Most of the people I know seem to think that it is easy being me. I might make it look easy because I’ve been doing it a long time (being me, that is), but just between you and me, I have to admit that I have a lot of issues!
When it comes to my fly tying, my wife Renae thinks I have a severe case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Maybe, maybe not? I do strive to be very consistent with my fly tying. Is it obsessive to count thread wraps or the number of feather barbs in the tail of each fly? When I donate a box of flies for a fund raiser, I want every fly in each row to be exactly the same. Does that mean I have OCD?
What’s kind of funny is that none of the fly boxes I use on the stream look anything like the ones I donate. Most fly boxes in my fishing pack are old hook boxes or small plastic pucks overstuffed with a mishmash of fly patterns.
Several years ago while I was digging through one of those boxes I came across a really cool-looking caddis dry fly. I could not recall tying that fly or even where I would have gotten it. The fly was tied on a curved hook with a dun abdomen, CDC underwing, deer hair overwing and dun hackle for the collar.
Being the marketing guru and extra clever guy that I am, I came up with a great name for this fly: No Name Caddis. It’s appropriate because I didn’t know the actual name of the fly, or if there ever was a name for it. Clever, right?
I do still like that combination for the spring caddis hatch. For the most part when I tie this fly, I have gone to a tan-colored abdomen. I also switched the underwing from CDC to tan poly yarn. The poly underwing makes it easier for folks to fish if they are not familiar with CDC which can be putzy to fish with when it gets slimed up.
I think that you should sit down at your fly tying desk this winter, tie some of these caddis flies and fantasize about a warm spring day when the trout will be slashing at caddis flies dancing on the water. Just make sure they’re all perfect! Hook: Size 14 Emerger Thread: 14/0 Dark Brown Abdomen: Tan Bug Legs Underwing: Tan Congo Hair Overwing: Deer Hair Thorax: Mahogany Superfine Dubbing Collar: Brown Rooster Hackle If you have any questions or if I can ever help you with fly tying, please feel free to reach out . Paul JohnsonWaconia, Minnesota Paulwaconia@gmail.com Watch Paul tie this fly on his YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS6Y6rg9WH8
Views From My Side of the Vise, The Stimulator by Paul JohnsonThe Stimulator (Stimi) is one of those flies that just seems to “catch” my eye. With a slightly curved hook and deer hair tail and wing it has such a nice profile. As such, it has always been one of my favorite flies to tie. Over the years I have tied a lot of them. Most of them are buried somewhere in my fly tying room. For some reason or another, I have not fished with them a lot. Sure, I will use some in larger sizes (size 8 and 10) when I fish some of the high-gradient rivers on my annual trips to Yellowstone National Park, but rarely here at home.
If I were to be totally honest, when I am fishing locally I tend to get locked into matching the hatch. I tie on a BWO, Caddis or something to match the naturals hatching locally.
However, late last spring I was out during a period between some of those hatches. I was not detecting any kind of surface action at all and I didn’t want to fish a nymph below an indicator. So kind of on a whim, I pulled out a smaller Stimi as an indicator and tied on a weighted nymph below it to see what would happen. Well, a lot happened. That is, a lot of fish decided that they liked what they saw floating on the surface and came up to eat the fly. So much so that I just took off the nymph and fished with the single dry fly.
This trend has continued here in 2025. Even when there are no fish rising, they seem to be willing to come up and eat this fly.
The Stimulator, as we know it, became very popular in the 1980s when Randall Kaufmann modified the 1940s-era Sofa Pillow to come up with a better Stonefly pattern. Many think of it as a “western” fly, but I am here to tell you that it works great in our home waters as well.
My favorite hook to use for this fly is a size 14 TMC 200R. Some folks don’t like this hook because they think the gap is too small. I have never found that to be an issue. One very small change that I like to make from the original Kaufmann fly is to add some silicone or rubber legs to the fly. The legs add some subtle motion to the fly that I think the fish key on. As hinted at in the story above, a Stimi works great as the top fly in a dry-dropper setup. Even with a hook as small as size 14, you can float a smaller nymph with a tungsten bead.
Make sure you have a good supply of these flies in your fly box all spring, summer and fall.
Hook: Size 14 TMC 200R Thread: Orange 14/0 Tail: Deer Hair Abdomen: Yellow Superfine Dubbing Rib: Brown Rooster Hackle Wing: Deer Hair Thorax: Orange Dubbing Collar Grizzly Rooster HackleIf you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me. I always enjoy hearing from you.
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
