Like most fly tiers, I spend a lot of time at the vise fiddling with color options of proven fly patterns. As both a design student and angler, I appreciate the value of contrasting colors in fly patterns because contrast can bring both a painting and fly to life. In steelhead circles, purple has long been…
I ran across the display above while talking about smallmouth fishing with my old friend Bob Nicholson. Bob and I have spent many years fishing for trout on the Muskegon River in Michigan. In the summer when trout fishing slows down, the Muskegon becomes a really great smallmouth fishery. Enquiring about the chart, of course,…
I truly believe that Americans are driven to innovate. Collectively we feel that whatever “it” is, “it” can be improved. Fly tying is no exception. Vince Marinaro in his book “A Modern Dry Fly Code” gave us new and innovative terrestrial fly patterns. Other fly tyers since then have come up with saltwater patterns that…
There are two things that can be said about the original Dahlberg Diver; bass seem to love it and it takes a fair amount of time to tie one properly. Let’s face it, packing deer hair can be a painful process and it makes an absolute mess of the fly tying bench. After recently acquiring…