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What is your favorite historic Sea-Run Cutthroat Fly?

10K views 82 replies 33 participants last post by  jimmyz 
#1 ·
A recent lacrosse trip to British Columbia allowed me to spend a couple of hours exploring the fly selection at several shops including Sea Run Fly & Tackle in Coquitlam. It was interesting to see the wide variety of small flies that dominate the beach fishing in BC. Flies like the Hurst Handlebar, size 8 Rolled Muddlers in 6 different colors and a wide variety of top water flies featuring deer hair.

I went back to reread Fishing the Sea-Run Cutthroat Trout that Les Johnson first published in 1971. It also sent me back to some of my older fly boxes to examine tried and true patterns that have fallen into disuse. Old favorites like the Allard Orange and Allard Yellow emerged. I tied on an Allard Orange on a recent outting and found that it was very successful in landing some large Coastal Cutthroat. This morning Norm Norlander posted a tweet of him tying the Cutthroat Coachman. It made me wonder what other great old patterns should be brought back and fished in the coming year.

I would love to hear what historic flies are used in your Coastal Cutthroat fishing.
 
#2 ·
Steve:

The orginal "Fly Fishing for Pacific Salmon"(1985) by Ferguson, Johnson, and Trotter had a statement on page 71 by Bruce Ferguson: "If he had to confine himself to one fly only, this(Ferguson's Green and Silver) would be it, provided that he could have it in the full range of hook sizes." For many years that was my "go to" fly pattern when fly fishing on Puget Sound. However, over the last 15 years I have rarely used. It is now time to start using it again since it was extremely effective for sea-run cutthroat and salmon species!

Roger
 
#4 ·
I love the borden special and the good old mickey finn. There is something about fishing an old pattern that really makes it fun. Picked up a beater bamboo rod for fishing the salt with just that in mind. All of Haig Brown's flies are cool and I think I need to tie some up.
 
#5 ·
Roger, with Bruce's passing I am going to add his Green and Silver back into my SRC box. It produced many of my first Coastal Cutthroat. Thanks for sharing. I also tied a bunch of Johnson's Beach Flies recently as it was one of my favorite patterns.

Speyfisher, your post is spot on and it motivated me to pull out my treasured copy of Fly Patterns of Roderick Haig-Brown.

Ganglyangler, the Mickey Finn is a go-to fly for most saltwater fly fishers in BC. I went back this summer and researched all of the historic Bucktail patterns and tied streamers using Fish Skulls and Fish Scales. One of the things that surprised me most was the number of flies with yellow as their main color. I also realized that I have not used red as much as they do in BC.
 
#9 ·
Roger, with Bruce's passing I am going to add his Green and Silver back into my SRC box. It produced many of my first Coastal Cutthroat. Thanks for sharing. I also tied a bunch of Johnson's Beach Flies recently as it was one of my favorite patterns.

Speyfisher, your post is spot on and it motivated me to pull out my treasured copy of Fly Patterns of Roderick Haig-Brown.

Ganglyangler, the Mickey Finn is a go-to fly for most saltwater fly fishers in BC. I went back this summer and researched all of the historic Bucktail patterns and tied streamers using Fish Skulls and Fish Scales. One of the things that surprised me most was the number of flies with yellow as their main color. I also realized that I have not used red as much as they do in BC.
After spending 2 weeks this fall fishing the beaches in B. C. I agree yellow,and red were the two colors I found in most of the patterns that the locals were fishing. Most of the guys i talked to were tying their streamers with polar bear. Now I need to find some yellow polar bear fur, this stuff glows in the water.
 
#6 ·
I too was a Fergusons Green and Silver fan after reading Pats book and although I didn’t take all that many coastal cutts with it I do think it’s a great salt fly but rarely fish it anymore. I think back in the day when we had a fair amount of resident silvers it was a great producer for both.

In my early days of searun fishing Hood Canal my go to fly was the Knudson Spider in all white (Ghost Spider) or the standard yellow or red body.
Some of the old timers hear in the north sound still fish it exclusively and do very well. Although I still carry a few with me I find I don’t use them in the salt as much as I used too.
Now in a river system a Knudson Spider variation is a hard one to beat.
 
#7 ·
While I fish a variety of patterns for sea-run cutthroat in salt water, some of my fresh water favorites have been the Dead Chicken (my first large sea-run, a whisker under twenty inches, came to one) and the Knudson Spider, in the classic yellow and a couple of other colors. Mike Kinney introduced me to his Reverse Spider many years ago and, for a long time it was my go-to fly. Now, whenever the opportunity offers, I'm more likely to fish dries. The October caddis, cranefly and small Blue-winged olives are among my favorites.
 
#8 ·
Preston, thanks for sharing some of your great flies. The first three are old friends but I admit I have not used the October Caddis. I share your love of fishing dries and the floating line is about all that I use lately in the salt. Happy holidays!
 
#10 ·
Spruce fly and Royal Coachman Bucktail
 
#12 ·
While I rarely fish the Spruce fly, it certainly qualifies as a classic. It was developed in Oregon by the Godfrey brothers, Cap and Milo, and has been around since 1918. Re polar bear hair: I love the stuff and there is no other kind of hair that comes anywhere near it for translucence and the ability to hold and refract light. One of the best substitutes I've found is kid or goat hair but it is still far short of the real thing.
 
