Umpqua Fly Assortment Tailwater Essential

Overview

Umpqua's Tailwater Essential Fly Assortment is built to shorten the learning curve on tailwaters, waters that are highly productive but also some of the most challenging trout fisheries there are. It holds 34 flies, two each of 17 patterns, in Umpqua's UPG slit-foam Essential Box.

Tailwaters, the rivers below dams, have steady, cold flows and huge numbers of small insects and crustaceans. That makes for big, well-fed and very selective trout. Midges, Blue Wing Olives, sowbugs, scuds and mysis shrimp drive the menu, and this box covers each from larva and pupa to emerger and adult, with many patterns from Colorado tyers such as Charlie Craven, Pat Dorsey and John Barr.

How to Fish It

• Two-fly nymph rig: fish a sowbug, mysis or larger midge as the top fly with a tiny midge or RS2 trailing 12 to 18 inches below, under a small indicator.
• Fine tippet: 6X and 7X fluorocarbon is standard on clear tailwaters.
• Follow the hatch: switch to emergers and dries such as the Film Critic, Griffith's Gnat and Trailing Shuck Midge when fish start rising.
• Fish all year: midges hatch through the winter, so tailwaters fish well when freestone rivers are frozen or blown out.

Choosing Color and Size

Each box holds two each of Trailing Shuck Midge Dark, Griffith's Gnat, Blue Wing Olive, Quigley's Film Critic BWO, Sparkle Wing RS2 Tungsten Gray, Craven's Mole Fly Brown, Dorsey's Mercury Black Beauty, Craven's Juju Baetis, Craven's Jujubee Midge Olive, Barr's Flashback Emerger BWO, Dorsey's Top Secret Midge Brown, Palm's Biot Midge Emerger Black, Egan's Tailwater Sowbug Rainbow, Egan's Tungsten Rainbow Warrior, Buckskin Caddis, Craven's Two Bit Midge Red and Sand's Epoxy Mysis Shrimp. Umpqua notes contents may vary with availability.

Want deeper stocks and more patterns? The Tailwater Master assortment carries 78 flies.