Tie flies and dreams of warmer days fishing

By Chester Allen | The Olympian • Published January 11, 2008

I’m digging through my tackle bag these days and getting ready for another year on the water.

I pull tattered, worn-out flies from hat brims — and see all of the empty spaces in the dozen fly boxes I lug around all yearlong.

Winter is the time to fill up those boxes with new flies for the coming year of fishing. Best to do it while it’s cold and dark out there.

It’s always a little mortifying to see how many fly boxes rattle around in my heavy, clanking vest — and how many flies I need to tie for the next year.

I always start my winter fly-tying frenzy by creating the flies I’ll need in late February and all through March on the Yakima River. Blue wing olive mayflies hatch in waves — even during snowstorms — and I need lots of flies to match this hatch.

I need flies to match the nymphs that live under the river rocks and flies that look like the bugs struggling to climb out of their nymphal skin to turn into a flying insects. I also need flies that imitate the flying insects right after hatching that later return to the water to lay eggs.

Whew!

It sounds more complicated than it is, but it’s easy to stock box after box of flies. Every fly angler fears not having the right fly when feeding fish are beating the water to a froth.

Some anglers carry little tying kits, and they’ll stop fishing and perch on the bank to tie up a few new flies. I’ve fished for 38 of my 46 years, but my hands still shake too much to tie flies when the trout are dimpling the water.

There are other hatches — other mayflies, caddisflies, stoneflies and midges — that interest the trout during the year. But the blue wing olives — in sizes 16 to 24 — lure the trout out of their winter doldrums.

A size 16 fly is about the size of your thumbnail. A size 24 fly is smaller than the world “fly” on this page. A pile of newly-tied size 24 flies looks like lint from the clothes dryer.

But the fish are picky, and you’d better have some of those dryer lint flies if tiny mayflies are bobbing around on the river.