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Named the Cheap Lazy Bastard because the originator, Joe Kissane, uses cheap materials whenever possible, takes shortcuts (because he's lazy) and the fly is a bastard – the original pattern mated illicitly with the body of any number of famous nymphs.

The idea of Joe Kissane's Miscellanea Emerger is based on the idiom of "throwing in everything but the kitchen sink; however, he couldn't justify the length of "everything but the kitchen sink" for a pattern name, and someone told him that the name Kitchen Sink was already used 

Malbran is the fly that catches everything. Created by Ramiro Garcia Malbràn and tied with simple and cheap materials it's the ideal fly for fierce predators like dorado, pike and bass.

On a shelf in the shop was a little book that was propped open. It was Leisenring and Hidy's The Art of Tying The Wet-Fly and Fishing The Flymph. Inside, I found a treasure of patterns and some fishing instructions and I suddenly switched gears and began fishing these great little flies.

The Mickey Finn is one of the first streamers many beginning fly tyers learn to tie. Kasper Muehlbach never used it and for years a yellow and orange fly was missing in his fly box. Last year he was inspired to tie a replacement.

Wet flies have been around as long as fly fishing itself. Are they starting to see a renaissance? In fly tying circles at least, that may be the case, as tyers look for new challenges and new sources of inspiritaion.

Minnow, sand eel, fry. This little fly will imitate most small, transparent fish. Based on a now-classical Danish sea trout fly with an added zonker strip, there is little new under the sun. But it does catch fish as pictures in the article will show you.

You need luck, a good guide and skills to catch a tarpon. We can't supply the luck. You'll have to go there to get a good guide. The skill... well, you'll have to hone that yourself. But a good fly pattern, that's something we can help with.

The flies Mary documented were, invariably, ornate wet flies. They were, and are, the legacy of centuries of British salmon fly design spiced by the natural resources and original thinking available to their American interpreters.

Swedish Kenneth Boström tied this pattern about forty years ago. I stumbled over it some 15 years ago, but found it too revolutionary

In the vise, this pattern may not look exciting, but when wet, this fly takes on a whole new personality! It's a simple pattern for complex trout. Be sure to read Steve's "Tips for the Curious Fly Tier" which explains how this pattern came about and

Made with only two materials, this highly effective caddis emerger pattern will take only minutes to tie and allow you to load up your fly box with the Global FlyFisher's hottest new pattern.

Shiny tubing materials are widely used as body material on streamers. So is ordinary tinsel. Here is a new way of making glittering, but more volumnious, pulsating and living bodies for your streamers using Angel Hair or a similar material.

Like most ideas... they mature slowly. It was not until late March that, during a private flytying tuition session to a talented, young colleague, I saw clearly in my mind what my Skunks would look like.

How many of your flies work both in salt and fresh water? How many of these actually look like something real?
The Deep Diving Shrimp is such a fly. Oliver Edward's allround Gammarus imitation works equally well everywhere you find this very widespread animal.

A fly tied for sea trout in the Baltic area. It proved to be efficient in other places too. Translucent and yet colored. Tie it in olive, rusty or tan and you can imitate any camouflaged mysis—and it will stand out from the crowd. Can be tied by seniors too...

Until now The Epoxy Miracle has given me quite a few fish and still is my favorite baitfish imitation. It is perfect under most circumstances.
But, sometimes it seems too small for the big sea trout, which come close to the South Swedish shore from January to March.

We crank out some strange flies every now and then. Get an idea, dig through piles of materials and tie up a handful of slightly different flies, each one better than the previous one, but none of them really good. But sometimes one comes out OK.

The Global FlyFisher staff wishes everybody a very merry Christmas - and a happy New Year if we don't see you before then. A Christmas Fly saw its way into Martin's fill-the-box-project. A slightly more colorful variation of his usual drab and dull flies.

EZ flies - that's what they are in the genuine all-American-marketing-way. Five classics with their patterns modified to be fairly easy and fast to tie - not least because of the simple body construction using braided tubing.

