Low Rider Salmon Fly

Salmon Fly season may still be 8 months away but its never too early to start filling fly boxes. The Low Rider Salmon Fly is a frankenstein mashup of several different commercial patterns. While guiding down in Patagonia, some of my buddies and I took the characteristics that we thought crucial to good stonefly imitations and threw them all together, thus creating this masterpiece. We coined it the “Low Rider” because of the way the hook sits down in the film of the water surface, which is much more realistic to a real Salmon Fly struggling to take off and fly. (This is not a commercially trademarked pattern, just an effective imitation that my buddies and I came up with)

The Low Rider is a staple in my salmon fly box and comes into play as we get further into the Salmon Fly hatch. Later in the hatch cycle, the fish begin to get pickier and shy away from the traditional Chubby Chernobyl, thus creating a need for a fly that floats well, sits low in the water and looks like the real deal. One of the greatest features of this fly is that it is incredibly buoyant. Whether dry dropping with big stone fly nymphs or fishing to the bank in heavy water, the Low Rider stays high and dry, right in the sweet spot. I also tie the Low Rider in Golden Stone variations for that time where the fish are still looking for stones but have shifted off of the Salmon Flies. Play around with coloration and sizing to “match the hatch” on your local rivers.

Materials:

Hook - Tiempco TMC 5263 Sizes 4-8

Thread- 140 Veevus Black

Dubbing - Black and Pteronarcys

Foam - Brown and Orange 2mm

Wings - Black Deer Hair and Widows Web

Legs - Black Silicone Flutter Legs