Overview

Simple, expendable, effective. Charlie Craven's three words for the Mole Fly are the whole pattern in one line. It is the fly he reaches for any time fish are rising to baetis or midges, and by his own account it has never let him down. That is a large claim for a fly made of common materials in an obvious combination, and it holds up because the design solves the actual problem rather than looking clever.

The problem with rising fish is attitude. A conventional dry sits on top of the water; a real emerger hangs half in it, trapped in the film with its body below the surface. The Mole's soft, porous body soaks in just enough to hang the abdomen under the surface while the wing stays visible above it, which is the exact posture a trout is looking at when it commits. On flat water where fish get a long look, that difference is the entire difference. The Brown dressing covers darker baetis and the broad run of midge emergences. Tied here in sizes 20 and 22.Read More +