Overview

After the salmon spawn and die, the river fills with drifting flesh, and every trout, char and steelhead in it stops eating insects. The Flesh Fly is the answer to that, and it is deliberately not pretty. Soft rabbit fur in pale cream and washed pink, tied full and loose so that in the water it goes translucent, sheds its outline and drifts as an indistinct pale mass. Sharpness is the enemy here. A crisp, well-defined fly looks wrong; a shapeless one looks exactly right.

This is the single most calorie-dense food available in a salmon river, and fish key on it hard through autumn and into winter. Rainbows, Dolly Varden, char and steelhead will hold below spawning gravel and take drifting flesh for weeks. Fish it dead drift under an indicator, deep and slow, with enough weight to keep it near the bottom where the real thing travels. No action is needed and adding any generally hurts. Tied here in size 4, which is the size of the thing it is copying. Essential for Alaska, British Columbia and the Great Lakes tributaries.Read More +