"I have severely neglected my day-to-day flybox for more than a year" writes GFF partner Martin Joergensen. Now he sets out to fill a box with hundreds of sea trout flies in preparation for the coming spring. He envisions rows of uniform and neatly arranged flies.

Mark Dysinger has been chasing smallmouth bass with the flyrod for many years, and during that time he's come across some surprisingly difficult fish. Super clear water and high fishing pressure can make these bass as fussy and easily spooked as any educated trout.

Al Grombacher has shared with us one of the most effective patterns for the Bow River in Alberta, Canada, famed for its excellent fishing for rainbow trout.

How small can you tie a streamer and still call it a streamer? The folks on the streamers@ mailing list decided to challenge themselves to a swap of streamers no larger than a size 12. The results were move interesting.

Crazy Charlie, Bonefish Bitters, Bonefish CDC&Elk and more. Some of these bonefish flies are well known, some are close to unknown, but they can all catch bonefish. Martin Joergensen has selected a few and tells the story.

Two tails are better than one says Mark Dysinger, who is an avid pike angler. In this, his latest pattern, he has created a large and very lively fly for the mossy green predator of the lakes. And it can tempt a bass too...

Tying instructions? Materials list?!
You must be kidding me!
The list is close to being an insult and it is almost ridiculous to tell you how to create this fly in more than a sentence. This little saltwater fly is soooo simple.

Black and deadly in appearence, the dark force of in the fly box - this is The Darth Vader Nymph. Get out your light sabres and put your old, scratched Star Wars video in the VCR, and tie some black nymphs.

A Buzzer is basically an imitation of the pupa of a midge. The buzzers are best known from British stillwater fishing, but are actually very widespread and common all over the world. Learn how to tie a simple buzzer and how to fish it.

This is a strange kind of saltwater fly for sea trout - nothing like other flies - sparse and skinny, tied on a treble, only two materials. But it works says GFF partner Martin Joergensen, who is almost embarassed to tell how to tie this über-simple fly.

A wish for a generic bait imitation was what made Kasper Mühlbach develop a fly, which he originally dubbed the Epoxy Triumph; A small epoxied baitfish imitation along the lines of the American tradition.

This fly was since modified a bit, and is now the Epoxy Miracle.

Branchu is the Québecois word for wood duck, and a very suitable name for this fly with its characteristic wood duck wing. It's originated by Jean Guy Côte of Uni-Products, but has been slightly modified by GFF partner Martin Joergensen for his fishing.

Kasper Mühlbach started fishing for chub with small lumps of dough as a kid, but has since developed flies and techniques to take this query on a fly rod. His chub patterns are simple and will most likely catch you roach and bream too if they are around.

Question: What to you get when you combine elements of a Muddler Minnow and a Zonker? Answer: A Zuddler - an excellent steelhead fly. Joe Emery and John Rode have combined a zonker strip, a muddler head and a cone head into a killer pattern.

This fly is called Twospotted Fairfly. The two spots in the name comes from the bait, which it is supposed to imitate: the twospotted goby. Gobies are a common kind of fish in the shallow parts of almost all bodies of water.

Mark Dysinger presents a pair of pike flies that can take a beating - the Prince of pike and the Poxy Bunny. Large, durable and easy to tie as pike flies should be. Mark has used them extensively for his own Northern pike fishing

The most sought after pattern on GFF's search page is John Barr's more than excellent nymph pattern the Copper John. Martin Joergensen describes his version here: how to tie it and fish it. And adds its hillbilly kin the much simpler Copper Joe.

An article on the Welsh classic The Diawl Bach and on the intriguing and intimidating concept of fishing a team of three flies on a very long leader. GFF partner Martin Joergensen has been to Wales and this is the first article from that trip.

This fly recently changed its name from The Copper Camel to The Danish Pastry Fly for reasons that are revealed in the article. It's an efficient and simple pattern for sea trout, but is very likely to be just as able to catch bass, bonefish and many other species.