#18 ·
I guess an old favorite for me is the Silver Brown by Roderick Haig-Brown. I'm like you guys, I need to put some of these old patterns back in my box. I used the Silver Brown a few years ago very successfully in an estuary on coho also.
 
#20 ·
Another shout out for the Borden Special as it is one of my sentimental favorites. I first started coastal-SRC fishing on the Alsea River in Oregon when I was going to school in Corvallis. I took a fly tying class hosted by the Scarlet Ibis fly shop and one of the patterns they taught us was the Borden Special. Not sure what it is, but there's something special about the yellow, pink, and white combination that really works well.
 
#21 ·
Great thread Steve, thanks for posting it, and great responses all. Now,I'm off to the book case to find these patterns.

Chris
 
#23 ·
A great topic for a winter day which I'm sure will provide "fodder" for a number of fly tying tables

As another "old-timer" if fish mostly the "classic" patterns. I just checked my two go to cutthroat boxes and between them there were more than 150 Knudsen spiders in a wide variety of sizes and colors. I fish mostly freshwater for my cutts and typically 95% or more of my fish take a "spider". In the salt the spiders continue to be successful though probably less than 1/2 of my "salty" fish come on spiders; rolled muddlers and other muddler minnow variations have long been other go to patterns.

Tight lines
Curt
 
#24 ·
Here are pictures of some of the flies mentioned above: Haig-Brown's Silver Brown, Ken McLeod's Skagit Minnow (probably the first imitation of a downstream-migrant pink or chum fry), the Rolled Muddler, a wool head sculpin, the Spruce Fly and Ferguson's Green and Silver (this one actually tied by Bruce himself). Most of these will work well in fresh or salt water.

View attachment 46596 View attachment 46597 View attachment 46598 View attachment 46599 View attachment 46600 View attachment 46601
 
#25 ·
Great thread, Thanks Steve. I have poured over Les's books and always intended to start tying some of the older classic patterns. Looks like that time has come. In my short time fly tying and fishing, it's amazing how fast an effective fly moves to the bottom of the box, or even out of it completely. Each week I re-invent and re-design flies, which is the best part of this obsession, but I need to make sure the effective flies stay in rotation.

One way I have used to pick color combinations is pouring over Letcher Lambuth's, and Art Limber's bucktailing flies. The sparse blending of 4-5 colors has helped me design my herring and sand lance flies when using synthetics. I am going to tie some traditional Lambuth Candlefish and re-introduce them to the salt. There is something about buck tail that I love.
-Steve
 
#27 ·
Thanks for those pics, Preston. This is a great thread, by the way. I've been wanting to get back to my bench and tie up and fish some of these same patterns that have been mentioned, and this is good motivation to hear the wise old heads and top-notch cutt anglers discuss 'em.

For a long time now, I have planned to tie up some "faux" Silver Browns, substituting something I can scrounge up for the "Indian Crow" feather on the tail.

The Rolled Muddler is another that I've been meaning to produce in a bunch of various shades, since I'm almost out. I've caught a few on those! I need to fish them more often!

I have fished the Borden Special and found it to be a good fly for cutts above the head of tidewater here, and for fishing the pools on my way back down as the tide dropped. I had a couple that I bought, but eventually lost 'em. Should try to tie some up!

The fly I have fished most around here for searun cutts has been the Reversed Spider, but the last two years I have been tying and fishing more traditional Knudsen Spiders, too. I think it is becoming my favorite. The "white ghost" version with some red in the tail has been very effective. I have also been toying with the recipe. I tied up a variation with a small red beard (omitting the red in the tail for that version), and trimmed the hackles on the underside a little to expose the beard better and help make the fly ride upright, and then tied one with a beadhead to make it a better trolling fly off a floating line. Turned out to be an effective pattern for trolling in my favorite estuary, and worked fine casting and stripping, with or without the beadhead. A size 6 has been my "go to" fly for cutts down in the estuary and in the tidal reaches.
I haven't had as much luck with the Spruce, but I haven't fished it all that much.

Others that I plan to tie and fish include the Ferguson's Minnow, Johnson's Partridge Spider, and the Silver Minnow.
 
#28 ·
Nice brace of flies Preston, picture perfect representation of classic coastal cuttroat flies.
I’ll throw in another streamer pattern that works very well particularly in the estuary’s and that would be another spruce type classic called the Purple Joe.
For top water I am also a big fan of the Blue Winged Olive particularly in an emerger style and of course Al Troth’s Elk Hair Caddis.

It’s easy to see how varied coastal cutt patterns can be and it also shows the aggressiveness of these fish that we are blessed to have in our rivers and off our beaches.
 
#29 ·
Thanks Dale. Jim, the feathers I substituted for Indian Crow (actually South American Fruit crow) are back-to-back, red-dyed hen hackle tips and don't look at all like the real thing. Real Indian Crow feathers are actually pale orange, darkening to a reddish-orange at the tips of the fibers. I once had a recipe for creating a good-looking imitation but it involved several steps involving acid baths and dyes and, after taking one look at it, I decided it was way over the top for me. At any rate, red hen seems to be acceptable to the cutthroat (and coho, and even the occasional steelhead).
 
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