Fly Tying – Page 3 – Sporting Road

Pat Dorsey Flies

My favorite things about Pat Dorsey flies are that they are generally very simple to tie and they work exceptionally well. I have incorporated those strategies into my fly tying over the past couple decades, after chasing the illusive, you got to have it, hot fly of the week syndrome promoted by many in the industry for much of my youth. Pat Dorsey is a Colorado fly fishing guide, commercial fly tyer, and author of quite a few fly fishing books. He is a long-time acquaintance and his flies include staple patterns of the South Platte River, usually featuring his signature "Mercury Bead head" added to the pattern, with other small improvements. These flies will catch fish and the Mercury Bead seems to improve the flies from their original versions. While Pat's flies are not something I tie or use regularly, you have to admire them. Or at least I do, as I was a commercial fly tyer in high school and the patterns are generally fast to tie and more effective than most. However, a lot of my friends do use these files regularly and Pat's improved versions of the black beauty, buckskin, brassie, and other South Platte favorites such as the Mercury RS2, and his version of Andy Kim's Yong Special, the Top Secret Midge, all catch a lot of fish and are flies that I have experimented with over the years. I post some pictures here from Pat's great books, which are educational in how simple flies can be to still be very successful. He has proven to be a guide who knows how to educate his clients both in fishing and fly tying, and is never one to hold back on

By Sporting Road|February 26th, 2019|Categories: Fishing, Fly Tying, RS2, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Frank Sawyer’s Pheasant Tail Nymph and Grey Goose

https://youtu.be/416Os9V84n8 Frank Sawyer was a river keeper for The Fishing Association in Wiltshire, England. The river Avon was his home water. His grandson, Nick Sawyer, who was a special forces Captain in the Royal Services, when I met him and also moonlighted at times, offering his grandfather’s Sawyer Nymphs, has moved on to bigger and better things as Brigadier of their special forces. He was kind enough to send me some flies tied by his grandfather and the first thing that stands out, is how slim and natural they are compared to our American "pheasant tail" flies such as the Copper John. Nick wrote to me, ”Minimalism is probably a good way of describing the Sawyer approach to fishing. I spent a huge amount of money on taco that does not do the job as well as something out a fraction of the price.” before his grandmother retired she had three regular tires working for her as well and sold sawyer flies all around the World by mail. Nick Usually fist on the right hand it down to him from his father was one of the early fiber rods made in the 1960s by Hardy, the light master model. It is a fairly light rod and he like to fish with 1.5 pound cast tippet which equals American 7X. He commented that grade line on the test did not like the substitute wall as much as the Chadwick school, as perhaps it was a little bit on the purpleish side. However his father considered it a close enough match for it to work. As for the IRS to, he and his father’s consensus was that they are on the whole for faster water in the Chaulk streams

By Sporting Road|February 12th, 2019|Categories: Fishing, Fly Tying|Comments Off

The Official Rim Chung Fly Tying Videos
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The Official Rim Chung Fly Tying Videos

New fly tying videos posted of the official RS2 fly and Avatar fly tying instructions in a video format have been set up on YouTube. Rim Chung Ties the RS2 Video ( shorter version ): http://youtu.be/Js1fwpZ0LVQ Rim Chung tying the RS2 Video ( longer version with more comments ) : http://youtu.be/GUpDpKBwkM4 Rim Chung Ties the Avatar Fly Video: http://youtu.be/sehznI7tjDo Rim’s custom fly tying tools

