This is one of my favorite flies for fishing trout and grayling on the rivers of northern Italy and Austria. I started to tie this beetle in 2000 and over the years I kept improving it, changing its materials and shap...
There was a time when Marabou Muddlers were the flies to catch big trout. I still remember some strikes at the bend of the Chimehuin River’s La Boca (river inlet) in Patagonia with some black Marabou Muddlers almost at...
I began using Cul de Canard in the eighties, just when most
other Italian anglers similarly discovered its existence, but I
must admit that although I was appreciating its features, for
the first few years I did no...
I remember a day on the river deveron when a size ten grhe nymph made short work of 11 brown trout. It was the first time I had been river fishing seriously and was an unforgettable day. For those of you who have never c...
About fifteen years ago, a friend of mine came home to order ten dozen of flies. I checked out the list of flies and realized he hadn’t ordered any Soft Hackle. I told him so and he just said, “I don’t like those, ...
About twenty years ago, I traveled with a friend to Junín de los Andes in the month of January and had some great fishing moments, but one of them really stuck in my mind. We got to the Aluminé river late and decided t...
This page is lacking a very important subtype of flies: Atlantic salmon flies (traditional and tube-flies). They can't be listed under the name of "streamers". I am no creating any type of new fly on this post....
Since Frank Sawyer gave the Pheasant Tail the shape of a nymph, the simple design with feathers from the tail of a pheasant and fine copper wire has not stopped catching trout around the world.
The variants for the eter...
In January of 2005 I was surprised when I saw a young american angler at the Manzano pool in the Chimehuín River (Patagonia). Not only by the way in which he casted and mended the line, but also because he caught five r...
One of the most important food sources for trout in Patagonia is the Sammastacus or river lobster. It is one of the three kinds of crustaceans, together with the pancoras and scuds, that inhabit these waters and which ar...
This pattern was created by Scott Sanchez. In Scott Sanchez words: “The idea for the Double Bunny came to me almost 20 years ago while on a fishing trip to Belize. John Hanlon and I were trying to catch som...
The first tube flies came around the year 1945 in Scotland. They were tied on turkey wing feather quills that were later replaced by plastic tubes, the ones used for medical surgery. The possibility of tying the mater...
The olive midge pattern is one of the most effective fly patterns for the Clinch River year end and out. Olive midges are prevalent on the tail water of the Clinch and they comprise most of the midge hatches in the wint...
Fly fishing is something much deeper than catching fish, and something similar happens with fly tying, where a passionate fly tyer can find amazing stories and knowledge that will be invaluable in the river.
The Tup's I...
Rubber legged flies have always been very popular in Patagonia. Bitch Creek and Rubber Legs patterns were used a lot during the 70´s as well as the Leoni´s Barbarous and Montana flies with antennae and rubber tails....
In 1994 it was published in the Italian Fly fishing magazine "Fly Line", a my articles where I proposed to bend upwards the stretch near eye of a hook shank right, to give the fly more balanced and stable in water.
Wrap...
Among tube flies, there is no doubt that the Sunray Shadow is one of the most popular and effective ones. My first contact with it was in the Kau tapen Lodge in Tierra del Fuego. They had begun their operation not long a...
The Zonker Variation is a particular streamer that was created by Dan Byford from Steamboat Springs in the 80s. It has resisted time with only some slight modifications in its original style and design. We have used it f...
Some years ago, I met the well-known fly tyer Jean Louis Teyssié in an event tying artificial flies.
I showed to Jean Louis some of my fly patterns and he showed me how to tie the tube bodies.
Teyssiè poured a little...
I never liked that much the Matukas made with hen feathers, maybe because these feathers wrinkle in the boxes and lose its shape a bit, something that is terrible for a perfectionist person. Still, once at Patagonia, ...
This famous fly was designed to imitate large dark stonefly nymphs of North America. It was first tied by Lew Oatman of New York. The stonefly nymph essentially lives in fast flowing freestone rivers. This style of nymph...
Tie the Mirage is very simple, just you have to be careful to use a feather with all the fibers intact otherwise you cannot get the a imitation with the body and the tails perfect. Because the CDC is a precious material,...
Bombers and their relatives, Buck Bugs, are flies from New Brunswick, born in the famous Miramichi River. These deer hair flies have then found a place in remote distant waters such as those in cold Russia, Pacific steel...
I always considered the tying Paraloop incomplete because, even if it highlight the entire body of imitation and provide it an awful lot rooster’s fibers support, cannot provide it vertical wings, key feature of the ...
