About once a year I sit down and tie up a handful of these flies.  Usually I end up with two and the friends I fish with are the beneficiaries of the remainder.  This is a true New Hampshire pattern which was originated by Bob Broad.  Bob ran the Brown Owl Tackle Shop in Errol, NH.  Most of what I have learned about this fly has come through my good friend Rick Estes.  I like to tell him that he ties this fly the best and each time I sit down I look at his to get mine just right.  

The fly is to be fished in the surface film, imitating a struggling adult stonefly which hatches in late June and July in the Errol area. This hatch occurs right at dark and beyond. It is also seen in the Connecticut River in Pittsburg, NH. My friend Chuck Cosseboom uses these on the Magalloway River with great success.  These stones are very large and I often make a few in size 4 and then in size 8.  

One of the common mistakes of this fly is to over dress it.  This often occurs if you use too much bucktail for the collar.  Additionally if you flare the bucktail too much it will end up in a less than desired result.  I tie my bucktail in on top of the last 3 wraps of the oval gold tinsel and then I touch the tread with varnish and lock the fibers in.  As the varnish sets I pinch the bucktail to get it to lie more parallel to the hook.  

​Over the years I've looked for the right color grizzly hackle for the fly and recently I found it in a Ewing Feather Birds Brown Grizzly Hen.  Years ago I remember standing on the dock of my grandfathers camp just below Bragg Bay on the Androscoggin River in Errol.  Just at dusk (and if you could handle the black flies) we would see trout take these stones floating in the surface film.  It's one of the essential NH patterns.....never go north without it.

Hook: Partridge 4-7x (you can tie these up to a size 4 but 6 and 8 are the most common)
THREAD: BROWN (6/0 DANVILLE #47)
BODY: Oval gold tinsel, 
Collar: Sparse yellow buck tail from the brown side of the tail near the rump end, extend the 
tips slightly beyond the bend of the hook 
Wing: Teal flank feather, tent style to slightly beyond the bend of the hook, (roll the teal in your fingers before tying it in)
Hackle: Soft brownish grizzly, originally wrapped like a collar and trimmed on top.
Head: Brown thread 

The Marlborough Fly Fishing Show is a little over a month away and it is always a great event.  ​https://flyfishingshow.com/marlborough-ma/  I'm excited to be a part of a great group of featured tyers who will be presenting at the show.  Great friends and tyers like Tim Flagler and Joe Cordeiro to name a few will be presenting as well.  If your attending the show please consider stopping by my table and or watching my presentation.  I'll be demonstrating some streamers that are not too difficult to tie and have been highly effective throughout New England.
​ Featured Fly Tiers:Friday
11:30 Alan Caolo – Tying the Versatile and Deadly Diablo Crab
1:00 Ed Engle – Tying Tricos
2:30 Tim Flagler – Tips, Techniques & Tools to Make Fly Tying Easier
4:00 Gary Borger – Universal Nymph Designs
Saturday
10:00 Scott Biron-The Versatile New England Streamer
11:30 Alan Caolo – The Timeless Deceiver
1:00 Ed Engle – Tying Blue-winged Olives
2:30 Joe Cordeiro- Techniques for Tying the Flatwing Fly
4:00 Bob Clouser – Clouser Crippled Diver
Sunday
10:30 Joe Cordeiro – Techniques for Tying the Flatwing Fly
11:45 Bob Clouser – Ostrich Added to Old Effective Patterns
1:00 Gary Borger – Unusual and Unique Hackling Techniques
2:15 Ed Engle – Tying Midges and Other Tiny Flies
Presentations subject to changes and additions.

Once again I will be offering a number of fly tying classes this year through NH Fish & Game.  Follow the information posted on this website under Classes.  These all fill up quickly and as of today we have classes through this year posted.  Look for both Intermediate and Beginner classes for 2019 soon.

I'm prepping for the American Fly Fishing Museum's on 8-11-18 in Manchester VT.  If you are in the area please stop by and say hello.  I'll have these fly plates and more on my table.  The first plate is an educational breakdown of how to tie a Babbs Ghost Streamer.  Always easier seeing the steps like that than just trying to explain it to people when they ask.  The second plate is of some great Ora Smith fly patterns.  The last image is of the Governor Aiken Fly, its the VT State Fly.

Each year I look forward to my week at Camp Barry on the grounds of the Berlin Fish Hatchery and each year the week shoots by so fast.  In a short period of time we teach the campers so much about fishing, both fly and bait, knots, fish identification, fish handling and much much more.  Every camper learns to tie flies and then uses their fly to fish with, often catching their first fish while fly fishing.  Its quite a neat thing to hear "today was a great day, I caught my first fish fly fishing on a fly I tied this morning".  Our days are long and its not unusual to be tying flies at 5am because we ran out of ones that were working the previous day.  

This year we were fishing one of the local ponds and we had a light cahill fly hatch followed about 60 minutes later by a dark dun fly hatch.  We used that entire sequence to educated the campers that were fly fishing with us at the time.  That night ended with all the instructors in head lamps while fishing on the pond. 