By Sporting Road|March 4th, 2015|Categories: Fly Tying, RS2|Comments Off

Light Weight Fly Fishing Rods

Please sign up here for notices about the new site I am launching on Rim Chung’s One Fly methods. I have been asked “What rod is Mr. Chung’s current favorite?,” on this blog. This will be the subject of a soon-to-be released article and a chapter in the book that I am in the works of publishing about his fishing methods. The short answers are that a Sage TZX 0710- #0 Line and the Sage LL 2-weight in 7’9”, are Rim Chung’s current all-time favorites. He also fancies several of his Winston rods and depending on when you ask him he often responds that the Winston Boron IIX 8'6", 3 weight is his all time favorite rod. My all time favorite is a Winston WT 8', 3-piece, 3-weight rod, and I exclusively fish Rim Chung's methods of nymph fishing. Another student of his prefers the Winston Boron III LS ; 3 WT 8’6", so it may be whatever you get used to becomes your favorite. Asking Rim which is his favorite rod used to be an easy question for him to answer, but now the usual response is something along the lines of "Well, that is a lot like asking a man about his favorite woman when he has the pleasure of so many to choose from in his lifetime. It becomes hard to compare one to the other. One might be in love with each one for what it represents and offers, without comparison to the others." I’ll attempt to let you in on an advance glimpse behind the invisible veil to catching more fish with his ultra-light weight fly fishing methods here. Mr. Chung has been fly fishing since the glass and bamboo rod era, when they were the only choices as anglers. Many times

By Sporting Road|November 24th, 2011|Categories: Fishing, Rim Chung, RS2|Comments Off

Commercial Fly Tying
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Commercial Fly Tying

I recently found my old letter from 1984 from Bryan Peterson of Western States Fly Tying, Custom and Commercial, from Littleton, Colorado promising me a job commercial fly tying at $2.75 per dozen plus a bonus at the end of summer. He illustrated that at 40 dozen per week, I'd make $440.00 per month or at $20 dozen per week I could make half of that, which was a fortune for a fourteen year old boy. I met Mr. Peterson while he was doing our deck and fencing, another business of his, but he said fly tying was his real passion and he had many teenagers, retirees, and prisoners working for his company. He taught me to tie Adams flies for a summer. I remember him giving me a Model A vise and all the requisite equipment to tie size 14 Adams, together with many hours of lessons. I tied my heart out for a week with the 100 hooks he gave me. He promptly came over to inspect my progress. "Those look like a great start," he said, as he pointed out the too thick hackling and too thin hackling, too short tails, too long tails, too fat bodies and too thin bodies. He mused about the cement in the eyes and other comments designed to improve my tying, as he threw them all in the trash. He said, "Here's another box of 100 hooks, call me when you are done." I said, "Wait what about my money?" He said, "Oh, I could never sell those, but call me when you are done with these, you are getting there." The same story repeated on the next 100. By the third week, I was done with my

By Sporting Road|November 13th, 2011|Categories: Fly Tying|Comments Off

Trout Country: Reflections on Rivers, Fly Fishing & Related Addictions (Book Review 4/5 ****)

Bob Saile, Trout Country: Reflections on Rivers, Fly Fishing & Related Addictions. Pruett Publishing Co., Boulder, Colorado 1999. My favorite quotes or summaries are as follows: Aside from the Brassie, the most important contribution to the fly boxes of American anglers to come from South Platte lore is the RS-2 —an all-purpose nymph pattern that, depending on size, can resemble the aquatic stages of a midge, a mayfly, or even a caddis. RS-2 stands for “Rim’s Semblance, Style 2.” It was born in the tying vice of Rim Chung of Denver, a self-taught fly fisherman who began as a frustrated spin-fisherman. When Chung came to Colorado from Seoul, South Korea, in 1968, he had a strong desire to catch Colorado trout but only the weakest clues on how to go about it. He began to fish with spinning tackle but rarely caught anything when he encountered the selective trout of the Platte and other waters. Two years later, he was ready to give up. Then a friend suggested he take up fly-fishing. “What the hell is fly-fishing?” Chung asked his friend. Chung then began to fish with dry flies, but it was still frustratingly unproductive or, at best, inconsistent. Finally he met someone who offered to take him nymph fishing. “What the hell is nymph fishing?” Chung asked. His progression to becoming a successful trout fisherman was fairly swift after that. Chung developed his nymphing skills and learned to tie flies. He decided to try to develop a nymph pattern that was a general suggestion—a semblance—of almost any hatching aquatic insect, depending on size. What emerged was a pattern that is constructed with a Tiemco 101 hook that has a straight eye, in sizes as big as 14

