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Dry Fly pioneers

Jesper Fohrmann — Sat, 17 Feb 2024 10:42:51 +0000

Dry Fly for Salmon Today: A Call for Revival

While some anglers currently pursue salmon with dry flies on rivers like the Dee, it remains a rare sight in Scotland, England, and across Europe. This is unfortunate because dry fly fishing offers unparalleled excitement and challenge.

Based on extensive experience fishing in rivers throughout Scotland and Scandinavia, I understand that dry fly fishing isn’t suitable for every river. However, it can be a viable option on many rivers, providing an alternative approach for anglers seeking new challenges.

Dry fly pioneers – Mr. George M. La Branche and Colonel Ambrose Monell was pioneers in the world of dry fly for salmon – Their fishing was done with bushy palmer-hackle flies, fished at dead drift over known salmon lies.

Discover the complete story of La Branche’s expedition to the Dee’s Carinton beat in 1925, as he ventured to test his bushy dry flies on the resident Carinton fish. Go to our page on the subject

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Bugs for Atlantic Salmon

Jesper Fohrmann — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 10:42:51 +0000

We wish to further the details on salmon bugs and give you some first-hand usage tips based on my experiences with them.

What are Salmon bugs?

Bugs are small miniature salmon flies, mostly made with a deer hair body, tied on # 8 – 12 single hooks. Either low-water salmon hooks with an up-eye or stronger down-eye trout fly hooks. It is a fly designed to be fished as a so-called dead-drifting fly on the surface. Just below the surface or across the river as a form of hitch/commotion fly, bugs may be fished below the surface as a traditional wet fly.

The Glitter Bug with a brown-orange hackle is the author’s favourite for green-tinted forest rivers.

Body like a segment of an insectThe deer-hair body on bug flies is often shaped like an insect thorax. (in entomology, the thorax is the middle section of an insect’s body, between the head and the abdomen, bearing the legs and wings.)

Deer hair and its enticing effect on salmon

It is the deer hair material in itself that makes flies like the Bomber and the Salmon Bugs so efficient. The buoyant deer hair gives the fly a particular posture or pose in the water, making the fly float or become more or less suspended when pulled under. The deer hair also has a general alluring effect on many fish.

What is within the deer hair that attracts fish has not yet been determined, but many fish species, among others, trout, do eat animals with fur. Read more about deer hair and its enticing effect on Atlantic salmon. Go to page

Orange Machine White Tail

A quality cock hackle.
Fluorescent tags.
Strong quality hooks. We use Kamazan B180, Partridge salmon hooks and VMC trout fly hooks.
Dimunitvie tails.
Deer hair body.

Less is more

A light body hackle could aid the fly in staying afloat or add to its overall pulsating and delicate looks when fished below or on the surface.

Many Bug patterns have distinct fluorescent tags, diminutive tails, and dito hackles related to other famous low-water wet flies like The Undertakers and the Black Bear flies.

On a broad scale, less fluorescent material used in fluorescent tags in green, yellow, or red is the way forward when tying flies for Atlantic salmon in low and clear water – and quite the opposite when building flies for high and dirty water.

Visit our shop at Fishmadman and see the many salmon Bugs we do

Bug and other tiny floating salmon flies

Mr Elmer Smith made the first bug salmon fly.

Using deer hair as body material in salmon and trout flies is a North American tradition deriving back to famed patterns like The Muddler Minnow and the Bombe series of flies. It is the venerable Reverent Elmer James Smith from New Brunswick in Canada, who, in the 1960s and 70s, initially tied the flies that we have come to know as salmon bugs. With the success of his famous salmon dry fly, the Bomber, the reverent designed a much smaller and sparsely dressed derivative of the Bomber pattern that came to be known as the Bucks Bug

Photo of the late Father Elmer James Smith, the exceptional salmon dry fly pattern designer. Image from Miramichi Salmon Museum – Doaktown, New Brunswick, Canada

See more on Bombers and their different style

The Carter Bug is another famous bug pattern from Canada designed autonomously by Mr Bill Carter from New Brunswick, Canada. The Carter Bug is typically tied with a brown hackle, but I have also had success with this fly tied with an orange hackle.

