Tying Tuesday: Four Flies to Fight Cabin Fever

It’s late January, the rivers are locked up or running gray, and if you’re like most of us, you’ve been staring out the window wondering when you’ll feel a tug on the line again. Cabin fever is real, but so is the cure: a well-lit vise, a warm beverage, and a few hours of wrapping thread.

This week’s Tying Tuesday has no central thread (so to speak). We’re not building a matched hatch box or prepping for a specific trip. Instead, we’ve pulled together four videos that caught our attention—an eclectic mix spanning a meditative and articulated take on the most popular streamer in the world, a western guide staple, a tarpon fly repurposed for Great Lakes bass, and a quietly deadly caddis pattern from one of the best in the business. Call it a cabin fever sampler: something for every mood and every season to come.

So clear off the desk, queue up the videos, and tie something new.

Articulated Woolly Bugger

• Hook: Sizes #1 and #4
• Thread: Rust
• Bead: Burnt orange, 3.8mm
• Tail: Marabou (browns, tans, olives)
• Flash: Rootbeer Krystal Flash
• Hackle: Golden olive
• Rib: Wire
• Trailer Wire: For articulation connection
• Adhesives: Super glue and UV Head Cement

Pat’s Rubber Legs

• Hook: Risen 300’s size 10 (or similar streamer/nymph hook, sizes 4-12)
• Weight: Lead wire (.015)
• Thread: Veevus 6/0 (brown)
• Tails & Antennae: Bug Legs or Spanflex (brown or black)
• Body: Variegated Chenille (brown/yellow or coffee/black)
• Legs: Bug Legs or Spanflex
• Head Cement: Solarez Ultra Thin UV Resin or Sally Hansen Hard as Nails

The Megalollipop

• Hook: Ahrex Trout Predator Streamer, size 1 (sizes 2-4 for trout)
• Thread: Color to match
• Anti-Foul Loop: 30 lb fluorocarbon
• Tail: Rabbit strip (olive variegated with brown), 1.5x hook shank length
• Body: Mirror Wrap or Polar Chenille
• Wing: Arctic Fox, tied in the round (olive/tan)
• Eyes: Bead chain (small)
• Head: EP Foxy Brush, 3″ length

Tied Down Caddis

• Hook: TMC 100SPBL, sizes 14-20
• Thread: Semperfli Nanosilk 30 denier (brown)
• Wing: Varner X-Fine Deer Hair (natural)
• Body: Magpie Materials Dubbing (beige)
• Hackle: Brown or ginger, palmered and trimmed flat on bottom