Tail
Cheeks: pheasant wing feathers (or woodcock)
I tied this with a particular location in mind (the mouth of the Waiteti Stream), where I had watched people catch fish all around me and I would have no luck.
On my first day to try it (and also realising that a sinking line was required), I got my personal best, a 7.25 lbs brown!
I’ve also had luck with rainbows in gin clear waters (2.5 lbs rainbow shown below)
This was the only decent sized fish landed that day by any of the people I was fishing with. The others, though, were using spinners! I was quite pleased for the “one old guy with the fly” to out fish the “four young bucks with the metal”. 
I caught a really nice brown in Queenstown (south island) one afternoon. The lake is so clear, I would watch the streamer comming in. And, I watched this nice sized brown following and slowly gaining ground. Just when I thought I was going to run out of room to continue the retrieve, he snapped up the fly and all was on for young and old! About 30 minutes earlier almost the same thing occurred except I struck a bit early and the fish just turned and swam off.
It’s a fairly typical squirrel tail streamer pattern. I tie it on size 10 2x length hooks (Mustand R74’s I think).
- Jeff
Eight Thumbs
The fly’s called the Wissahickon Midge. It’s an all CDC fly. I use it as a dry/emerger, and subsuface also. I appear to have left a piece of the URL off in my first reply. This should get you to it.
There is a ight fe crackers here. Nice one folks.
this is the one I catch most my fish on. when I don’t use this I use a halloween leech
this can be tied on any size hook you want I use a #10 mustad 9672
rib fine gold wire
body chenille your choice of color
thorxe chenille your choice of color in larger size
hackle brown or furnace
Philly,
Thanks, that one worked. Great looking fly. 8T
Caddis16, I didn’t see anything wrong with that step-by-step. Nice fly, nice post.
Thanks,
Ed
This is my very best fly
CC
You were lucky to get the picture before it flew away 8)
redacted,