Was the Bucks Bug the first purposely tied salmon bug, or was it the Carter Bug?

The Carter Bug was designed at the same time as the Bucks Bug

In regards to the timeline of the design of the Bomber and the equally famous Bucks Bug, also attributed to Elmer Smith by, among others, Joseph Bates, it is known that other well-described and much earlier patterns like Rat Faced MacDougall and the great pattern the Irresistible (from the 50s) are deer hair body trout flies that most likely where used by anglers on both the East as the West coast of Canada to catch Atlantic salmon and steelhead on the surface long before intentionally made patterns like the Bucks Bug.

Likely, the Rev. Elmer Smith and Bill Carter (the designer of the Carter Bug) could have used such Irresistible or Rat-Faced MacDougall flies or, probably, a Muddler in their pursuit of salmon or trout, herby getting their inspiration to design their own deer-hair floating salmon flies.

If the Carter Bug or the Bucks Bug is the first salmon bug, it is still out for verdict. Based on what we know, both the Carter Bug and the Bucks Bug are of the very same period, so as we usually would write here on Fishmadman, we still try to get all the details of surface fly history in the correct chronological order. So, Fishmadman.com could also be described as an online fishing book with a historical chapter on flies that may change over time. Any knowledge that may help us on this task is, as always, welcome.

Here, the famed Glitter Bug originated by Canadian fly tier Danny Bird. The Glitter bug is a fine example of a fly formulated on another pattern. It is incorporated into a specific fishing purpose or river system.

It’s a genuinely excellent salmon bug for peaty water.

Glitter Bug in Scotland

A peat-colored Scottish river in October. Fish have seen 100s patterns over summer; in such conditions, a small natural brown Glitter Bug could work great when fished deep as a regular wet fly.

A bug for every river

Famous patterns for Atlantic Salmon are quite often found in many versions, and for a good reason: one fly may work great in one body of water, but another similar version may work better in the neighbouring river, something quite notable when you look at the good amount of bug variations found in fly boxes around the Northern Hemisphere.

The famous 1970s fly, the Green Machine, started as an offspring of the equally renowned Bucks Bug. They are tied with a body of bright green deer hair and a small green fluorescent tag. Some anglers may prefer a dark green body on their Green Machine, while others choose a pale olive body.

An equally popular version of the Green Machine is the Green Machine White Tail, with a more or less dense tail made from the hair from a white calf’s tail, often accompanied by a fluorescent red and green tag.

Bugs are a type of micro-Bombers

Bugs are, in a sense, micro-Bombers, and I also readily use them as such, greased up fishing them in pockets and seems where the salmon hold out on their way up the river. Some of these spots are often shallow pools where a fly like a regular # 8 – 4 Bomber won’t be in its element. Sometimes, even scaring fish. Here, the tiny bugs come in handy.

The Bomber may work significantly in fast runs and pools with 1 – 3 meters of water but less so in slow or shallow pools where a greased-up bug may be the perfect choice.

Shallow holding pool. Find Wally! I see at least eight salmon. See if you can spot them.

A bug fished just below the surface in a shallow pool

Salmon staying in shallow pools on their way upstream are easily intimated. It is like the fish are too aware of their exposed position, and a wrongly presented sub-surface fly may send them running. A salmon bug fished just below the surface may be the best solution. Fished drifting towards the fish is a great way to get a hook-up.

Hiding in slow pools

Salmon hiding out in a slow pool like those fish seen in the image above is not an uncommon site for anglers fishing for Atlantic salmon. They are typically uninterested fish, but if new salmon enter the pool or weather conditions change, some fish may wake up and grab your fly.

