Blue Winged Olive Step By Step

  


     Today we'll show you another one of my favorite ties.This one matches the hatch for the blue winged olives here in the Northeast or anywhere for that matter.This pattern can be tied in sizes 14 down to a 24  and works particularly well in a size 20.            


        The one I'm showing you today is tied on a size 20 TMC 100.
Place your hook in the vise and start the thread , We are using Uni olive 8/0 to avoid build up.

    Next pick two nice medium to dark dun cdc feathers and tie them in.These will be your wing post when finished.

A couple of firm wraps to hold in place and trim the waste.

   Now you are ready to stand the post up , take the cdc and pull it straight up . Make several wraps in front of it building a dam of thread up to hold it up.

       Now that the your post is standing upright we'll take several wraps around it to reinforce it.

    Continue with nice even wraps to the back of the hook. At this point I like to add a touch of head cement to stiffen the post up.

  Take a Coq de leon feather in the appropriate color and take a eight to ten long glassy fibers for your tail , measure up your tail it  should be about the length of the hook.

   Finish neatly tying in your tail and then we are ready to tie in the porcupine quill for the body.

  Now if you have porcupine quills choose one that will be the proper size to create your body . If you do not have porcupine you can use an stripped hackle quill dyed olive or dubbing.

  Tye in the quill by the tip then wrap up to the thorax and tye off.

   Ok looking pretty good .Now it's time to tye in the hackle to be wound around the post. This is a size 20 so we can safely use up to 1 1/2 times larger hackle then the hook calls for.

   Take the hackle cut off the webbed portion on the bottom and strip the base of the feather to prepare to tie in.

  Tie the hackle in and then secure it to the post taking a few wraps up and the back to the base of the post.

  Once you are done securing the hackle it is time to dub the thorax.For this fly I used Nature's Spirit BWO dubbing as it has a good color and texture to it.

  Now that the thorax is dubbed take your hackle pliers and wrap the hackle around the post 4 to 5 turns will be fine.

      Tie off the hackle behind the hook eye and trim waste.

  Finish the head with a couple of half hitches and a drop of head cement .And your ready to fish!

   Tye a few of these up for the olive hatches in your area you'll be glad you did.

Trout Fishing Old School..

   Paul called me today and said he would like to come up and fish. His first question was, how is the water ? I said a little high but we should have no problem finding fish.He said good I'll be up in an hour .

  So while I was waiting for him to arrive I went to my tying desk and picked up a half dozen Picket Pins I tied up last night.When Paul got here I went out and greeted him and gave him his flies for the day . I told him they are Picket Pins a fly that was developed back in 1915 by  Jack Boehme . The only difference between mine and Jacks is the wing, I used raccoon instead  of squirrel .This would be the fly of choice for the day as it was still pretty cold out and there were no hatches going on. 

    We got to our destination in no time. Put on the waders strung up the rods and headed off.The first pool we hit is a nice one with a deep cut on the far bank and some large rocks scattered a long the edges .

    Paul asked how to fish this fly because he had never fished it before . So I said to him we'll be doing the old wet fly swing across and down. I had him make a cast across stream throw a little up stream mend to get his fly down and then come tight to the fly and follow the drift.It wasn't long before he mastered the technique and had a fish on . Paul was well under way for the day with a nice rainbow to hand in the first 15 minutes of fishing.

  We fished all total and hour and a half or so moving from pool to pool with much the same results . Paul landed two more on our way down and I had a half dozen total to my credit all bows.

     And all caught on the Picket Pin a fly developed  96 years ago. I would say it works just as good now as it did then. 

     So the word for trout fishing this year is Old School . We are going to fish as many old patterns as we can this season.Meaning patterns that were introduced 50+ years ago and have since been forgotten or rarely fished.