Two days are spent fishing the Androscoggin River below the Pontook Dam catching this year dozens of rainbows and browns.  For me the time on the Androscoggin allows me to relive many days of my youth fishing with my grandfather who owed one of the first camps on the base of Braggs Bay.  I  feel lucky to share what knowledge I have with the campers about fishing that river.

Camp wrapped up last Friday and we already have started planing for next year.  Areas we can improve, experiences we can expand on as we once again prepare for 2019 Fish Week as a Let's Go Fishing Volunteer for NH Fish and Game.  

The photo below is a classic, the camper missed a strike from a brown trout when he looked at the camera (you can see my reaction).  It became a teachable moment and he did not miss the next strike.

One of my friends is getting married next week and he asked me if I would make some brooch pins for his wedding party.  He had originally chosen the Grey Ghost streamer fly pattern but after deciding on gray suits changed his mind.  We tested out the Carrie Streamer pattern the Victory but finally he settled on the Black Ghost Custom.  This fly was Carrie Stevens rendering of the Herb Welch fly.  It was fun to tie and had its challenges.  First we did not get the hooks with the pins on until last week, so I was under the gun to get these done.  Second, I have made only a few brooch pins and they were done with Peggy Brenner, they were hair wing flies.  These have two posts on the far side of the hook.  Most have one post or a pin.  We needed the two posts because of the length of the hook shank to keep it from rotating on the jacket.  With two post the rib spacing got challenging as the posts were hand done and not exactly in the same spot on each hook.  The post closets to the eye crowded the far side wing, cheek and jungle cock which took some adjustment on each of the flies.  As with many of these the first one was a breeze, it was trying to get the rest to match that was the challenge.  They came out great, they were fun to do and I'm sure they will all look great wearing them on June 2, 2018.

I often get asked about fly tying shows.  Usually the shows are part of a larger fly fishing show, a state program on outdoors or something related to the sport of fishing.  The questions are always around the benefit of going.  My answer is the benefits are endless.  Typically these shows have great presentations on fly tying that you can learn a lot from.  The best aspect of these shows can be the interaction you have with individual tyers.  You can often observe them tying flies and ask questions getting valuable tips that you can use when you tie.  Specific questions I often get are on things like....how do you set your wings on streamer flies?.....how do you measure hackles? .....what is the best vise?  These questions go on and on.  For the new or the seasoned tyer your questions can get answered and its the personal touch that really can benefit those attending the show.  I think I've been to over 10 shows both small and large in the last 12 months.  They all have been excellent.  The interaction I get from the attendees often shapes my fly tying instruction as I make modifications to the classes I volunteer teach for NH Fish and Game.  A perfect example was last week someone asked me about measuring hackle on a fly.  Yesterday at the NH Fly Fishing Show I decided to teach the Deer Hair Alder fly I blogged about a few months ago.  It requires a hackle and can be tricky to size because you are tying in over a slight ramp made from the comparadun hair wing.  Before we tied the fly we attached our Whiting Farms hackle gages to out Regal Vise's and when it was hackle time we used them to size our hackles.  The class was intermediate tyers and very few of them had used this tool to size their hackle.  I was able to explain sizing hackle, downsizing hacks because of the ramp on the fly from the hair and some history on catskill dry fly hackle sizes.  All this came for someone asking me a question at a show.  Yes there are lots of benefits attending a show some instructional, some for the presenters themselves like me and some getting great deals shopping for materials and gear.

What seems like all too long ago I was working for a big hospital in Nashua, NH.  My role was to manage a number of medical facilities around the the southern part of the state.  Each week I could count on a trip through New Boston which resulted in a lunch time stop at the old Hunter's Fly Shop.  The crew at the shop always said they new what day it was when I showed up.  

On one visit I stood in front of a wall of fly capes trying to decide which one I could afford when no other than Dick Talleur was suddenly standing beside me.  He asked me what I was looking at and going to tie.  I explained I was trying to buy 2 half capes to tie some Adams patterns to use on the Androscoggin River and in the Errol area.  He said come over here and sat down and showed me a pattern he called the Dorato Hare's Ear.  He explained that it was named after a friend of his Bill Dorato and tied correctly imitated a caddis fly trying to exit the water.  He shared with me it had many of the same materials as an Adams but with a different wing and body.  Two things I remember from my lesson was the tail should be shorter than normal with a slight fanning and that you should clip the hackles on the bottom of the fly.  The clipping he said should not be excessive with the key to leave a gap and a half in length on the underside of the fly.  He explained it allowed the fly to sit lower in the water as if it was struggling to escape and fly away.

I learned a lot that day, got what materials I needed and thanked my friend Dick for the lesson.  For me the sharing of information was very important.  I remember that day quite clearly and the pattern always is in my fly box and one of my go to flies.  

 Dorato Hare's Ear
Hook: 12-16 Partridge Dry Fly Supreme
Thread: 6/0 Olive Danville 
Tail: Mixed Grizzly and Brown (short and fanning)
Wings: Wood Duck Flank
Body:  Medium Hare Ear Dubbing
Hackle: Dark Grizzly and Medium Brown