Retrieving the fly

A spot like this demands that you put some movement into your fly, and I think bugs are some of the best flies you can use in such a place. Tiny flies with deer hair bodies seem to have the right balance in the water column, allowing you to make a good stop-and-go presentation and letting the bug hang in the water column for a short while in between pulls.

Matching the hatch

You may also use small bug flies exclusively to hook up with salmon that have spend their summer in the river. Salmon that is starting to take colour. Who will jump when new fish enter its pool and occasionally rise to the trail of drifting insects. A salmon that needs you to be on your toes when presenting your fly.

You can often bring such fish to the surface to look at your bug, but sometimes, it needs more than a small floating fly to do the trick; from time to time, you must match the hatch and bring differently coloured bugs and small dry flies to the table. Most likely, it will be a small fly that resembles some of the aquatic life the fish may encounter through the long days of waiting.

Mini CDC Bomber White ‘n Grizzly Bug #14

see it in the shop

Mini CDC Bomber Brown n White Bug #14

See it in the shop

Mini CDC Bomber Brown Green Bug #14

see it in the shop

In the photo is a small stale salmon, one of my most memorable fish in 2023. After refusing my # 12 Green Glitter Bug several times (in the best trout manner possible), I suddenly saw what he had been looking for all afternoon when a bright sulphur mayfly left the surface and flew off for the sanctuary of the bushes. It never got that far as the salmon leapt free of the water and grabbed the insect mid-air.

It was a gratifying experience for a surface fishing nerd like yours truly. I quickly changed to a # 12 CDC Bomber in white and got an instant hook-up from a fish I had spent my afternoon trying to catch.

The Crimson But Bug. Yet another variation of the famous Bucks Bug. This pattern is a loved pattern for many anglers in Newfoundland.

A test project. In 2010, we did a short video on a bug project. We were tying a Green Machine bug on a tube.

Fishmadman Newsletter offers: Join our Newsletter and get a total discount.

Our Bug fly tier has created a series of prevalent bugs tied on up-eye salmon hooks, Kamazan and Osprey hooks, in sizes 8 -12, which we will offer at an exclusive Christmas price to our newsletter readers.

25 different bugs + 3 room plastic box + 2 spools of Umpqua Perform X HD

Price before discount $ 95.25

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The post Bugs for Atlantic Salmon first appeared on Fishmadman.com.

Salmon hitting dry fly

Jesper Fohrmann — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 22:17:43 +0000

The Take:

To the dry fly angler the core of dry fly fishing lies in the take. The enthralling and hypnotic experience of seeing a fish coming to the surface to hit the fly can`t be matched by much.

The salmon dry fly take

Some salmon will take the fly savagely wild and furiously fast; others will take their time, rise slowly, and finally suck the fly from the surface – Bigger salmon in the 10 – 15 kilo range will normally be slow starters. They will need a well-presented fly to allow them to work their way up to the surface. Working out the right tactic to use is very much a matter of experience, and the angler will need to consider river depth and river flow when presenting the fly. The eyesight of salmon is built to look for insects in a cone-shaped 96-degree window upwards – If it finds interest in your drifting fly, it will start its rise with precision so it cuts right into the path of the fly when it is above it lies…. These things aren’t always certain terms, and salmon will sometimes act in unpredictable ways – Some may follow the fly closely for many meters downstream before grabbing it – Some fish will jump high out of the water and then grab the fly from above.

Dry fly details

Read more on dry fly tactic

See our small film on a salmon missing the dry fly by millimetres – or maybe just pushing it away ?

The post Salmon hitting dry fly first appeared on Fishmadman.com.

Salmon dry fly

Jesper Fohrmann — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 08:59:31 +0000

On this special page we will be looking into – the technique of dead drifting dry flies for Atlantic salmon. We will try to show the history behind this most intriguing technique – To the right you will find our sidebar menu with links to further pages on the subject salmon dry fly – If you have any questions regarding this sport – please feel free to contact us through Fishmadman – or go to our shop to see if we are online so we can chat.

