Winter flies

I am new to winter steelhead fly fishing.

I've done my homework on fishing techniques but I don't know much about flies.

What would be a good set of 10 or so flys to get started?

SF

here's a list to get you started. i am assuming you're swinging flies, not nymphing.

Egg Sucking Leech
Sauk River Grub
Black General Practitioner (GP)
Orange GP
Marabou Spey (many colors)

If you like tying tie large GP's in orange black and purple
If you hate tying like I do tie bunny leeches in black orange purple and pink
tie on heavy hooks I like 1/0's in most conditions larger is good too
fish flies you aren't attatched to emotionally or that took you half an hour to tie..
your flies will be constantly in the rocks fish flies that you don't mind losing a dozen of in a day. what i am saying is that cheap and simple is a goos way to go..

Exactly. My winter fly box contains woolley buggers and bunny leeches in black, pink, purple, and red.

All good choices above; I'd just toss in a couple more suggestions. Wted single egg patterns and large 'black' buggy things like the Kaufmann's stones or an upper Rogue pattern (you tie them in a wad of different colours) called the "Otis Bug."

The last one (Otis Bug) is an extreamly easy tie, you can wt the heck out of it and given you can do them up in any colour/hook size it's an all-rounder.

OK, Fred-- What the heck is an Otis Bug? I've looked at FAOL, FFM, and the Spey site, but it's not listed in any of the search engines. Is this like a Boy Scout's snipe?

Can you post link to the pattern? Or a photo? Or just a description? Not knowing is bugging me...

Thanks,

Keith

I have caught most of my fish on a pink and white cone red conehead bunny leech. I try other colors but this one seems to work best for me. I tie them in fuchia, or light pink. Good Luck.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I enjoy tying flies but right now I need to build up a box rather quickly. So, I think I'll tie up your suggestions for this season and then get more involve next year.

It sounds like the basic colors are pink, black, orange and purple.

Does that cover it?

SF

KJ: they're so simple you'll die.
Shoot me your address/e mail to Fredaevans@aol.com and I'll send you a few samples.
fae

Fred,

Can I get a couple??? -Of flies?

Everyone,

Good information we all can appreciate.

Darin

Hey Fred Just send us all a picture. You seem to have wetted our Appitite for that fly.

Computer scanner 'literate' I ain't. I'll tie some up this weekend (Keith, you did get yours in the mail, correct?) and see if I can get Joan to 'scan' them and figure out how to post them to the board.

Truly the simplest of ties and very, very effective. Probably the single most 'go to' fly on the upper Rogue summer or winter.

Another fly that I've been having great success with of late (steelhead and fall kings) is the UK pattern called the "Willie Gunn."

Have these done up as tube flys (the most common way of doing them) on Waddington Shanks and one of your SW Washington fellows showed me his done up on a single hook using Marabu rather than hair for the three stacked colours.

Done on tubes and Waddingtons the fly is as close to 'self hooking' as you can get (hook is "attached" the same way on both with a bit of tubing). Typically the hook will be a short shank, ring eyed #4. The other 'hook choice' I really like for these (tubes or waddingtons) is the short shanked Loop doubles. Fish even 'sniffs' the hook and you've got him.
fae

Geez, Fred. How many times do I have to thank you? I did get them, thanked you profusely (or at least said thanks) and asked you some follow-up questions which you didn't answer, so I'm guessing my outpouring of gratitude went astray. It figures; try to be polite to a nice person, and the effort goes off into electronic la-la land.

I also e-mailed you today at your new address with a follow-up question.

Now, here's what I'll do. I'll take a digital photo of the Bug and try to post it here. My success on posting photos is right up there with my success at the lottery, so the chances are that it won't work. If it doesn't, send me an e-mail with your return address, and I'll post a picture to you directly. I can e-mail pix, I just haven't been able to post at the WFF site.

Old Man, you'll like these flies. They are easy to tie, inexpensive, and lend themselves well to experimentation.

Wish me luck,

Keith

It looks as I'm as upload-challenged as ever. I've got the picture done and will e-mail it if you send me your address.

Keith

http://www.rogueflyfishers.org/GoodFlies.htm

If I've done this right this will give you an idea of what an "Otis Bug" looks like. Simpe as all heck and darned effective.

Good guess only here, but these look like they're done up in "new Age Chenille, size 2, Midnight Rainbow #89."

Pick your colour combo, but the New Age products have/are the products of choice down here in the upper Rogue area.

As noted above, darned simple to tie, and darned effective in results.
fae

MUCHO APPOGIZES TO THE KEITHMIESTER!

Doing what I do for a living, brain dead after 7pm ... and a couple of large Single Malts ....



Keith, didn't get the e mail, but 'new' fiber network had it's ... how shall we say? ... problems the past several days.

E mail address is:

fredaevans@ashlandoregon.org

fae

what in the hell is a otis bug? winter steelhead by the way are a ***** to catch but not impossilbe on the fly. don,t get discoureged. thay are more aggresive in late summer when the water is warmer. dont give up. what in the hell is a otis bug!

IB, look up this thread a couple of posts and you'll see a web connect with pictures of a couple of 'Otis Bugs.'

Actually, you can be quite sucessfull winter fly fishing, but the fish are not as actively feeding as summer runs. That's not as much an issue as water temperature. Below 45'ish degrees the fish start to get fairly 'dour' so running your fly as deep AND slowly as possible is 'the key.'

As the upper Rogue flow right now is quite low I'm using XLT lines, 15-18 foot leaders and dry lining the runs. If the water is faster/deeper I'll put on a RIO or Airflo extra fast sinking leader.
These are also run off the end of a dry line.

