This is a stupid hobby.

There's a story with that.

Last year, it was all about the Usual. Shit, I blarged it and everything.

This year, I can't buy a fucking bite with it. At least not the sulphur variant. The grey fox or whatever version worked like gangbusters, but no bueno this year.

So, it was time to figure shit out. In so much as I decry assholes who speak Latin, there's a time and a place to have a vague idea of what's going on, and since it affected me, now was that time and place. Fortunatly, I had said vague clue, and I knew that sulphurs supposedly languished in emerger stage for a bit, and thus emergers will be effective.

So, a sulphur emerger pattern.

Googlating shit up turns up a few basic themes, and countless variants of them, both wet and dry. So there's a starting point, then it was just applying a little of what I've figured out to make it effective and interesting and "mine."

Now I can give it some sort of bullshit name and claim I invented it despite the fact that some greybeard has been fishing this exact same thing for the last 40 years and never thought it needed a name when "my sulphur emerger" was plenty fuckin' effective, and why waste letters there's war going on and we don't want Hitler to win.

Not my picture, from Troutnut.com

I've got my effective wet fly version, the yellow pennell. So, its somethign that floats in the film, and shit, maybe I can make it drownable and be all versatile.

So, drawing board. And, stuff. My stuff. Stuff I like.

Or, stuff I don't like. I don't like CDC. So fuck you and your CDC. Yes, I know, its the greatest goddamned shit evar invented. It rescues kittens from trees, catches fish, and gives blood. I don't care. I reject your CDC because its what hipsters, or whatever the fuck I am, do. So, CDC is out. Snowshoe is in. I'm pretty sure snowshoe is gonna be the next CDC and when that happens I'll have to reject it and pick something new (looking at you, artic fox).

Heavily used, fish and fingers. 

The form is pretty generic, and no different than anyone else's, use a curved hook with something brown on the back, and yellow at teh front, right? Turkey, pheasant, quill, any of these are certainly legitimate, but I'm pretty sure I can do better. For that, its a history lesson.

When you tie a silk bodied fly, when you saturate the body, the colour of the thread will change, usually getting darker as it also gets somewhat translucent, letting the colour of the hook come through. Modern floss bodies do teh same thing, but it becomes even more dramatic, and that's why you tie floss onto a base of white thread (right?). The concept is even the same with the Usual, which is why Fran Betters used orange thread for his sulphur version.

When wet, thread bleeds through.

And, with all of that said, fuck using pheasant tail, every dickhole uses pheasant, I wanted something that I could fucking go on and on and GODDAMNED ON about how smart I am when it turns translucent and, well, floss.

Also, whomever invented four strand floss? Fuck you. There's a special place in hell next to the assholes who keep foisting these shitty hackle pliers on me.

So, then, there's my secret. Brown floss, orange thread. Get it wet and what happens? Fuck yeah if it doesn't get a translucent, shimmery orange underglow, and goddamn if it doesn't look fuckin' sweet on a hook.

So, with that, its just a few other simple items:



The best fur is from where its split open.



• Orange thread.
• Curved hook (ie, caddis/scud).
• Brown antron (trailing shuck).
• Brown rayon floss (nymphal bit).
• Copper wire (ribbing).
• Cream snowshoe (wing).
• Appropriate dubbing (I like Superfine, or the bits of rabbit you didn't use in the wing).

The orange will show through the cream dubbed body, as well, which I like. As a friend asked me, "you always seem to like orange." He's right. That's why. Looks rad when it bleeds through. One thing I do suggest is the fur at the back of the toes is the best I've found for htis, its straight, somewhat curved, and not too long and whispy.

You can fish in the film, the floss'll saturate and keep it riding perfectly into the film, and a few false casts'll dry the wing right out. You can soak it down and fish it under the water. Its pretty damned novel, which is nothing you don't know already.

Did you know someone once manufactured silk flies with a special oil you applied to them to make them go translucent? Floss is rad. More people should use it. Its why I tie my yellow pennells over orange, too, so it bleeds right through.

Fuck, the only thing that makes it special is that its designed around the idea that hte underthread colour will bleed through, and that's that. Well, and I get to name it, because that's what all the cool kids do with shit that's already been done before.