Category Archives: Steelhead

Marc has supplied the recipes for for his Playboy Bunny Tube Fly. There is a video provided to show you how to tie the pattern. If you would like to see more from Marc, head over to freestoneflies.com and check out his other patterns. Not only does Marc sell custom tied flies, he has fly tying materials available too.

Playboy Bunny Tube “Burgundy”
Tube-40/40 Pro Flexi Tube Color of your choice (junction cut to 1/2-3/8″)
Thread- 6/0 Danvilles Fly Master
Tail-1/8″ Straight cut Rabbit strip
Butt-Estaz Color of choice (optional)
Body-UV Pearl Polar Chenille
collar-Black marabou Plume (One that can be used as hackle) Three turns
Flash-Purple & Chartreuse Pearl Flashabou Three strands each
Hackle Red Schlappen Three turns
Head-fish Skull size of your choice (small medium or medium)

Playboy Bunny Tube “Hot Pink”
Tube 40/40 Pro Flexi Tube Color of your choice
Thread-6/0 Danvilles Flymaster
Tail-1/8″ Hot Pink Straight cut Rabbit strip
Butt-Estaz Chartreuse (optional)
Body-UV Pearl Polar Chenille
Collar-Black Marabou Plume (One that can be used as hackle) Three turns
Flash-Chartruese Pearl Flashabou Six strands
Hackle-Hot Pink Schlappen Three turns
Head-Fish Skull size of your choice (small medium or medium)

Playboy Bunny Tube “Chartruese”
Tube 40/40 Pro Flexi Tube Color of your choice
Thread-6/0 Danvilles Flymaster
Tail-1/8″ Chartruese Straight cut Rabbit strip
Butt-Estaz Hot Pink (optional)
Body-UV Pearl Polar Chenille
Collar-Black Marabou Plume (One that can be used as hackle) Three turns
Flash-Fire Tiger Holographic Flashabou Six strands
Hackle- Chartruese Schlappen Three turns
Head-Fish Skull size of your choice (small medium or medium)

Playboy Bunny Tube “Purple”
Tube 40/40 Pro Flexi Tube Color of your choice
Thread-6/0 Danvilles Flymaster
Tail-1/8″ Purple Straight cut Rabbit strip
Butt-Estaz color of your choice (optional)
Body-UV Pearl Polar Chenille
Collar-Black Marabou Plume (One that can be used as hackle) Three turns
Flash-Purple Pearl Flashabou Six strands
Hackle- Purple Schlappen Three turns
Head-Fish Skull size of your choice (small medium or medium)

The recommended hook for this fly is a #4 Owner Mosquito hook.

Tying Notes– The Video Tutorial is somewhat diffrent in that I used about 15 wraps of Polar chennille for the body. Thats to much for this fly Use only 8-10 wraps for the body and select a marabou plume for the collar that dosen’t extend to far back over the tail. It should extend to approx. 1/3rd to 1/2 the tail length.

Jeff Hubbard of Jeff Hubbard’s Outfitters North sent me the following information about low water steelhead patterns. Jeff has been a full time year round Fly-Fishing Guide for 16 years. His home river is the Pere Marquette River and he also guides on the Muskegon and White rivers. His favorite technique and fish is chasing steelhead on the swung fly.  You can find him on the web at www.outfittersnorth.com where you will also find a weekly fish report and much more.

Steelhead caught on Hubbard’s Low Water Leech

This year the Mid West and most of the U.S. as we all know have seen very little amounts of precipitation equaling very low water levels.  This fall the Pere Marquette brought very technical steelhead fishing conditions due to the low clear water.  On some days in November you felt like you were fishing spring creeks for trout instead of steelhead fishing.  The low, cold, clear water really forced me to change tactics for taking steelhead on the swing.  It was a matter of downsizing patterns and fishing much sparser flies.

Here are a couple patterns I came up with this fall when your dealing with low, clear water.

These flies are a copyright of Outfitters North Guide Service 2013.

Hubbard’s Low Water Leech

Hubbard’s Low Water Leech

Hook: Daiichi 2461 Size 2
Tail: Pearl Fringe (Hareline)
Body: Peacock Ice Dub wrapped towards front of Hook
Wing: Black Marabou tied in by tip and palmered towards eye of hook
Wing: couple strains of Polar Fringe and couple strands of Red Flashabou
Collar: Barred Wood duck Flank feather palmered towards front of hook
Head: a little of Peacock Ice Dub followed by Burnt Orange Dub or Steelhead Orange Ice dub clumped on and frayed to egg shape.