Ray Bergman is the originator of these three simple mixed wing streamers. The three were included in the updated version of Col. Bate's wonderful book "Streamer Fly Tying and Fishing". The combination of materials, the overall shape and color of the streamers really caught Bob Petti's eye.

This fly is kind of a coincidence. An idea. A fad. But it works. It is a funnel dun, Deveaux, Joergensen kind of pattern, which will imitate a hatching mosquito - albeit a very large one in the original version. It consists of two materials and is very easy to tie.

Does anyone remember the early to mid 90's? The rage in the US, at least among tyers of trout flies, was Polish woven nymphs. Fast forward to the dawn of the new century and these articles and flies have all but disappeared? Were they a fad? What happened?

I started using the Bonefish Bitters while fishing on my own in Mexico. I wrote: "I continued using my Bitters and caught many more fish on them the following days. After two weeks of fishing I felt like a champion and was very satisfied with myself."

Mike Hogue drops by and offers us some variations of one of the all time popular trout flies - the Prince Nymph. By adding "a little flash and glamour", we have a few new things to try the next time we're getting skunked and want to try something different.

Yep! It's yet another one of that Danish madman's muddlers. This time with an even longer name: The Short Heavy Chicago-Zürich-Copenhagen Delayed Nutria Tube Muddler or SHCZCDNTM for easier remembering!

Another entry in the continuing series of features highlighting the flies of the founders of the art of streamer tying. Bert Quimby is not as well known as many, but his flies are just as beautiful and original.

A recent tying binge left me with a few thoughts on how to tie a quicker and better blue-winged olive mayfly. The ideas aren't necessarily new, but they certainly are worth sharing.

Wooly buggers are one of the all time most effective fish catching flies. However, if you think you need heavy tackle and lots of lead to get them to work - think again. Peter Frailey tells about his "Baby Buggers", and how well they cast and fish.

A bunch of quite realistic flies by a bunch of well known and unknown international tiers. These fantastic flies are not super realistic imitations, but they certainly look real and convincing enough to fool both men and fish!

Realistic flies are not only for the display case. As Steve Thornton shows us, realism can also be applied to practical and effective fishing flies. Trout and grayling beware!

Lake Erie Shiner is a Killing Bucktail from the vise of Floyd Franke

GFF partner Martin Joergensen has been fooling aruond with Bidoz Products brand new Kameleon Heads. These aluminium heads screw onto almost any straight eye hook - such as the one on the Screwhead Matuka.

Comparaduns are one of the most versatile mayfly patterns in existence representing a low-riding mayfly to near perfection. However, many tiers shy this simple pattern due to the perceived complexity of tying the deer hair wings. Learn to master the technique with GFF partner Steve Schweitzer.

Combine the Danish killer patterns Frede and Copper Bully with a Woolly Bugger... Not surprisingly a deadly combination

Pike fishing requires large flies, and they are not nice to cast! GFF partner Martin Joergensen has improvised over some well known salt water patterns and made them into a fly, which is light, large, easy to tie and still acceptable to cast on a 7 weight rod.

Harrison Steeve's story about a brand new foam material for terrestrials and many other flies. "You guys are crazy to spend so much time messing around with that loco foam." Needless to say the name stuck. Read the whole story here.

This little pattern will sink just like a beadhead and will imitate the colors a golden stone nymph has, almost to perfection. Follow the tying sequences in the article to make your own! Steve Schweitzer has created another killer!

It's a beadhead, no, a hare's ear, no... How about a flashback pheasant-tail... could be sort-of-a prince nymph, maybe a copper-john-alike or a biot-bug; whatever it is, it's versatile!. This is the Universal Nymph by GFF partner Steve Schweitzer.

Shrimp patterns are always fun to tie. These salt water imitatoins are easy to do and fish well. Martin Joergensen has once again pursued the art of imitating these salt water arthopods - this time utilizing his family's hair brushes!
Read the story and find the patterns here.

A tube fly is different - a muddler is me - a tube muddler is a perfect choice. Tube muddlers are not unknown to me. I have tied and fished a few in my time, and I like them... so do the fish by the way.

