Flies

The Mini Jig Crayfish is part of an ongoing crayfish fly series from McFly Angler on YouTube. Designed as a semi-realistic pattern, it was built to give freshwater anglers a versatile imitation capable of fooling a wide range of species — bass, trout, carp, sunfish, and even catfish. Small enough to fit in a panfish's mouth yet convincing enough to pull a...

This week's Tying Tuesday spans the full range of what the season demands — from delicate emerger work to hard-charging streamer fishing. Paul Procter's Active Mayfly Emerger is designed for the moments when trout lock onto insects transitioning through the film, and getting the profile right is everything. The Madam X brings a different kind of...

Tying the Clouser Swimming Nymph, from "Clouser Swimming Nymph - Carp Variation" by Mad River Outfitters (below) The Clouser Swimming Nymph—originally tied by Bob Clouser for Susquehanna River smallmouth bass—ranks among the most effective spring carp flies available, with carp fly innovator Henry Cowen calling it his “absolute best go-to carp...

Classic Egg Sucking Leech The egg-sucking leech is one of the most effective steelhead flies for April because it combines an egg-like hot spot with a leech profile — two triggers that are simultaneously active during the spring spawning window. Tied on #4–#6 streamer hooks with a fluorescent chenille or bead head in the 6–10 mm range, the ESL...

The Lady Caroline Spring steelhead swing flies shift away from winter's oversized leeches and egg patterns as rising water temperatures expand what fish will respond to on the swing. The key driver isn't the calendar — it's the thermometer and its direction. When water climbs steadily through the low-to-mid 40s°F, steelhead move more aggressively, hold...

Beadhead Pat's Rubber Legs Three spring nymph flies — a tungsten-beaded Pheasant Tail in sizes 14–16, a green caddis larva or pupa in sizes 14–18, and a weighted rubber-legs stonefly in sizes 8–10 — cover the full range of subsurface food trout encounter in April. As water temperatures climb through the 40°F threshold and spring flows push more...

from "Gotcha Bonefish Fly Tying - McVay's" by IntheRiffle The Gotcha is the most widely recommended bonefish fly across the Bahamas, Belize, and the broader Caribbean — a sparse shrimp imitation built around bead-chain eyes, a pearl diamond braid body, tan craft fur wing, and a pink thread head that mimics a shrimp egg sac. Created by Jim McVay using...

EP Micro Minnow-style fly Surf-zone fly selection in April depends on matching three primary baitfish — bay anchovy (glass minnows), Atlantic silversides, and juvenile mullet — that are significantly smaller than the four-to-six-inch streamers most saltwater fly anglers carry. From the Carolinas south through the Gulf Coast, where April water...

Lefty's Deceiver is one of saltwater fly fishing's most celebrated and enduring patterns, developed by legendary angler and casting instructor Lefty Kreh in the late 1950s. Originally tied on the Chesapeake Bay for striped bass, the Deceiver was designed to solve a persistent problem: large baitfish-imitating flies that fouled around the hook bend during...

This week's Tying Tuesday is a water-column master class: four patterns that collectively cover every feeding lane from the surface film to open water, giving you a complete toolkit as hatches begin to fire and predatory fish start pushing into the shallows. We start at the top with the Dyret, a buoyant Norwegian attractor tied with yearling deer hair that...