Hubbard’s Skinny Mini Sculpin (low water)

Hubbard’s Skinny Mini Sculpin (low water)

Hook: Daiichi Alec Jackson Steelhead Irons 2051 Size 1 or 2
Tail: Steelhead Orange ICE dub
Body: Olive Krystal Hackle Med.
Body: In front dub Steelhead Orange ICE dub
Collar: Olive Marabou tied in tip first palmered to front
Wing: Pearl Flashabou
Collard: Mallard Flank Feather palmered towards eye of hook
Head: Sculpin style clump of Tan Australian Possum or Senyo’s Laser Dub

I purchase a lot of Hareline Dubbin supplies and I am always happy with the quality. So tonight I researched a little about Bob Borden, the owner of Hareline Dubbin to see what I could dig up.

Hareline got its start when Bob was working for The Caddis Fly Shop back in the 1970s. He was one of the professional tyers for the shop, so the shop’s owner asked him to shear and dye some rabbit fur because he was having trouble with his supplier. Bob went home, fired up his wife’s stove and dyed 24 different colors of rabbit. He hasn’t stopped since.

One of Bob Borden’s major introductions was the twisted mylar, Krystal Flash. It can be used in many different applications and has been a staple in fly tying for years.

I thought it would be appropriate to tie up one of Bob’s orignal flies, the Krystal Bullet. This fly was originally created to chase winter steelhead and Krystal Flash was used to shape the bullet head, thus the name. The fly can be tied in many colors, like green, pink and orange. I’ve tied a black one here using blue Krystal Flash. The recipe is:

Body – Black Chenille with one wrap underneath the tail.

Tail – Krystal Flash, 5 to 7 strands

Head and collar – Krystal Flash, see instructions below

The trickiest part about this fly is tying the head correctly. I followed these instructions I found in the book, Steelhead: Fly Fishing by Trey Combs.

The “hackle” is tied down in two steps. First, spin the Krystal Flash around the hook at the head and tie down just behind the eye with the tips extending forward. Wind the thread down the hook and tie in the tail, five to seven strands of Krystal Flash. Tie in the chenille, wind the thread forward, bring the chenille forward, and tie off. Draw the Krystal Flash toward the rear of the fly and bind down the “hackle”. (Bob finds it helpful to use a ball-point pen without the liner, or a similar tube, to force over the eye of the hook and evenly spread out the Krystal Flash.) These steps create the Bullet’s “head.”

Make sure to secure the Krystal Flash near the eye before using your tube or pen to fold them back. This is the key to making the bullet correctly.

I haven’t found many pictures of this pattern, but the ones I did see used a traditional style salmon hook. For this one, I used the new Daiichi Van Klinken Bronze Bomber Hook in a size 4. I’ve been ordering various new products to review here on FrankenFly and this was in Hareline’s new product list on their website, so I thought I would try it. It is a nice sturdy hook and can be used for salmon, steelhead, bass, or large trout. I like the width of the hook gap and it is a sharp hook. It didn’t have any trouble pricking my finger when I was working on this fly.

I enjoyed tying the Krystal Bullet and I am thinking about tying a Patriot using Krystal Flash in the future.

The Bloody Muddler is a steelhead fly originated by Leroy Hyatt. Mr. Hyatt is known for his fly tying on the PBS show Fly Tying: The Angler’s Art. It was an excellent show and you can watch many of the episodes online. Also check out YouTube for Leroy Hyatt videos.

Leroy is from Idaho and has been a figure in “inland” steelhead fishing for many years. The Bloody Muddler and the Steelhead Muddler were just two of his dry/damp steelhead revisions he popularized for use on the Clearwater, Grande Ronde and other upper Columbia tributaries.  This information comes from the book Trey Combs’ Steelhead Fly Fishing.

Remember that muddlers are not species specific, so don’t be afraid to tie this fly on for brown trout or smallmouth bass. Leroy even mentions catching several smallies while fishing for steelhead with the Bloody Muddler.

Eric Koons is a fly tyer residing on the west coast and he ties an awesome Bloody Muddler.  Since it seems to be rather difficult to track down detailed information on the Internet about Leroy Hyatt, Eric helped with some information and tied the Bloody Muddler that is pictured in this post. To my surprise, Eric is excited about the launch of FrankenFly and I will be posting other patterns and techniques from him in the future. Below is Eric’s Bloody Muddler recipe and tying instructions. Enjoy!

Hook: Light wire salmon/steelhead. Mustad 90240, TMC 7989, Partridge Wilson, etc
Thread: Black, brown, or tan
Tail: White calf tail
Body: Gold tinsel chenille or flat mylar tinsel
Wing 1: Red calf tail to bend of hook
Wing 2: Grizzly hackle tips, facing (not flared) longer than red calf tail
Head: Spun deer trimmed “muddler” style

Tying Instructions: Use a standard wire hook if you wish. Use whatever thread you’re comfortable spinning hair with. Leave head large enough to provide a substantial wake.
Presentation Tips: Technically a damp, waking fly, though it could certainly be fished wet.