November Fly O' the Month - Your Go-To Fly

[RickB]

November Fly O' the Month , "Your Go-To Fly"! Any color, any size !! Post you pictures in this thread and they must be uploaded in this months Fly O' the Month Gallery to qualify for the prize. Happy tying! Like last month, johnk will be donating 2 dozen of his own commercial tied flies to November's winner. Lets see them creations!!

[Lucky]

It seems like I've got a different "go to" fly every couple of months, so I will just post the fly that's been on my line the most lately.



It's not an original but has caught a fair amount of chums this year.

[Dave]

Along the same line as the above post...call it the 'Orange Bomber'

[btree]

This fly has become my go to fly for the kettle river unless there is a may fly hatch or small green caddis hatch on, but this is usually where I start.

My favourite three colours are a black butt (brown or black tail), brown middle third, orange throax third with a stiff brown hackle wrapped on the thorax, and then the usual ungulate hair wing.

If I'm not sure whether the fish are keying on subsurface nymphs or flying/skimming adults, I'll fish the same pattern without the wing. I get just as many fish when it's sunk as when it's floating.

Best sizes match local insects, but a size 8 or 6 will do in many conditions for spring and summer stoneflies or large fall caddis. It's quite durable.

Other colours can be good as well, but I like the orange and brown combo.

[tbar24]

i think its hard to pin my go to fly, so i decided upon one for trout and one for salmon. this fly i find myself reaching for quite abit, as well as the khartoum killer but i decided upon mcleods stickle back. and for salmon i went for an olive and white llama streamer

[johnk]

My go-to patterns will depend on the lake I'm fishing on any given day. The lake that holds the most memories for me is Gypsum in the Chataway chain and I will always remember the first time I fished the "Wine Killer". It was late July and the hatches were pretty well done and the conditions were perfect for the fish to be shallow and sipping leeches! I hooked, conservatively, 50-60 fish and landed 10! They were slamming the leech with reckless abandonment and solid hookups were totally fluke!


There is a small and very beautiful lake in the high hills northeast of Tunkwa with white marl shoals and I can still remember the day when I realized the pumpkinhead was a special pattern. I was fishing with fellow member and good friend, Trout Tramp, and we were having a tough time raising fish to our regular offerings. It was mid-afternoon and being a particularly small lake, it can be viewed effectively from any part of the lake and as I was dividing my time between scouring the lake and staring at an open flybox praying for some divine intervention I noticed some good shoulders porpoising on the shoal at the north end. As it would turn out later there was a good callibaetis hatch commencing and for the next hour it was a fish-a-cast on the pumpkinhead of all things! Fishing a sinktip line and being anchored 40' away from the action the longest retrieve was about 2' before the fly got slammed! It was that moment tnat the pumpkinhead took over from the K-Mart as the go-to pattern on that particular lake!

PUMPKINHEAD


K-MART

The last lake I'll mention is a private lake located on an active cattle ranch just outside of Barriere. I usually avoid private lakes but this one had a special charm. I like the idea that when you book a day with Tom and Carolyn, no one else is permitted on the lake on that particular day. At $40/per rod per day it was an affordable getaway for my wife and me not to mention they had a travel trailer they rented out for $20/night. It was a June day and the Central Oregon Flyfishers were visiting Tunkwa and we took one of the members with us. By noon our group of three had managed a gran total of two fish when our guest had to leave so Rose and myself had the lake to ourselves for the afternoon.
I had just developed a larger leech pattern and thought this would be a great time for an inaugural run. We landed 23 fish that afternoon with Rose donating 5 flies to the cause. We found a dropoff where the fish were stacked up and that afternoon the Bionic Leech was born.


If you get the chance, visit Posby Lake and have a lake to yourself for an entire day. The lake holds fish to 10 lbs. and has not been stocked since the 50's which equates to strong and wild fish!

[Bukwas]

Buck Stopper

This is my "go to" fly.

[troutbum]

Greetings Johnk

You had mentioned Posby Lake,I have been looking in the Backroads book and can't seem to find it,can you give me directions ??

Cheers
Cap

[johnk]

Greetings Johnk

You had mentioned Posby Lake,I have been looking in the Backroads book and can't seem to find it,can you give me directions ??

Cheers
Cap

It's on Boulder Mountain Road just north of Barriere which runs off Hwy. 5

[floater1]

purple micro leech