Views From My Side of the Vise: The Thin Tim by Paul Johnson
To put this story in the right context, you need to know that I am writing this on an April afternoon sitting in the comfort of my basement fly tying room. I am sitting in my comfortable chair surrounded by my tying materials, photos and other fishing memorabilia. I guess I have had two lives in my lifetime. For most of my life, I was a contributing member of society. In the past couple years, I have become a full time fly fishing bum. I have learned a great deal from both of my lives. I guess I would not be able to enjoy my current life as a bum without my previous life? There has been one constant from my professional / public life and my fly fishing bum life and that is that the best ideas I have ever had were borrowed from someone else. Maybe that is kind of true about all ideas? My newest good idea is a fly that I call the Thin Tim. I borrowed the idea from Walter Wiese of Yellowstone Country Fly Fishing. He calls his fly the Triple Wing BWO. Walter borrowed the idea from Charlie Craven’s Timmy Fly. I am not sure where Charlie came up with the idea. Maybe he borrowed it from someone else as well. This is one of those flies that just seemed to catch my eye when I first watched the video of Walter tying it. I made some slight modifications to the pattern when I started tying them up this spring. I have had the opportunity to fish this fly and I am happy to report to you that the fly seems to catch a trout’s eye just like it did mine. I have been tying the fly primarily on a size 16 emerger hook. You could easily tie it down to size 18 or 20. The fly does ride a little lower in the water so it can be a little challenging to see if you are fishing it in broken water. Hook: Size 16 emerger hook Thread: Olive 70 denier UTC Tail: Mayfly Brown Improved MIcro Zelon Thorax: BWO Superfine Dubbing Wing / Post: Silver Congo Hair Just one helpful tidbit for tying this fly and that is to save yourself extra room between the wing and the hook eye. It is very easy to crowd the eye. I found out the hard way! As always, if you have any questions / comments / suggestions, please feel free to reach out to me. Paul Johnson Waconia, Minnesota Paulwaconia@gmail.com 952-334-4688
Click HERE to watch Paul tie the Thin Tim on his YouTube Channel
The Shakey Beeley was named after a Yellowstone National Park ranger that was known to fish the Madison in the park. A detailed story of this pattern can be found in “Fly Patterns of Yellowstone volume two” by Craig Matthews and John Juracek of Blue Ribbon Flies in West Yellowstone, MT.
The pattern as we know it today was created by Blue Ribbon guide Nick Nicklas. Nick tied the fly on a #12 DaiRiki 280 a curved hopper hook. A TMC 2312 or equivalent will work fine.
Like a lot of western flies I fish with, I’ve found the Shakey Beeley to work extremely well in our local waters. With the contrasting colors and flash, brook trout go nuts for it. I also tie it in purple.
Hook DaiRiki 280 hopper or TMC 2312 #12 Thread: Brown Tail: Dyed Mallard and Yellow Krystal Flash Body: Yellow Haretron or Awesome Possum Rib: Brown Spandex Thorax: Orange Ostrich Herl Hackle: Hungarian Partridge and Yellow Krystal Flash
A couple tricks: 1. When tying in the Krystal Flash for the tail, leave some facing forward to be used later to use as flash just behind the hackle. 2. Before tying in the partridge soft hackle, stroke the forward facing Krystal Flash back and wrap a few turns of thread surrounding the hook with flash. 3. Tie the partridge feather in at the stem and utilize some of the webby barbules to add a little bulk. This is not a sparse fly.
You can see Nick Nicklas tie this fly HERE. Tim Flagler does another nice version HERE.
The Picket Pin is a pattern from the old west that gets its name from ground squirrels that were nicknamed “picket pins” by cowboys as they resembled the short stakes used to tie off horses. The original fly, developed by Jack Boeme, was tied with tail and body hair from these western ground squirrels. More modern recipes utilize fox squirrel and grey squirrel.