Ant patterns are usually a bit of foam and a chaotic dry fly hackle. But why not tie it more imitative? It's quite easy.

I highly recommend using small flies for autumn fishing for sea trout and rainbows in salt water. Going small or LARGE can be a key to triggering takes

Bjarke is a fly that I primarily designed to make use of these very webby feathers that always seem to be left over on the necks and saddles, when all the 'good' feathers are used.

Matching the hatch is rarely the item when fishing for sea trout in the ocean. The fish are rarely selective and you're sometimes surprised by which flies they are willing to take. But on a few occasions it can be important to imitate the small animals eaten by the trout.

I'll warn you now; the hopper is my favorite pattern. It's big, I can see it, it's fun to cast and present it with a plop, I have fun tying them and the fish just adore the big, juicy, summer delight.

How about a fly which has caught tuna in the tropics, salmon and trout in Russia, cod in Denmark and a number og other fish in Global destinations? Claus Bech-Petersen's simple Tinsel Fly is such a fly. Read Claus' article with history, patterns and fishing methods.

Classics in a classic way. These flies may look like something of today, but the concept of Wadington shanks is old as Methusalem. Danish fly tyer Niels Have has converted four classics to effective flies for early salmon and sea trout fishing. See the pictures and patterns.

Dalby is a place in Western Sealand often fished by Danish coastal fisher and photographer Mark Vagn Hansen. For one of his trips here, he tied a fly using a couple of brown hackles and an orange hot spot on the back of the hook.

As you probably know the egg was way earlier than the chicken. This article show you how to make The Cluster Egg Fly (pom-pom eggs) - a very popular type of fly for steelhead and salmon.

It should be no secret that I'm a great fan of muddlers. These functional, characteristic and very beautiful flies that I connect directly with my favorite kind of fishing: night fishing for sea trout in the ocean. The technique used for tying them has always fascinated me, and although I do tie a lot of them, I still have a lot to learn in respect to spinning deer hair.

This is my fly box. The very box that I carry in my chestpack when I go fishing on the Danish coast. It's a hand made Schweitzer mahogany box, if you're interested - the most stylish type of fly box I have ever owned.

This was one of the first flies I tied with a rabbit skin I got dyed with picric acid. The innovations found in this pattern are limited - to put it mildly - not much new under the sun here. The color is also far from any color found in food items digested by sea trout.

A few muddlers as inspiration

A pattern for salmon in the summer dusk. A salmon fly inspired by the Scottish pattern named after the lake Loch Dhu

A large muddler for pike

A conehead muddler/zonker

A small muddler

A muddler pattern

A fly which is just a piece of imagination created one evenning in march. I have been fooling around with a plain type of steelhead or salmon flies this last year. These are all signified by simple feather wings and the use of classic materials like floss, tinsel and plain feathers

During a recent gettogether with some Danish flyfishers I hauled out some of my cod flies. One of them was this one - The Rocket. They were quite excited about the fly - first of all because it's a light tube fly, second because it's very durable. They saw in it not only the cod fly that I had made, but also a pike fly, a fly for pike perch and a universal fly for all kinds of deep fishing for larger fish.

The most important step in preparation is getting the right kind of hair. Buy your hair at a reliable source. Good spinning hair patches are dense and have little underfur. The single natural hair should be dull and light at the base, slightly waved at the root, and have a short tapered tan/black tip section.

This pattern was originally made one evening when I was tying with some friends. My friend Henning had some light SLF left over from one of his flies. I scavenged the SLF and started a fly on a heavy Tiemco hook. The tail was casually made from some natural bucktail that I had brought.

This is a steelhead pattern, normally made with black or purple rabbit. But with natural rabbit it makes a very good pattern for the coast. By cutting a narrower strip of rabbit and choosing natural colors a lighter dressing is achieved. Good for spring fishing and fishing in current like over reefs.