The ultimate quest: 100 cm (39.4 inches) of Atlantic salmon caught on a July day on a medium size Dark Green Tube Bomber – Leader 0.25 mm. Maxima (8 lb.) – Hook a small # 14 Owner St BC

What is salmon dry fly fishing? Fishing for salmon and steelhead on the surface is arguably one of the most exhilarating and thrilling sports for anglers. While the sport has seen a surge in popularity over the last six decades, it’s likely that anglers have been targeting steelhead and salmon on the surface since the inception of dry-fly fishing.

Specialized flies for this type of fishing have been meticulously tied for over a century. Typically, anglers will present their salmon dry flies by allowing them to drift undisturbed over known salmon lies—a technique known as dead-drifting. However, it’s important to note that this isn’t the definitive truth. Atlantic salmon, much like their cousins, the steelhead, can also be enticed by dry fly patterns moving on the surface.

Above: Pictured is a medium-sized Chartreuse Tube Bomber™, a favorite on the Norwegian salmon river Lakselv in the far north of Norway.

Danish salmon angler par excellence; Mr Henrik Mortensen with a bright dry fly salmon from the Bonaventure River – caught on a medium size Monster Tube Caddis ™

100 pages of top water fishing

On this and numerous other pages throughout the Fishmadman site, we aim to illuminate the core aspects of this sport by showcasing techniques, expertise, and the myriad captivating flies crafted for dry-fly fishing for salmon and steelhead.

This specific page on Fishmadman is dedicated to a dry-fly fishing technique with the rather somber name: dead-drifting. Rooted in trout fishing traditions, this method has proven to be remarkably effective for Atlantic salmon.

Right: The Monster Tube Caddis is a modern salmon dry fly tied on a tube – and designed to imitate the caddisfly insect that salmon and trout depend upon as food when they live as parr in the river system

More on this super dry fly

See page Monster Tube Caddis ™

44 inches (ca. 36 lb.) on Monster Tube Caddis. Angler Mr. Ian Martin

Salmon dry fly through a century

Salmon dry fly 1840’s

Mr. Wood was not the first Briton to recognize the potential of fishing for salmon on the surface. Descriptions of this technique can be traced back to early English fishing literature dating as far back as 1846.

One such example is found in the book “A Manual of Modern Farriery: A Popular and Practical Treatise on the Diseases of Horses and Other Domestic Animals… with a Sporting Section and UK Game Laws” by Thomas Brown, published by George Virtue around 1846.

Left: The accompanying plate displays a diverse selection of trout and salmon flies, while the text provides detailed instructions on fishing on the surface for salmon. These instructions could very well describe fishing with a salmon dry-fly, but they could also pertain to other techniques such as dibbling, dapping, or the Riffling Hitch method.

For further details and images, refer to A Manual of modern farriery

Major J.R Fraser’s salmon dry fly patterns 1909

The earliest documentation of salmon dry-fly fishing that we have encountered originates from England: Major J.R. Fraser’s salmon dry-fly series, listed in a 1909 Farlow and Co. catalogue, along with descriptions of his fishing techniques and recommended tackle. While there is limited information available about Major J.R. Fraser and his remarkable salmon dry-fly series, we do have an introduction provided by Mr. Fraser in the Farlow fishing tackle catalogue.

Left: It is widely acknowledged among angling historians that the British were likely the first to write about salmon on the dry fly. Although Canadian angler Mr. George M. La Branche is often credited as the first to describe salmon fishing with the dry fly, the technique’s origins are frequently attributed to UK anglers. The color plates featuring Fraser’s flies to the right are from a 1919 Farlow catalogue, but Farlow had the same series of flies and writings by Mr. Fraser in earlier catalogues dating back as far as 1909.