I tied some Picket Pins to try out in the smaller streams in Yellowstone and later realized they were a great pattern for brook trout around home. It’s a wet fly that you can drift or strip just under the surface. You can swing it towards root wads and brushy areas and strip it back just in time to avoid trouble. It often draws a chase from aggressive brookies. It’s white squirrel tail wing provides a good contrast to the body and allows you to focus on the fly and watch for fish. The only trick is to stay calm enough for them to take the fly before you strike.
Hook: 2XL Nymph hook size 10 or 12
Thread: Black
Tail: Fox squirrel tail fibers
Rib: Small copper wire
Body: Peacock herl
Hackle: Brown
Head: More peacock herl
After wrapping the body, add and palmer the hackle back towards the tail and secure by wrapping the wire forward woolly bugger style. A good example of this is covered by Tim Flagler’s tightlinevideo on YouTube
In some of my recent articles I have made reference to taking some fly tying classes at a fly shop in the Twin Cities when I was first getting started. It was at one of those classes that the instructor sparked my interest that has since grown into my love for Yellowstone National Park.On my many trips to Yellowstone I have always based out of Gardiner, Montana. During these trips, I spent a lot of time hanging out at Parks’ Fly Shop, where I first got to know and to fish with Walter Wiese. At that time, Walter was the head guide at Parks’. Walter now operates Yellowstone Country Fly Fishing out of Livingston.From those early trips, it was obvious that I could learn a lot from Walter’s books, website, and also his YouTube fly tying videos.
Several years ago, Walter did a video of a nymph he calls the “Gussied Lightning Bug”. For some reason or another, this was a fly that looked to me like it would catch a lot of fish.After watching the video, I headed right to my vise and started to tie up a half dozen or so. The next time I went fishing, I tied one on and guess what? It caught fish, so I headed back to my vise to tie more. That was when I started to make some very minor changes to the fly and actually simplified the tying process. That is how my Gussied-Up Lightning Bug was created. (Have you noticed how creative I am when I name a fly pattern?)This fly is now a mainstay in my fly box. I fish it throughout the season either under an indicator or as a dropper below a hopper. The fly has a very slender profile so it sinks pretty quickly.Until recently I always tied this fly with micro tubing for the rib. I found that the micro tubing was kind of slippery on the tinsel body, so I have now switched up and started to use wire for the ribbing because it makes the fly a little easier to tie. I have also added a silver-bodied variation that has fished well when the water is a little off-color.
You should put some of these flies in your fly box. I think you just might like them as much as I do! As always, please let me know if you have any questions / comments / suggestions.Hook: Size 14 Scud Hook Bead: 2.8 mm Tungsten in Gold Thread: 14/0 Red Tail: Brown Improved Micro Zelon Abdomen: Red Holographic Tinsel size Medium Legs: Red Midge Tinsel Thorax: Super-bright Dubbing in PeacockPaul Johnson Paulwaconia@gmail.com
Hook: Firehole Outdoors #419 16-18 Thread: Magpie Materials Red 72D Shuck: Straight Zelon, Caddis Tan Body: Antron 100% pure, Hare’s ear color Wing: x-Caddis hair
From the Editor: Since it’s Spring here in the Driftless, I felt that it might be a good idea for a bit of education on the life cycle of an important trout food source the Caddisflies: Order Trichoptera.
I contacted my good friend and fly fisher Jonathan Jacobs and asked him if he would consider putting together a brief video-based treatise on Caddisflies. Naturally, Jon, being the good guy that he is, consented. So, we have for your viewing pleasure, two enlightening videos that will give you a pretty nice overview of Caddisflies. You can find them by going to Jon’s YouTube channel at these addresses. https://youtu.be/in3Lm6wSZPY, https://youtu.be/KkRpN8ZVZmA
The first video covers the life cycle of the Caddis and Jon shows us a bunch of patterns that mimic every stage of Caddis development starting with the larvae and progressing to the pupa, and finally the adult. In the second video, Jon ties his version of the x-Caddis, a fly every local angler should carry.
So thank you Jonathan for taking time to do this for us. I’m sure every one viewing will find a few nuggets that will up their catch rate over this coming season.
