A new confidence fly

I might be in midst of slicing my fingers open and burning myself on heat gun nozzles as I slowly learn the craft that is bamboo rod making, but I still found enough time to tie up a box of flies over the winter, and today was the day to put some of those new patterns to the test.

Opening day was cold, the water was fast and high, and no one was catching a thing. I gave up nymphing after an hour or so and switched to one of the new patterns I tried over the winter, and shortly thereafter, landed a big, beautiful brown on a day when no one else caught a thing.

A few weeks later and I hooked and landed a barbel that was over 24 inches on the same fly. (Something I only managed to do on one other occasion in the past few years.)

A solid 24 inches on my favorite streamer rod, the Epic 686.

That fly just earned a spot in the starting rotation, namely, The Complex Twist Bugger from the guys at Fly Fish Food. The name is a little misleading, it's not particularly complex. In fact it's riduculously easy. You can bang out a dozen in no time and fish them hard and close to structure, or share them with friends. They're endlessly modifiable according to whim and availability of materials. (I deviated a bit myself) And most importantly, they work.

Not a pretty fly to begin with, and even uglier when I tie it, but it's quick and it works.

I've never had a fly prove itself so quickly, especially on a day that was otherwise pretty dead. Confidence in a fly is invaluable, I'm sold.

A great video with tying instructions here at flyfishfood.com, they even sell the materials as well as the completed fly itself.