By Sporting Road|October 12th, 2011|Categories: Fishing, Fly Tying, Rim Chung, RS2|Comments Off

Standing in a River Waving a Stick (Book Review **** 4/5)

Standing in a River Waving a Stick, New York: Simon & Schuster (1999) by John Gierach My favorite quotes or summaries from this book are: This business of changing fly patterns, looking for the right one, is central to the sport. All of us, secretly or otherwise, believe it’s the fly that makes the difference, although we’ll admit that even the right fly has to be cast accurately and drifted properly to work. Still, when someone is catching more fish than we are --- and when we’re not too embarrassed to ask--we say, “What fly are you using?” as if that one bit of information was all we needed. Okay, but if you ask three different fishermen you’ll probably get three different answers, so you have to suspect that although the knowledge passed on by other fly fishers is a great gift, the true solution is somehow yours and yours alone. Everyone I know who has fly fished for long has theories about fly patterns, all of which sound reasonable enough on a long drive or around a campfire.... The choice of a fly pattern for nymphing can seem too huge to comprehend, and I’ve seen nymph fishers standing like zombies on riverbanks, gazing into open fly boxes, literally frozen by indecision. (I recognize that when I see it because I’ve done it myself.) The thing is, aquatic insects spend most of their lives on the stream bottom, where they are regularly eaten by trout. Mayflies and stone flies have a nymphal stage. These are six-legged, armored bugs that fly fishers think are handsome but I heard one non-anglers describe as looking like wet cockroaches. Caddis flies and midges have bottom-dwelling larval stages that run into pupae

By Sporting Road|October 9th, 2011|Categories: Book Reviews, Fishing, Fly Tying|Comments Off

New Posts

Please check out all my new posts...which are hidden under separate pages and therefore don't show up here. Kohlrabi Mardi Gras La Buche de Noel Noel House Wine Hungarian Partridge with Gin & Juniper Berries Pheasant Confit Four-legged Friends Gary Ruppel Rim Chung Friends from the Sporting Road Jim Fergus

By Sporting Road|September 22nd, 2011|Categories: Cuisine, Dog Training, Fishing, Fly Tying, Recipes, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Colorado Trout Flies (Book Review ***** 5/5)

2008, Streamside Press, Lyons, Colorado. These are the stories of 34 fly tyers in over 300 pages, perhaps the greatest in the world, including legendary anglers, professional tyers, fly-fishing guides, and writers. The book focuses on the featured tyers, but it also details, with recipes and color photos, 68 of their favorite fly patterns. Colorado Trout Flies presents a unique and invaluable reference from veteran fly-fishing guide, Todd Hosman who lives near Longmont, Colorado. He is also the author of Fly Fishing Rocky Mountain National Park and Fly Fishing Colorado's Front Range. A.K. Best comments on the Colorado Trout Flies by saying, "Todd Hosman has written a fly tying book like no other. I know some of you may find that hard to believe, but it's true. Colorado Trout Flies reads like a who's who of noted Colorado fly tyers and some of the patterns they are known for. But more important, the book contains a short biographical sketch of each tyer that gives the reader some insight on what drove them to create flies that have become local and national standards. Colorado Trout Flies is destined to become a classic not only because of the reasons mentioned above, but also because the fly patterns will fool trout anyplace.” John Gierach says, “One of my favorite things about this book is that I'm in it, even though I don't tie professionally and never invented a fly pattern. All I've ever done is tinker with flies as I tied them for my own use, now and then coming up with minor changes that either made an existing pattern slightly better or at least didn't do any real harm. At least at the amateur level, fly tying is like folk music: The songs may be the

By Sporting Road|September 21st, 2011|Categories: Colorado, Fishing, Fly Tying|Comments Off