Adventures in Fly Tying... June 2006
The Steelhead Bee
Fly and Text by Joe Cornwall
Photography and Video Production by Jim Stuard
Roderick
Haig-Brown was an English-born gentleman angler who moved to the banks
of the Campbell River in British Columbia in 1936. He lived there until
his death in 1976. An important and active conservationist during a
time in history when such a voice was almost unheard of, Haig-Brown’s
refined abilities as a writer have forever set him apart from those who
toil to communicate the joy of fishing in words. Roderick Haig-Brown
truly was an artist who defined the concept of “renaissance man.”
Haig-Brown
created many fly patterns for winter and summer run B.C. steelhead, as
well as patterns designed for the native cutthroat trout, silver salmon
and king salmon that lived in the rivers he fished. One such fly is the
Steelhead Bee, a pretty little dry fly that Roderick purportedly used to
take a 20lb. steelhead during a time when all rods were split cane and
all reels featured a simple click-pawl type drag. That was no small
accomplishment!
Although
there is precious little opportunity for dry fly fishing for steelhead
in Ohio, and absolutely none on the waters near Cincinnati, such was the
affect of Haig-Brown’s tales on this flyfisher that I wanted nothing
more than to see this fly float upon flowing waters. Scaled down and
slightly modified to Midwestern conditions, I wasn’t surprised when I
found the Steelhead Bee to be quite an effective pattern on bluegill,
smallmouth and largemouth bass.
When the
big bluegills are on the beds and taking top-water presentations, this
is my favorite fly to cast. I may never fish the Campbell River, nor am
I likely to present a dry fly to a steelhead. But I’ve seen this fly
float, and its beauty and pedigree are nearly as haunting as its design
is effective. If you hit the water in June or July to fish for
panfish, take a few of these flies with you and see if they conjure the
magic of wild places for you, too.
Click for larger image.
MATERIALS
Hook – Mustad 94840 or 94842 up-eye Dry Fly
Hook, size 10 to 14
Thread – Brown 8/0 (70 denier)
Tail – Dark moose body fur, stacked and
cleaned
Body – Alternating bands of brown, yellow, and brown Spirit River
dry fly dubbing
Wings – Dark moose body fur, stacked and
cleaned and tied forward over the hook eye
Hackle – Brown
Windows Media
Video
QuickTime
Video
STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS
|
1. Mount the hook in the
vise and start your thread just behind the eye. Wrap the thread to
the bend of the hook and then back to the mid-point in preparation
for the tail |
|
|
2. Cut and clean a small
bunch of moose body hair. Measure so the tail extends past the bend
of the hook a distance equal to the hook gape. Tie in the tail at
the mid-point of the hook. Use progressively looser wraps as you
approach the bend of the hook to keep the hair from flaring. |
|
|
3. If you decide to use a
wing, now is the time to tie it in. This fly produces just as well
when tied as a “variant” pattern — that is a dry fly pattern tied
with a hackle but without a wing. That is the way it is tied in the
accompanying video. When I use a wing, I like to use moose body
hair. Cut and clean a stack of moose twice the thickness of the
tail. Measure so it extends one hook shank length beyond the eye of
the hook and tie it in so it extends in front of the hook eye at a
45 degree angle. The wing is placed this way to facilitate skating
the fly on moving water. |
|
|
4. Bring the thread back to
the bend of the hook at the tail tie-in point. Dub a body in three
parts using brown, yellow and brown Antron dry fly dubbing. The
original called for seal dubbing. |
|
|
5. Tie in a high quality
dark brown hackle. I like a coachman brown, but you can also use
ginger, furnace or fiery brown. For a more “buggy” effect you can
also use one brown and one grizzly hackly like an Adams. |
|
|
6. Wrap a thick hackle
collar. I like to use about 8 to 10 turns of hackle. This fly will
have to stand up to a lot of abuse and, hopefully, a lot of fish. I
like to twitch the fly gently, so a heavily hackled, high floating
tie is good insurance that it will stay on the surface. You should
also treat this fly with Campdry or a similar silicone floatant to
help with buoyancy. |
|