The 'set up' for these is to run a 3-4 foot shot of 20-25 # Maxima main line as a 'butt section' off the end of the dry line. Loop and connect the sinking leader and run a 2-3 foot section of 8-10# maxima main line as 'tippet' material.

Sounds like it would be a twit to cast but with a 8 or 9wt Spey rod it launchs like a rocket. The dry line allows you to stack mend and hold/control the sinking portion of the 'leader' extreamly well. Far easier than with a sinking tip.
fae

fred, you be the man. you are that best flyfisher that god made. everything you posted is 100%. glad to know oi have competion. anyway i thinkthis young buck deserves more rerspect than that. and he can call me at 3606521749 ask for pat. you were a puke too fred, did you forget!!!!!!!!!!

Fred,stupid question time.What size hook are you tying these up on. I see that you mentioned size 2 is that refering to the hook size or the size of the chenille. And since I don't know much about legs, could you fill me in on that also. Weighted or not.

Old Man-- I'm not Fred, but he might not come back to this thread because of the above post--don't know what got into THAT guy's head, but...

I'll try to answer your questions based on the little bit Fred and I have discussed about the Otis Bug through e-mail. I'm certainly not an authority on this fly, but I didn't want you to feel forgotten.

The flies Fred sent me are tied on long-shank #2 and #4 hooks, not salmon hooks, but I doubt that it makes a big difference. Chenille sizes vary with the size of hook and the intent of the tyer. If you want something to work in low, clear, water-- then smaller and dark would probably be best.

Weight is optional according to the water you fish, but the Otis Bug is designed, I think, to be fished low and slow, crawled across the bottom-- probably like a stonefly nymph. So body weight is probably a good idea. So is a beadhead, if you look at the Bugs in the attachment Fred linked to an earlier post.

The rubber legs and tails are made from living rubber, and I'm thinking that the round rubber now sold in the catalogs is what is in the picture from the Rogue Fly Fishers.

I'm guessing that the bug is an outgrowth on an old trout pattern, the Girdle Bug. This fly was tied about the same way that the Otis Bug is with legs and tails of rubber. But when I was going to college in Montana in the early '70s, the rubber was stripped from elastic waistbands on underwear, hence the "Girdle." The fly was intended to imitate a stonefly nymph, although imitate is a pretty strong word. The chenille on that pattern was a black-and-yellow variegated.

Well I'm going to have to go out and pick up more junk. I have chenille coming out of my ears so just a little bit more won't hurt. I will try and tie them up on just something smaller as if I was to do it like you said I would have to buy hooks also. And as for legs,would rubber bands work. I always look for cheaper ways to do things.

Hey, Old Man-- You probably don't need to buy anything since I believe you also tie for steelhead, right? My gut feeling is that you'd be okay with those hooks, and if they're too big, you might just tie them with smaller bodies.

I don't think rubber bands would work as well as living rubber because the material is too thick and wouldn't move as well. You could always strip the elastic out of an old pair of shorts, ala the Girdle Bug. I think they still use the fine, white stuff. Haven't done it in a while, so I couldn't say. And then if you have some colored felt tips, you could have just about any color you'd want.

But here again, I'm not the expert.

Good luck,

Keith

Keith, as 'they' say on the radio, ...

"You're 5 by 5."
fae

The way that you are talking about this fly is that it sounds a little like the b**** creek nymph. I hope that they don't block out the first part of the fly name as if they did I don't think that anybody would know what I'm talking about. They have white legs.

To Keith first: I appreciate your comments above; no clue as to where the 'above post' was coming from, go going to ... And I'd rather not.

"OM" I think you may be very close to the origination of this Rogue pattern. I've seen the parallel drawn before, suspect the ***** Creek Nymph may have been the orig. starting point for the Otis Bug.

Vis a vis the white legs idea this patten done in straight blach Chen. with white rubber legs has been quite successful with Fall run Kings on the Rogue. At least for me anyway.

Interesting to be fishing for '3# summer runs, and hook 30# kings on a 7wt spey rod. Most of the action was had the spey rod flat to the water and Mr. King To You in close to total command of the situation.

"A good thing" and a lot of fun to see how it would turn out in the end. A beach release, or a "long range release." Some of both.
fae

Well Fred,went out and got some of the Chenille and relized that I already have that new age stuff but in pink and purple,and now in brown and black and gold fleck. Tied one up from just looking at picture. Boy talk about a bad memory. Just came in to print them up so I have something to look at. I'm gonna tie them up on a size 6 2x long, round bend,straight-eye,curved shank,bronze. Bead head nymph hook. And with my tying wish me luck. <img border="0" alt="[wall]" title="" src="graemlins/wall.gif" />

Jim, I think you'll find your colour choices are just fine (don't forget straight black, with black rubber legs, BH, etc. is one of the most effective combinations). One suggestion for your consideration. Hook size is excellent but for winter/fast water/dry line work "we" usually run a layer or two of .015 or .02 lead as an under body. Forgot to add: If you look at the photo above you'll note one of the flys uses red thread, the other black. The red thread is a typical way of indicating a wted body. Straight black, no lead wire.

If you're swinging a tip probably not necessary to also wt. the hook.
fae

I did a .020 wrap most of the way on the shank and after I tied the first one from memory and the other two from the picture. The second two I tied look just like the picture. Now if the weather would just give us a break,I would like to try them out. Rain,rain,rain. And now the rivers are going back up again. What's a person to do?

Anybody have a recipe for the Sauk River Grub or what book it's in?

Matt

Sauk River Grub:
http://www.angelfire.com/wa/salmonid/fly495.html

Very cool web site; not seen that before. Off to 'fav. places' to see what other goodies they have to offer.

Thanks! for the info.
fae