The Grey Frede is a surefire pattern for sea trout. It's a very versatile and robust fly that has become very popular. I decided to tie a darker version of the same fly.

This is an old favorite. Good under almost all conditions and with a lot of trout in its history.

Again a 'classic' Danish fly. Actually only uses one significant material: a piece of mylar tubing. Body can be covered with yarn or floss to add color. A really good fly for cold or unclear water. Fish deep and slow in the winter.

Anybody can see that the Crazy Dane is really a Crazy Charlie - a very common salt water fly from the U.S. This type of fly is rarely seen in our part of the world, and I know no other fishers that use it.

Even though the pattern was inspired by a technique showed to me by Davy Wotton, it's not named after him, but after my little brother David.
The material is rabbit fur in tufts, tied in on top and under the hook shank.

This fly is a larger and more imitative variation of the Squirrel Zonker. The addition of the eyes and the heavy hair hackle makes the fly more fishlike and the Fair Fly is a good imitation of a sculpin.

"My, what an ugly fly!" Henning glances with disgust at the brightly colored foam fly shining from the hook rest on my 5 wt. Learn more about the Morrisfoam Diver for sea trout.

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the Danish shoreline fly fisher Peter Loevendahl, who is a discrete man. He goes around quietly in his native western Seeland and catches fish. A lot of fish.

I've had little experience fishing with this fly which is quite recent in my collection. It has all the characteristics of a good night fly, it's fast and easy to tie and durable too. It should be a fly worth having in you box.

What else would you expect to find in a lab...?
This fly is one of the many that I seem to crank out at random. Most of them end up as garbage and never even find their way into my fly boxes, but this one had something. Just a little something.

The sand eel or lance - called the tobis in Danish - is one of the most common fish on the Dansih coasts, and is an important part of the diet of especially larger sea trout and cod for that matter. Because of that it is an interesting fish to imitate.

This fly was originally developed by Henning Eskol, a member of the Bananaflies - my fly tying guild.

The least dressed fly of all. The classic spider fly has to be one of the least dressed flies of all times. A slender body and a thin hackle - and that's it.

I have some remote relatives in Boston who occasionally sends over christmas gifts to my kids. This year the gifts were packed with some particularly interesting string. This string was braided in the colors red and green with some shiny material laid in. It said "flies" all over it! I scavenged the remains from the unpacking and stoved it away between my fly tying materials.

Muddlers are mostly used for dusk or night fishing in the summer. Muddlers will work in the surface, streaming, making a wave wich can be seen by the fish against the light sky.
Muddlers move a lot of water and form a good profile. Almost any type of muddler can be used for this fishing although dark and black patterns seem best.

Now is the time of year to experiment with new materials. If you haven't had the pleasure of using groundhog/woodchuck, I recommend you give it a try.

Niels Have's take on some Ken Sawada patterns - tied on tubes.

Deep in my heart, I prefer stream flyfishing for trout. However, Holland has precious few trout class streams, and next to none fishable trout, so most of my local flyfishing is for warmwater species.

The chinook is considered by many to be the prime game fish of the North East Pacific, with only the steelhead challenging that title.

Ken Bonde Larsen's now-classical Danish sea trout pattern.

An imitation well suited for inshore fishing.

This small streamer is as neutral and ordinary as can be. It's a small trout fry pattern, that can be used in fairly clear water in spring and autumn. Retrieve in short, fast jerks.

Jan Reniers has become famous for his different shrimp creations, his latest being a shrimp imitation with a shield of real eel skin, which, when wet, has the typical smell that attracts fish.

Both IQ and Orange shrimp are excellent Sea Trout flies. They are easy and quick to tie. I've used them as a secret weapon for several years now. Weather conditions will dictate the size of fly I prefer. You may tie these patterns on any type of hook, singles, double including trebles in small sizes 10 to 14.
By Ismo Saastamoinen

Most dog owning fly fishers have probably combed their dogs and been struck by the fact that dogs' hair would make a fine dubbing material. Danish fly angler and photographer Mark Vagn Hansen did so with his dog Mia.

