Favorite Flies for Oregon: 50 Essential Patterns from Local Experts

By John Shewey

The state of Oregon is a fly-fishing paradise. From famous trout rivers such as the Deschutes and Metolius, to steelhead on the Umpqua and the Rogue, to abundant smallmouth on the John Day, Oregon has it all. Editor-in-chief of American Fly Fishing magazine and long-time Oregon resident John Shewey showcases 50 flies that are essential for anyone planning a trip to this state. Each fly pattern is accompanied by a stunning, detailed image with a recipe. Shewey, a recognized authority on West Coast flies and their histories, not only explains how to fish and rig each pattern but also includes interesting historical information that makes this book the perfect complement to other fishing guides to the state.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RowmanLittlefield
• Release date: Jan 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9780811769686

John Shewey

An itinerant Oregonian, John Shewey has spent considerable time exploring every corner of the state. He has a 30-year career as a journalist, author, magazine editor, and professional photographer. He is editor-in-chief of the Northwest Fly Fishing magazine group, and has published around 15 books.

Book preview

chpt_fig_006.jpg

The Beetle Bug Coachman was one of Oregon’s most popular dry flies in the middle decades of the twentieth century. The Beetle Bug Palmer (right) was created by Dave Hughes, the prolific Oregon-based fly-fishing writer, because he wanted to enhance the fly’s flotation. Other tiers have their own versions, and the author’s favorite is the slender-body version, such as crafted by two expert tiers one state over, LeRoy Hyatt and Jeff Wimer of Idaho.

Beetle Bug Coachman

(tied by Jeff Wimer)

Beetle Bug Coachman

Hook: #8-16 Tiemco 100

Thread: Black 6/0 Damville

Tail: Dark moose hair

Body: Red Hareline Dubbin

Wings: White calf body hair

Hackle: Brown, optionally V-clipped below

Beetle Bug Palmer

Hook: #10-16 Tiemco 100

Thread: White 6/0 Danville for applying tail and wings, black 10/0 Veevus to complete the fly

Tail: Dark moose hair

Body: Red superfine dry-fly dubbing, floss, or UNI-Yarn

Wings: White calf body hair

Hackle: Brown

Today, Northwesterners remember Meier & Frank stores as the ubiquitous high-end clothing and home fashions stores, but in the middle of the last century, Meier & Frank—the original store—occupied an entire city block in downtown Portland, soared to fifteen stories, and sold virtually everything. As historian Don Roberts wrote, the iconic store was once the single most consequential retailer west of the Mississippi.

The store included almost every imaginable department, even a bustling restaurant, and famously maintained a remarkably robust outdoor sports department where aficionados could peruse everything from the latest cane fly rods to the finest shotguns. In those halcyon days, sporting men swarmed the Meier & Frank sporting goods department, and one of the primary attractions was Audrey Joy, the in-house fly dresser for some twenty years beginning in the mid-1940s. Joy’s flies were revered for their durability, and watching her tie flies, using an old-fashioned treadle-style vise, became a tradition at Meier & Frank.

Among her most popular patterns was the Beetle Bug, aka Beetle Bug Coachman, a simplified Royal Coachman. As the story goes, Joy omitted the peacock herl body, which in the Royal Coachman is divided by a band of red floss. Omitting the herl meant Joy could tie the fly much faster, a fact not lost on other fly tiers.

However, while Joy and the Beetle Bug were strongly associated, the fly was actually the brainchild of John Dose, a tier whose flies gained a tremendous following in the Eugene area in the 1930s and ’40s. Both Trey Combs (Steelhead Fly Fishing and Flies, 1976) and the late Terry Hellekson (Fish Flies, 2005) trace Dose’s fly to 1920—originally as a hair-wing pattern. Moreover, numerous newspaper reports from Eugene prior to Dose’s death in the late ’40s mention his Beetle Bug Coachman. His Beetle Bug, tied with tail and wings of bucktail, became a popular steelhead fly on the Rogue and rivaled the McKenzie Special in popularity as a McKenzie River trout fly. Dose even created a parachute-style version in the 1930s.

chpt_fig_007.jpg

This fat little brown trout couldn’t resist a Beetle Bug Coachman during the March Brown hatch on the Middle Deschutes River. This classic Oregon pattern is very versatile.

