2 Pack - “OG Canyon Fly”

This streamer is tied to the end of my fluro almost every time I fish jig streamers. It’s my confidence jig for any “picky” conditions. Bright sun, low water, spooky fish. It does it all.

Don’t let the simple name fool you! Originally designed for a certain Colorado canyon, this is my longest tested and tweaked pattern. Me and lots of my buddies fish it, and it didn’t have a name for forever. We all started calling it “the canyon fly” and so it stuck. It’s gone through many iterations, and I’ve landed on this one as the end result. There are a ton of similar patterns out there, and I think anyone that passionately ties flies ends up creating a vaguely similar pattern, but I find this one unique for a few reasons.

The original inspiration came in high school. I fished a pine squirrel leech on my indicator nymph rig almost every time I fished, and I wanted a similar fly that was much heavier that I could use to search water with a more streamer focused approach. An animated fly as opposed to a dead drifted fly. 

I slapped a big tungsten bead on a pine squirrel leech and found success immediately, but I wanted more from it. The “thorax” was initially spun pine squirrel, but I found it too bulky, which slightly reduced the contact I felt through my rod. I replaced the spun squirrel with hen CDL, and it fished great. For a while, this was the iteration I fished constantly.

My biggest “mistake” was one that isn’t even a mistake in many other patterns. I added flash. I fished it for 6 months or so, and was frustrated that I seemed to see less success even though I was making changes that should benefit the pattern overall. What I didn’t realize was that I had developed confidence in this fly for hard conditions, including bright sun and low water. The flash from the copper bead was plenty, and additional flash just seemed to turn off fish. So I ditched any flash that wasn’t the copper bead, and I quickly returned to the same results and confidence I was used to.

I switched from squirrel to micro rabbit because of the wider array of colors. I also feel that the longer fur helps the profile be less “squared” and more transitional.

3 years later I was attending BYU Idaho for college, and I figured I had the patten doing everything it should. I was doubtful that any change would benefit the fly, but I tried adding a single turn of long mallard flank behind the hen CDL. I was floored at how it increased the effectiveness of the pattern. I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems like the natural color breaks and barring in mallard flank have a unique fish catching ability. The single turn of mallard also breaks up the pattern and creates a unique profile, as well as providing contrast between the dark olive and hen CDL and the white and black mallard. Contrast is a property well known for creating fishy patterns. Because of the sparsity of the single turn, it doesn’t significantly increase water drag, and so the contact from fly to rod is maintained.

Since then, I’ve tried to add and subtract things, but have never found something that actually made the fly better. Rubber legs seemed to create a less constructed and uniform profile, and didn’t seem to catch more fish, as well as significantly increasing tying time. Any flash addition has failed for the reasons listed above. I’ve tried dubbing and simi seal collars, but the profile came at the expense of water drag and loss of contact, and quickly was ruled out as a productive change. I do add flash to a similar pattern for darker days and higher water, but for the original confidence pattern, I have concluded that additional flash is a mistake. 

Anyways, if you’ve read all this, you can probably gather that I’ve put a lot of thought into such a simple and plain pattern. But boy howdy does it produce results. Several of my largest browns have come on this fly, and I always reach for it when I need a fly I can fish hard without doubting. I can’t count the number of days that I’ve turned around with this bug.

The hook is a Ahrex FW551 in a size 6 or 8. Both create the same size fly. The bead is 5.5mm slotted tungsten. I find it to be the perfect weight and fly construction for 2-4 feet of water, and light to medium fly animation from the angler. It particularly excels when slowly moved across tail outs and slow boulder filled runs that hold winter browns. I use Loctite brush on glue to secure and increase the durability for each material used. These things last forever.

Thank you for the support! If you don’t decide to buy them from me, please tie some. I’m sure you’ll love the results this fly produces.

-Brighton