This one of the really genuine Danish flies for sea trout in the streams. The Moor Fly (Hedefluen in Danish) in some fishers eyes work magic and can at times be the most dominating fly on certain Danish sea trout streams.

A well worn, ugly, but nevertheless effective specimen of The Moyerfokker

Although the subject of this article may seem like heresy to dedicated tyers of classic atlantic salmon patterns, I thought it might be a fun exercise this winter to adapt some of these classic patterns to New England streamers. It was indeed a challenging and enjoyable tying experience.

A selection of saltwater patterns from Chris Edghill

"...once they broke the surface film, the butts would tilt down and the head and shoulders would be the only part of the grasshopper above water. They neither rode high in the water, nor lay in a horizontal plane. My thought was to design a hopper that would duplicate that presentation."

This fly was ordered by Swedish Fly fishing shop as a logo type. I got the material and colors witch would be included and free hands to create. IQ Zeb Macahan was the final product of this.

I'm not sure how floating bass flies got the name "bug", but it certainly has stuck. Whether constructed of wood, plastic, foam, or hair, they all seem to be lumped into the generic category of "bass bug".

A great looking tube fly

He send me copies of some of his own creations and moreover delicate watercolour drawings of his in Scandinavia very famous Sedge Pupa - imitation. As his flies are very little known in Europe, I shall try to give a description.

If you want success with picky sea trout you can consider two tactics: go small ... or go LARGE!

If you mention smallmouth bass fishing in Pennsylvania, the Susquehanna River immediately comes to mind. This article features 14 efficient flies for Susquehanna smallmouth from the hands first time contributor Robb Nicewonger.

A large surface muddler for all fish that eat in the darkness.

A simple fly for sea trout.

George F. Grant's flies utilize some very special techniques.

I've been fascinated with spey flies for a long time. The first I had ever seen was a Purple Spey tied by Tim Purvis, which arrived in a swap of steelhead flies a bunch of us FF@'ers exchanged several years ago. The next was an Olive Spey tied by Juro Mukai in a swap of atlantic salmon flies.

I have to admit a particular fondness for woodduck flank. Ever since I was given my first baggie of feathers from a duck hunting friend, I was smitten. The color - the texture - the barring of the feathers.

A large colorful fly for cod fishing.

Small orange fly for for garfish

This amazing fly is ment for pike. It's caught a lot already on the line of originator Morten Valeur who states that this is one of the few flies he can truly call his own.

A few early samples of Danish fly tyer Ken Bonde Larsen's cone head flies.

An all time classic which here is tied for sea trout in ocean and stream.

The Magnus is a pattern always present in my fly box. I've caught a lot of fish on it, it's simple to tie and surprisingly durable. It's normally tied with ball chain eyes, but after I found a good supplier of bullet shaped bead head, I tried tying some with bullet heads.

The Idiot - or 'Idioten' in Danish - is another typical Danish sea trout pattern. The story of this fly is quite well known and documented. A team of Danish fly fishers including Erik Døssing were fishing in Norway when one of the company stated that he had never caught a sea trout on fly in the stream Karup Aa - probably Denmark's most productive and famous sea trout stream.

This fly is the latest development in my experiments with the melt glue I have used with some success for cod. This version is much smaller than the original and uses a simpler and better method for building the body. This not only makes the fly faster to make, but also much easier to cast.

On the surface the job was simple, come up with some pike flies for my friend's teenage son's trip to Canada, something small enough that a teenager can handle and still tempt a pike.

Hen hackles have long been the source of confusion to many fly tyers. Whether they are looking for wings for their dry flies or hackles for their wet flies, there seems to plenty of head scratching when it comes time to purchase the appropriate feathers.

I have been experimenting a bit with stream patterns for sea trout. One of the results has been a larger and more salmon fly like version of the Umbrella - a salt water fly that I have used with good success.

More than 30 years ago I tied some of the North Country Flies on blind hooks. At that time Veniard Ltd. had them in their catalogue - but I had no silk-worm gut, so I tied them to fine monofile nylon.