We received invaluable assistance with details on early salmon dry-fly fishing from the Farlow 1909 catalogue from a Nova Scotia angler. Mr Perry Munro

See the text and images from the 1919 Farlow catalogue

The Monell and La Branche Flies of the 1920s

Some of the earliest descriptions of salmon dry fly fishing in North America can be found in the 1924 book “The Salmon And The Dry Fly” by Mr. George M. La Branche. While La Branche was primarily known as an enthusiastic trout fisherman, he also shared a passion for fly-fishing for salmon, particularly alongside his friend and mentor, Colonel Ambrose Monell, on the clear waters of the Upsalquitch River in New Brunswick, Canada. Colonel Monell is credited as one of the pioneers in deliberately targeting Canadian Atlantic salmon with dry flies.

Above: Pictured is The Pink Lady Palmer, a salmon dry fly pattern designed by George M. La Branche.

La Branche visits the Dee –

In 1925, La Branche journeyed to the Dee in Scotland, invited by the renowned angler, Mr. A.H. Wood. Wood was intrigued to witness the application of the Canadian salmon dry fly technique on Dee salmon. Unfortunately, unfavorable weather conditions and a scarcity of fresh-running fish posed significant challenges for La Branche, who failed to land a salmon that week. Nonetheless, La Branche managed to entice approximately 20 fish to his salmon dry fly, with two of them hooked but ultimately lost. Undoubtedly, under better conditions, he would have found success in landing fish.

Right: Pictured are Ambrose & George, attired in what appears to be a 1920s sports-casual ensemble, ready for a day of sport. These anglers share the same passion for salmon dry fly fishing as you and I.

To learn more about these salmon adventures, visit: dry fly pioneers

One can only guess on how much different the world of salmon fishing would have looked had their been – fresh water and fish in the Aberdeenshire Dee that jinxed week in 1925..

An early unorthodox salmon dry fly from Allcock

A rather unconventional salmon dry fly, the Allcock’s Aquatic Spider, originating from British Allcock, dates back to 1938. Special acknowledgement for providing details on this fly goes to Finnish fly fishing historian and author Pertti Kanerva. According to Pertti, Allcock’s Aquatic Spider has been available in Finnish fly-fishing shops since the 1920s, offered in three sizes: 5, 10, and 12. Initially, the flies were packaged in a tin box but later transitioned to plastic packaging. Allcock discontinued the sale of this fly in the early 1970s.

To learn more about the Allcock Aquatic Spider, visit: here

The Wulff flies 1950

Another couple of decades came to pass when salmon dry fly yet again made the headlines.

With the book, The Atlantic Salmon – published in the late ’50s, author and famous angler Mr Lee Wulff made the salmon dry fly sport popular in North America. In his book, Lee Wulff presented a new line of dry flies named the Wulff series that he and fellow angler Mr Dan Bailey had designed. The flies were big bushy cartoon-like imitations of mayflies and was originally intended for trout fishing – but soon proven to be just the right dry flies for Atlantic salmon. The Wulff series was designed almost 50 years ago – but still today these flies are closely linked with everything concerning salmon dry fly

Tribute to Lee Wulff

Lee Wulff has greatly influenced the fly fishing sport as a whole and salmon dry fly fishing in particular. Without his dedication and profound insight into the world of the Atlantic salmon things like salmon conservation, fly fishing equipment and fishing techniques would have looked much different from what they do today – We recommend reading Lee Wulff’s book: The Atlantic Salmon

Right: A selection of original Lee Wulff Surface Stonefly as described in the 2nd edition of The Atlantic Salmon.

A salmon fly Lee Wulff produced with a cast resin body. Lee Wulff used this cast resin technique on other types of flies for salmon and trout and he even did a do-it-yourself kit for anglers wanting to try the cast resin technique on their own fly patterns.

100`s of flies

To the shop

The Bomber’s 1960

The Bomber dry fly was originally designed as a commotion fly for fishing in the headwaters of the Miramichi River in New Brunswick. It was a Mr Elmer Smith that allegedly tied the first Bomber – Initially, he intending the fly to be fished sub-surface he later thought it to be well suited as a salmon dry fly and had various versions of the fly made. Today the Bomber is the No. one salmon dry fly for most salmon anglers and it is tied in multiple colours and sizes.

