I recently received an email about this fly, couldn’t find the recipe on this site, and thought I should remedy that. I featured Pat Torrey’s Tiny Blue Winged Olive soft-hackle in an old American Angler article called “Match Game: Matching the Hatch with Wet Flies.” You can read it here. This is a wet fly I like to fish as a dry, dusted with Frog’s Fanny, although it works subsurface as well. I first saw Pat’s fly on the UpCountry website many years ago, and it’s been a staple in my fly box ever since. (Hint: by changing the tail, body, and hackle color, the intrepid tyer can create a fine midge, Trico, or Needhami imitation.)
Hook: 1x fine curved emerger, size 20-26
Thread/Body: 8/0 dark brown
Tail: Brown or tan Antron
Rib: Fine copper wire
Hackle: Webby blue-grey dun hen
Don’t intend to hijack this post, but cool story is I bought a handful of these several years ago in the early fall at Upcountry. A week later I was fishing a local stream in Westchester County NY and saw similar bugs coming off the water but different size and color. This was THE fly I used as a model to tie my own interpretation of what I saw hatching. Went to the same spot the following week and saw the same bugs hatching in a few moments of sunlight hitting the water. Took a cast and caught my first fish on a fly that I had tied. Total game changer, and this was the pattern I used. Pretty much went to tying all my own flies after that. Easy tie and definitely effective. I’ve mostly fished as a dry too. Thanks for posting.
Good stuff, Peter. Not a hijack at all. If you haven’t already, check out Syl Nemes’ “Soft-Hackled Fly and Tiny Soft Hackles.” Lots of interest little beasties in there.
Why is it that the only place we hear about “Antron” now is fly tying? Are we stuck in 1971? Haha, (Seriously though: why Antron? I see it all over the place.)
Some questions cannot be answered.
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