Do Postal Services have notions of flyfishing? Do flyfishers have something in common with stamp collectors?

This fly was made as an imitation of a very numerous and common group of small crustaceans/isopods, that are present on the menu of sea trout. The animals are very small - a few millimeters - but still the trout will eat them in great numbers. This is especially in the late summer and autumn.

The umbrella is a nice looking fly inspired by stream flies for sea trout. It was formerly known as the Double Umbrella because of the to wet fly type hackle feathers, that gives the fly its unique appearance and a lot of life in the water. The feathers will collapse when wet and almost cover the silver tinsel in a pulsing motion.

A small and simple sea trout fly

A bottom seeking fly for pike, bass, cod, pike perch, sea trout - even bonefish and many other fish.

This fly used to be a twist fly like the yellow Twist of Lemon, but it changed and eventually lost the typical twisted body. It has a normal tinsel body and a thorax of peacock herl, but looks much like the Twist of Lemon.

The muddler can double as a serviceable grasshopper, cricket or even damselfly nymph. One can fish it dry and doped up, damp, wet and sunk.

The purpose of the IQ Dawn Series is to cover most variations you can encounter at a salmon river. And hopefully catch a Salmon Salar, king of fish! All flies can easily be made to spey flies - just change the hackle to heron feather instead, in the same color.

The tube fly - or tube fly system - you can see on this page, is called the Banderillas. The name comes from the Spanish name for the sticks the the bullfigther uses during the fight. The body sections of this fly has some resemblance to these sticks.

The Flasher fly is not so much a fly as a method of adding a spinner to any tube fly which under certain circumstances enhances its attractiveness to almost any species of fish.

I came upon an idea. Actually I combined two incidents into one idea. First of all I was going through my heron feathers (yes, I have more than one) and found some butts that I had saved after having tied whole body hackles. I wanted to use these feathers, which still had a lot of useful and long barbs, but unfortunately a very thick stem.

One of Hanafi Saleh's patterns is the "HS Floating Shrimp" which is very suitable for fishing just above the bottomweeds, or just above the bottom without the risk of getting snagged at underwater obstacles.

This is a fly made for a very specific purpose: cod fishing. It's used on a sink tip or sinking line over fairly deep water (3-4 meter or 10-13') from a float tube, and will turn upside down and 'walk' on the bottom.

The Gladiator started as a joke but one with a lot of thought behind its origins.

A sedge pattern in the Goddard tradition - with a twist. This fly is a combination of the G+H Sedge and a hackling method adapted from Dutch Piet Weeda - making it a one-material-fly.

I apologize to you in advance for the disappointment you will feel upon learning that this article is not about a hot new dance step from south of the border and will not contribute to your romantic relationships or skills on the dance floor.

The fly that did the Limbata as told by Jim Hauer

This streamer fly is actually a variation of the well-known Woolly Bugger. It imitates a small baitfish.

This fly uses a special technique where a strand of floss and a strand of tinsel is twisted together before the combo is wound on the hook shank.

A simple and good looking scud pattern from Charles Garwood.

Part wet fly and part streamer, it has all the obnoxious flash of a Mepps spinner in the water, and it's just as effective.

So you thought that chilli pepper was a small, strong, spicey fruit? Well, it is... but it's also a seemingly popular name for fishing flies. In the past I have come over no less than three patterns with the name Chilli Pepper.

The flies on this page are all well known patterns which have all been juiced up a bit - many with some modern materials, but all with cone heads.
By Bas Verschoor

The Pheasant tail nymph is a true classic. The original was tied by Frank Sawyer using only copper thread and phesant tail fibers. This pattern has been elaborated a bit by Charles A.Garwood from North Carolina, and uses peacock herl for the abdomen and regular tying thread.

An almost naked fly with almost no materials.

This muddler is tied on a small stainless Mustad hook using orange deer hair, orange dyed grizzly hackle and natural rabbit dubbing with a bit of orange flash mixed in. A small beauty indeed and sooo easy to see at night.