The story goes: that Mr Smith got his inspiration to the Bomber fly after seeing a salmon rise to the cigar-butt he had just thrown in the river…

Bombers from all over the world - See how to style the Bomber pattern

Read our page on Bomber styling

The Bomber: Probably the most versatile salmon dry fly ever made. Here a bright summer fish caught on a white Tube Bomber ™

Fishmadman Tube dry flies 1990

White Tube Bomber ™ a favourite patter among many Scandinavian salmon anglers fishing clear rivers in Norway – made in 3 sizes it will cover the season and all kinds of rivers. See our flies in the E-Shop

In 1979, Lee Wulff discussed his experiments with dry flies and skaters tied on plastic tubes in his book “Lee Wulff on Flies.” Intrigued by the potential of crafting flies in sections, Wulff aimed to design flies of the appropriate size directly at the riverbank, eliminating the need to change hook sizes.

We at Fishmadman took the concept of tube dry flies further in 1995 by tying classical Bomber patterns and other salmon dry flies on extremely thin tubes. This innovative approach resulted in lightweight dry flies with significantly different hook-holding capabilities than traditional salmon dry flies. We achieved superior hooking abilities by fitting our flies with small, wide-gape hooks without adding considerable weight. Our inaugural tube salmon dry fly, the Tube Bomber™, was designed explicitly for fast-flowing waters of large rivers—a substantial, over 2-inch dry fly that would have been excessively heavy if tied on single hooks.

How to make them

See how to tie the Tube Bomber

Bombers made for wake-fishing

Left: Most of our Tube Bombers ™ are designed to be fished at dead drift – but we also do a range of Bomber’s tied to be fished as wake flies. Here the Aqua Bomber – especially styled for steelhead rivers like the Babine and Kispiox

See it in our shop

The Monster Tube Caddis salmon fly

In the 90’s we also made an imitation of a caddisfly found in great numbers at the rivers we fish in Northern Norway. The Monster Tube Caddis ™ is also tied on our thin hard tube – A salmon dry fly with a fantastic ability to pull big salmon to the top – A must have… in the fly box of any modern salmon angler.

Read about the Monster Tube Caddis in Norwegian

See our page on wake fly patterns

Wake flies for steelhead

Salmon micro bug flies

Salmon dry flies tend to be larger than typical insect imitations tied to trout-anglers fly lines along riverbanks. Despite this, anadromous species like Atlantic Salmon, Arctic Char, Sea-run Brown Trout, and steelhead are often drawn to substantial, bulky patterns such as the Bomber and Monster Tube Caddis. However, it’s important to note that bigger isn’t always better, and anglers should also carry selections of smaller dry flies. These may include regular trout and grayling patterns that closely match the insect life in a particular river or season. Additionally, anglers may succeed with specialized bug-flies explicitly designed for salmon and steelhead fishing over time.

Above the Crimson Butt Bug – A favoured pattern among Atlantic Salmon anglers on Newfoundland.

Right: a Micro Bomber with wings and tail of CDC – One of my favourite flies for finicky salmon in warm low summer water.

A Fishmadman blog page

See special blog page on fishing with bugs

The right bugs from our shop

See our super selection of Micro Bugs

Positioning the dry fly correctly – is a great part of the success of dry fly fishing

An integral aspect of salmon dry fly fishing is precise fly positioning. Just like with wet fly fishing, anglers depend on the salmon to rise and intercept the fly as it drifts by the spot where the salmon is holding. Rarely will a salmon move far from its lie to take the fly, emphasizing the importance of accurate placement. To delve deeper into this topic, we’ve collaborated with a skilled 3-D animator to create a film illustrating the dynamics of fly positioning. Additionally, our newsletter offers in-depth insights into fly positioning techniques and explores the concept of Snell’s Window.

Take a look here

The dynamics behind dead-drifting dry flies

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