I’ve always been impressed by the European tiers because of the originality of their designs and wise use of natural and traditional materials, like deer hairs of all types. Francesco Palú’s flies guided me to explo...
In the book “Magie in CDC”, my first book about CDC, I proposed a ant fly pattern that is tied with a single CDC hackle.
I created the ant following the tying process with whom I had tied an ant hairs of deer in the...
Stonefly nymph imitations are very effective in fast water rivers with big rocks on the bottom. The impressionistic ones with soft materials that move attractively underwater with the slightest currents are especially...
Sometimes I have asked myself where I find the ideas to make artificial flies and the answer is that I continue to draw inspiration from my patterns. This is because I have the belief that each pattern can be improved an...
Once I stumbled over this flypattern, I immediately fell in love. Not only is it fun to tie and looks amazing in the water, the fish really love to hit it. But I hate to loose a fly, which took some time to tie, to a stu...
All kinds of ants are spread throughout the whole world due to their adaptation skills. This is why fly-fishermen have to take into account that ants are a part of the fish´s diet. We can see this because ca...
I created this fly pattern in the nineties and made known in an article that was published in the Italian Fly Fishing Magazine “Fly Line” the month of January 1998. Then, I inserted it in my first book about CDC “M...
Frank Sawyer must have never imagined that this simple nymph, perfected in the River Avon, would become a classic that is included in every angler’s fly box. Sawyer wanted a nymph that made an attractive sound when rea...
The idea was to design a different fly for tarpon. I wanted the shape of the body and the way it pushed water to be related with the pressure waves generated by the fish tarpon prey on. I also wanted it to move naturall...
When beginning to fly fish, one wonders if a big fish might be caught using such small fly…Created by George Griffith, one of the founders of Trout Unlimited, this pattern imitates midges, midge emergers, m...
CDC feathers have unique properties due to the characteristics of their structure. Properties that make them ideal for certain type of flies of streamlined and ethereal silhouettes, more similar to real insects, especial...
A fly comprised of a mix between traditional and Gurgler Slider result of this work fly. I found nothing on the internet that was like, so I named above.Here in Brazil, this bait is effective for peacock bass,...
Some tiers choose not to use synthetic materials because they cannot obtain the same results as with the naturals. For example, the way deer-hair muddler heads push through water make it incredibly effective when fish...
For some time, I wanted to create a nymph emerging that would give the impression of making the movements and contractions typical of the nymphs that try to get rid of insect shuck.
I knew that to get what I wanted, I h...
When I started using CDC, I realized that it was naturally be followed by every fly I make, another representing its evolution and that another, following a logical process as simple as to seem natural.
This process b...
While I tie the Mirage, saw the possibility of obtaining, in a simple and fast manner, a version of it suitable both for fishing in fast water, both slow (with a little modification). This version of the Mirage is more r...
We have a very very small species of creme colored mayfly and midge up here in Alaska, this could be a Sulpher type of Mayfly as well, tied these up to imitate the emerger stage of these. I have yet been able to do furth...
Wanting to get an imitation of ephemeral like the Mirage, but even smaller, I thought of using, in alternative of a full CDC feather, a simple fibers bundle and, after several tests, I put togheter a dressing to which I...
Traditional wet flies are coming back to the fly fishing. In the shadows of nymphs and emergers for a while, this kind of flies that served well for years is today studied again by the finest anglers that find unique sol...
At the moment there is not a lot different variations of the tarpon fly, which could possibly be due to the fact that Tarpon are not plentiful in many places. Therefore anglers prefer to use proven flies then test new pa...
I tied this 'little' fellow for some days ago, when i got my minds into pike fly fishing again. The streams and lakes are still frozen all over the country so I sat down by my vise and started tying like a crazy! This is...
The perlidae are considered big nymphs (size 6-8) here in Quebec and are among the most important trout foods on some rivers. A big snack like this can sometimes be the only meal a brook trout trout will have in a period...
Originally created in New Zealand aiming to imítate a small freshwater shrimp, it has been one of the most popular flies in Argentina over the last four decades.The original pattern had 2 or 3 collars made o...
I usually tie this pattern in more subdued colors. Black over gray, and ginger over tan are my standards, but I thought it might be fun to try something a little wilder. It's a heavy pattern that's fairly str...
I learned about this fly some time ago, when I first started in the Fly Fishing guide business. My co-workers told me to look for it in the Montana Fly Co. directory. At first I thought it was just another kind of Cherno...
Since I first saw the Matukas I fell in love with its intelligent design. The first ones were tied with heron feathers, but when those were difficult to obtain, anglers started using hen, rooster and other kinds of fe...