I purchased a copy of Skip Morris' book on tying flys for bass and panfish and another of his books on foam flies. His books are excellent and I recommend them above all others for beginning tyers. The pictures and instructions are superb!

Recently I've begun working with a material that was introduced to me through the tying of Dave Whitlock. In particular, his "sheep series" of baitfish flies. It's Icelandic Sheep Hair, although some distributors refer to it as "Streamer Hair" or "Secret Streamer Hair". I've found it to be a wonderful tying material for large streamer type flies.

This fly was inspired by the original Prince Nymph, but modified by Charles Garwood of North Carolina for an easier tie and more visibility.
Says Charlie: "The prince nymph has been with us for a long time! I've simply added flashabou because I found it enhances attraction and because I find it slightly easier to tie than white goose biots. Plus it eliminates the gold braid too. It just simplifies the pattern"

The name and appearance of this fly owes a bit to the New Zealand Mrs. Simpson flies in which a couple of feathers are roofed on each side of the fly. These flies are also known as Killer flies or tied in the Killwell style.

Magnus is a 'classic' on the Danish coast. This small anonymous fly and its very similar brothers the Frede, Sandshrimp and many others, are probably the most catching flies on the coasts of Denmark. The eyes and the palmer hackle are the prime characteristics of the Magnus, which is mostly used in clear water.

The gold bead flies that are now so popular, actually originated in the central part of Europe - more than 100 years ago.

In this autumn I had the pleasure of meeting my countryman Poul Jorgensen at two lectures he held here in Jutland, Denmark.
One of the flies he tied was his version of Edmund Drury’s famous salmonfly, the General Practitioner. Tied after its original recipe it’s something of a task to make; but Poul has found out a simpler, but just as effective pattern.

A large muddler pattern for big fish. This one has caught both pike and baby tarpon.

Later my friend and I ran into problems on our favorite stream, when the tiny Caënis dayflies hatched. The trout sipped the fresh emerged flies all over the water - but they rejected all the flies we offered. Then we found a note in a magazine saying, that the fly with the peculiar name - the 'Grey Duster' - should be the right medicine, if it was tied with a parachute hackle.

The headline contains some truth in the sense: When trout/graylings eat tiny surface-food, they only nead to open their mouth to a narrow slot and sip the fly in. If one presents them with a fly with a broad hackle - then they can’t suck it in through their narrow mouth.

The small dipterae - Simulium sp. - has always been a problem - they are tiny and shows up in fantastic numbers. Why should a trout prefer our imitations when there are so many all over the water?

I used to hate zonkers; those pre cut rabbit strips were like hell to tie with: too thick skin, too long hair, too wide strips. I stopped tying them until someone told me how to cut my own strips.

The french pediatrician Jean-Paul Pequegnot has written a book about french flies - "Repertoire des Mouches Artificielles Français". 1975. It is translated to english in the last years. He gives among others also descriptions of flies from Britanny.

A killer fly in the right hands on a cold winter day. A very simple shrimp pattern for Danish sea trout and many other targets.

This has been my most successfull trout fly in the autumn of 1995. I've caught most of my trout from a float tube, and I believe that one of the keys to the success of this fly is the fact that it's weighted. This and the fact that it's actually very nymph like tells me that it would probably act fine as a stonefly nymph imitation, and this has given the fly it's name 'My nymph' or 'Mymph' for short.

Wanna tie a mysis? This might be the pattern... Small, easy to tie. It can even stand in for a small dragonfly nymph.

Hans Weilenmann's classical contemporary sedge fly.

Muddlers are a type of flies that I love to tie and fish with. And they also catch fish. In my small story from the Danish summer night, you can read what this small modest muddler can do. A fly I had a fair success with

A great Danish fly for sea trout - The classic Magnus

This fly is in a way my 'signature fly'. It's a beautiful fly (in my own humble opinion), and even though it's heavy - very heavy, actually - it's a good fishing fly, that dives deep and overcomes current and turbulence.