One of the reasons I like this fly is because of its excellent visibility at distance which plays into the way I like to fish for northern pike. Generally white flies show extremely well against dark water or bottom, but when I tied the beacon on to the leader I was amazed at just how far and how deep I could see it. For me a lot of the fun of pike fishing is watching the fish follow the fly and you can adjust your retrieve accordingly.

I first started playing around with this fly in 2004 when I came up with a few variations and no real name for it. In 2005, we were an odd man group in Cuba which allowed me some one-on-one time with a guide. We ended up fishing an area at the end of the “Three Canals.” We took a smaller two-man poling boat and found a small canal that led us to some turtlegrass flats.

A couple of years ago I obtained a number of bags of blue eared pheasant from a friend. All I needed to do in return was tie him some flies. Blue eared pheasant is currently the best known substitute for blue heron used in classical spey flies. Those bags of materials had sat unused until recently…

It’s funny how sometimes in fly tying there is an obstacle, technique, material, or tool that you know you are capable of doing but haven’t taken the time to figure out. We all have those projects tucked away somewhere in our fly tying supplies. Well, one of mine was split thread dubbing. It’s a relatively easy task, but does require some practice.

I have been tinkering with this fly for the last while. I haven’t fished it yet but I’m looking forward to trying it out. Earlier this fall we received a sample of new material at the shop called Baitfish Emulator. I thought of steelhead intruders right away. When we received our assortment of colors the “Imi-truder” fly immediately started coming together for me…

The Zuddler is a hybridization of two extremely popular traditional streamers the Muddler Minnow and the Zonker. The Muddler is traditionally tied with a gold tinsel body and a grey squirrel and turkey quill wing. The Zonker is a weighted mylar body and furstrip winged streamer with a badger collar. Zuddlers combine the best attributes of both flies to create a very effective sculpin/baitfish pattern that can be tied in a variety of colors and sizes to represent the forage fish on any river…

On my spring 2009 trip to Cayo Coco, Cuba we found an incredible amount of tarpon. The fly of choice was a tarpon toad. I believe this fly is successful because of the way it fishes not because of what it imitates. The Toads are somewhat neutrally buoyant which allows the fly to linger – or hang – in an area without sinking too fast. The marabou tail has alot of movement and really looks alive…

This bonefish fly has an interesting history. It is actually a combination of ideas that were introduced to me by two different tiers; David Blair and Terry Johnson. Terry makes a palmered rabbit hair fly with splayed feathers out the back that he calls the 10X10. Named that because on one of Terry’s trips to Cayo Coco it caught 10 good bones by 10 in the morning. David suggested using the Enrico Shrimp brush instead of the palmered rabbit hair to achieve the same type of fly.

I started using this stonefly pattern a lot more last season. I am sure it has evolved from an old pattern called the “girdle bug” that actually used the elastic band-like pieces of women’s undergarments before the availability of more modern rubber-legged materials. It is a simple fly but it’s very effective in the late stages of runoff and throughout summer because of the Bow’s heavy golden stone fly hatches the last few years.

The thunder creek is an old streamer pattern that uses bucktail to create a small baitfish pattern. In this version I have just substituted DNA Frosty Fish Fibre (FFF) for the bucktail.