Years later, in the 1970s, the fly was retooled by Bob Borden, the innovative tier who launched Hareline Dubbin. Bob modified the Beetle Bug by using moose hair for the tail, bright red rabbit dubbing for the body, and white calf body hair for the wings. He had discovered that calf body hair is straighter and finer, and thus easier to use, than calf tail hair. He cut a V-notch out of the hackle fibers on the underside of the fly so it would land and float upright.

The Beetle Bug is one of the most universally useful attractor dry flies ever invented in Oregon. You can dress it as small as size 18, though by the time we delve into the realm of miniscule, the Beetle Bug’s only advantage over hatch-matching patterns is that it floats exceptionally well. You can dress it big enough to skate for steelhead, on size 6 light-wire salmon hooks. But the Beetle Bug is at its best in sizes 10 through 16, bouncing along on lively riffles, dapped and drifted through spritely pocketwater, or slid seductively against mysterious undercut banks.

chpt_fig_008.jpg

Robert (Bob) Borden created his Borden Special for sea-run cutthroat trout and the fly quickly gained a substantial following—from the fish and the anglers pursuing them. Borden, who founded the wholesale materials company Hareline Dubbin, applied his expertise in fur and feathers to design a fly that plays enticingly in the water—soft rabbit fur, loosely dubbed, for the body and supple white arctic fox tail fur for the wing.

Borden Special

(tied by Jeff Wimer)

Borden Special

Hook: #4-6 Daiichi 2110

Tag: Flat silver tinsel (optional)

Tail: Yellow and pink hackle fibers

Body: Pink Hareline Dubbin

Rib: Flat silver tinsel

Wing: White arctic fox tail

Collar: Soft-fiber yellow rooster or hen hackle, followed by soft-fiber pink rooster or hen hackle

Sea-run cutthroat trout are enigmatic and often elusive; wraithlike, they can suddenly appear then disappear from favorite runs and pools and estuaries. Coastal cutthroat trout, a subspecies of cutthroat native to the Pacific slope from northern California to Alaska, often display an anadromous life history—they spawn and rear in fresh water, but spend considerable time in salt water, where they find abundant food. Unfortunately, sea-run cutts, also called harvest trout as well as bluebacks, are far less abundant than they were just a few decades ago in Oregon. Still, in waters where they persist in fishable numbers, they are fun to target and catch.

Sea-run cutts often depart salt water and run into coastal creeks and rivers between late summer and mid-autumn, hence the name harvest trout. They tend to spawn in small tributaries, and upon smolting, rarely venture far from their natal streams while spending several months or more in salt water. In both fresh water and salt water, anadromous cutthroat orient to structure, ranging from shell beds and rocky substrate in salt water to cut-banks and deadfalls in fresh water. They frequently roam estuaries, seeking food in tidal creeks and channels and along steep edges.

In Oregon, fly anglers traditionally target sea-runs by boat, drifting or motoring the tidewater reaches of the best rivers and casting wet flies to likely structure, including channels and pools, and retrieving the flies actively. These days, anglers adept at using kayaks—always accounting for the potential dangers of navigating tide-influenced waters—can very effectively target cutthroat in a number of Oregon estuaries. In rivers and creeks with walk-and-wade access, anglers can also fish downstream through likely water; in many streams, the first few pools and runs above the head of tide are the most productive because fresh-arriving trout will congregate in those places.

Fishing on foot below head of tide, on most Oregon streams, ranges from challenging to downright hazardous because of tidal fluctuations and potentially dangerous walking and wading. I well remember stepping into what appeared to be a 3-foot-wide, 6-inch-deep rivulet on the Siletz delta, east of Highway 101, and instantly finding myself immersed to my waist in a quagmire of what the locals call quick-mud. If not for handholds on clumps of bulrush, I’d have been in big trouble. Thereafter I used a canoe to fish the tidal channels branching off several coastal river estuaries. A kayak would have been better—more stable—but I didn’t own such a craft. The old canoe was effective, provided I chose my fishing partners wisely. One of them, unaccustomed to canoes, dumped us both into muddy shallows on the Salmon River delta while climbing out to fish on foot.

Perhaps such mishaps explain why I haven’t pursued sea-runs in years, though a comparative dearth of fish is the more likely explanation. The last big harvest trout I caught was from the Nestucca watershed, though not the main river, on a bluebird autumn day. I had caught several small cutts just below the head of tide, carefully navigating by foot, but the flood tide began pushing enough water onto the delta to run me off. Resorting to the stream above the head of tide, I cast tight to a cutbank and twitched the fly smartly as it swung out from the shade. It was savagely attacked, and I soon cradled a 16-inch spotted beauty.

