My latest fly tying video, Last Chance Emerger, was a “years in the making” solution to a challenge I had with a particularly amazing pool in an Idaho river. My wife and I camp and fish this stream annually, in the Bitterroot mountains. The pool is a classic even flow river, loaded with fine fish, and given its features and the shallow valley it runs through, it produces insect hatches throughout the summer. What could go wrong!
I’ve experienced this before in my years of fishing dry flies. I’ve found myself feverishly changing flies as trout surround me, waist deep, feeding on a fly I find difficult to match. It’s not that this experience is anything less than wonderful, and I eventually find a fly that works. These are usually midge hatches or Baetis (Blue Winged Olives). The challenge often relates to the coloration of BWO’s: they are not just blue and olive! And even if they are, the naturals can cause great selectivity with the local population of trout.
I was rarely stumped on this stretch of water, but given the close to constant feeding, I knew my offerings were not turning the trick. One year I had better results than normal fishing a fly by Rene’ Harrop, fly fishing legend on the Henry's Fork. The “Last Chance Cripple” had made my day (we usually only get one day to fish this particular stretch out of our ten day vacation).
Over the years I’ve developed many of my dry fly patterns around the work of Hans van Klinken, creator of the Klinkhammer Special. The Klinkhammer Special is tied on hooks with a deep bend to the barb and point of a hook, with a small flat front to the eye, where a parachute post and hackle create a fly noted for its ‘emerger’ posture in the water. The Klinkhammer Special is now tied in a wide variety of colors and sizes, and I've applied the method to many of my “traditional” patterns, the Adams and the Quill Gordon to name just two. So it made sense to me that the Last Chance Cripple might be redesigned as an emerger.
Our last trip to Idaho made my theory a fact. A designated day to drive upstream to “the pool” (we call it the meadow pool) gave me an opportunity, and the Last Chance Emerger worked as I had hoped! The fish were feeding sporadically. I tied on one of the many Last Chance Emerger flies I’d tied in various sizes, stepped carefully into the river and made an upstream cast to a soft “edge” near the middle of the pool. It wasn’t the first cast, maybe the second or third, and a nice trout rose deliberately and sipped my fly. I caught fish after fish that late morning and headed back to camp feeling very full of myself!
My video came about shortly after, though we had some challenges getting it posted. If you are not a film editor, and I’m not, it takes some communication with someone with that talent to achieve the result you seek. Enjoy the video, and tight lines!
Dry Fly Pro aka David Brenna.
Last Chance Emerger