That fish came to my all-time favorite sea-run cutthroat fly, and probably the most popular such fly in Oregon, the Borden Special, designed by Bob Borden in 1961. He first tied the fly for the Alsea River, not far from his home. Some years later, Borden founded Hareline Dubbin, Inc., one the world’s largest wholesale fly-tying materials companies. Borden used arctic fox tail for the fly’s wing, reasoning that the soft fur-like hair would provide lifelike movement in the water. He used dyed rabbit fur dubbing for the body, notable because his dyed rabbit dubbing was the product that launched Hareline. The fly was an instant hit with the bluebacks and quickly became Borden’s best-known pattern.

chpt_fig_009.jpg

Oregon is richly blessed with trout lakes that produce robust hatches of Callibaetis mayflies, sometimes commonly called Speckle-Wing Duns. These insects emerge throughout the summer and are especially prolific in mountain lakes, ranging from super-fertile fisheries such as Crane Prairie Reservoir and Hosmer Lake to relatively infertile subalpine tarns. These two flies—the Callibaetis Krystal Spinner (left) and the Callibaetis Parachute—cover the bases for topwater action.

Callibaetis Krystal Spinner and Fischer’s Callibaetis Parachute

(tied by Jeff Wimer)

Callibaetis Krystal Spinner

Hook: #14-18 Tiemco 100

Thread: Tan or Cahill 12/0 Veevus

Tail: Microfibetts

Body: Callibaetis Hareline Micro Fine Dry Fly Dub

Wings: A few strands of pearl Krystal Flash, splayed to each side

Hackle: Grizzly

Fischer’s Callibaetis Parachute

Hook: #14-18 Firehole Competition Barbless 419 or similar

Thread: Tan 12/0 Veevus

Tail: Natural pardo Whiting Coq De Leon Spade Hackle

Abdomen: Stripped peacock herl

Thorax: Blend of light olive and UV Callibaetis Superfine Dubbing

Wing: Mule deer hair

Hackle: Dun-dyed grizzly

The Callibeatis mayfly, sometimes called Speckled-Wing Dun, is an insect of lakes and slow-moving waters. In Oregon, these prolific mayflies are especially well-known for their dense hatches on fertile mountain trout lakes, but they inhabit just about all lakes at high elevation, though densities vary. Historically, East Lake, Crane Prairie Reservoir, Hosmer Lake, the Lava Lakes, and numerous others have hosted epic hatches, providing superb summer dry-fly action. On many lakes, Callibaetis hatches are ongoing from June into September, with late-summer generations composed of smaller insects than early-season hatches. These bugs provide the most predictable and dependable hatch on Oregon trout lakes (and also hatch on spring creeks, such as the Williamson River).

My own introduction to, and immersion in, Callibaetis hatches occurred during my high school years when I spent a couple summers roaming the Mount Jefferson Wilderness Area, fishing dozens of its lakes. The mayflies hatched in all the lakes, sometimes profusely and sometimes sparsely. Either way, the trout fed on them. At the time, like many anglers, I fished the reliable Parachute Adams for both the hatch and the spinner fall, and it served admirably. But in the realm of matching hatches, we fly anglers seem fated to tinker, to build a better mousetrap.

Callibaetis spinners are most evident when they are gracefully dancing up and down in the air like tiny yo-yos, their pel-lucid wings glistening in the sun. I learned long ago to watch for those spinners, and when they appeared, to keep an eye peeled for trout slurping them up along the shoreline margins of the high lakes. One morning I hiked into a remote lake for the first time, and as was my habit, I first walked the entire shoreline, looking for drop-offs, inlets, and other such trout-attracting structure. When I reached the leeward side, I was amazed to see 100 yards of shoreline densely matted with spent Callibaetis spinners. Rainbows were nonchalantly sipping them at their leisure, and I figured I’d stumbled into easy money. However, the dead mayflies were so numerous that the trout just ignored my Parachute Adams imposter. I fell back on the old trick of trimming lots of hackle and hair from the fly, making it much sparser, and only then did it fool a few fish.

Returning home after that trip, I began tinkering and arrived at the forerunner of the Callibeatis Krystal Spinner. Krystal Flash had not yet been introduced to the fly-tying world; originally I used a few strands of a crinkly fiber I found at a craft store.