Beneath the Surface: A Neoclassical Skwala

It’s February 2010, and my wife has just dropped me off in front of Nevada City Anglers. The inside of this small fly shop is very familiar. It’s where I bought my first fly rod and reel, my first waders, and who knows what else. But I have never been upstairs in the loft of the shop before. It hits me right away — I haven’t been up any stairs in the last couple of weeks. How is this going to work? I am here just ten days after a surgeon removed my prostate and the cancer it hosted.

I’m at the shop for my first fly-tying course. I’m excited to start this new chapter of my fly-fishing life, one that will deepen learning and possibly angling prowess. I also need something at this point in my life beyond the miracle surgery that may have saved my life.

Catheter and bag remain in place, camouflaged by baggy pants, as I successfully mount the stairs. I take a seat in the loft with a few novice fly tyers and the instructor, Ralph Wood. He is stern, for our own good, but it can be uncomfortable. He reminds me of the schoolmasters of yesteryear. I’m nervous.

Over successive nights, Ralph teaches us a variety of traditional patterns in order to introduce a range of tying techniques. As a disciplinarian, he drills in the lessons with incisive observations of our flies, critiquing proportions, tidiness, and durability.

Tonight, he’s teaching us an old pattern he simply calls the “Dry Stone Pattern.” It is a traditional hair and feather stonefly pattern adapted to match Skwala stoneflies on the lower Yuba River. We tie on the thread and the first element, a clump of peacock herl at the back of the hook, intended to represent the Skwala’s egg sack. Ralph watches us and then comments on one tyer’s fly, saying that its peacock herl cluster looks flat. It looks great to me. He walks by me, but I don’t have enough done yet to critique. I begin to sweat as I tie on the herl and move on to the yellow dubbing. I can feel the catheter bag swelling against my leg.

I gather the soft dubbing. My sweaty fingers cause it to clump together. And then I get dubbing wax on my fingers that begins to trap stray fibers. These wispy fibers mock my attempts to tame the dubbing clumps. My Skwala body begins to resemble the folds of a small intestine.

The next step is to tie on the deer hair wing.

I take a break for a drink of water and try to remember everything for which I am grateful. I stack the deer hair and place it on top of the hook behind the eye. I loop the thread once, loosely, then begin another loop. When Ralph voices a sharp critique of a tyer who sits across the table, my bobbin hand jerks, yanking down the thread, spinning the deer hair completely around the hook. I try to mash the hair back to the top of the hook, but it’s too late: the hair won’t be tamed. And I’m out of time. The flies must be turned in for examination. Not knowing what to do in these last 30 seconds, I decide to cut off the hairs underneath the body, but that step leaves a ragged, freakish head. All I can do now is whip finish the fly and hand it in. It looks like a cross between a squashed Skwala and a mashed minnow.

It’s my turn for evaluation. Ralph takes one look at my fly, smiles, and hands me a razor blade.

Weeks go by, and my catheter goes with them. As I heal, I tie more Dry Stones. Gradually, I’m able to keep my dubbing dry and proportional. I can tie the wing tightly on top of the body. The peacock herl still looks the same as it always has.

Healed, I tie up a flotilla of flies. They seem to work, and there is something beyond their function that I really like. I fish them and over the years continue to fish them, even when people I know start tying Skwala flies with foam and flash. Why am I so attached to the Dry Stone? Does it trace back to my first days of tying and my new chapter after cancer? Does it adhere to an affection for the exacting fly-tying master, the person who was willing to ruffle our feathers in order to be effective teaching us?


Fast-forward to February 2022.

Steven Bird is coming for a visit and a few days of fishing over the Yuba Skwala hatch. Steve is a guide and outdoor writer, described as a “neoclassicist” in a

California Fly Fisher interview some years back. He ties beautiful f lies, especially wet flies that, while modern, seem to recall an older time. His flies are built on proven traditional frames, but with materials not strictly limited to the traditional. They are both elegant and utilitarian. Steve calls them “bait.”

So now I’m thinking — wondering what to do with my Dry Stone Pattern. I start looking at natural Skwalas I find on the water, take pictures, and send Steve photos. He ties some f lies, and I see a compelling pattern in the photos he sends. The underbody is deer hair, dubbed over, and the wing is moose. It has rubber legs and pheasant tail antennae.

Later, Steve arrives to fish the Skwala hatch. He observes the natural bugs on the water and examines his own pattern on the water. He adjusts the design. He fishes more, returns to his home, makes more adjustments.

In the meantime, I am engaged in making Frankensteinian fabrications. With time, I see that I’m trying to rework the old Dry Stone using only fur and feathers — I withhold foam, rubber, and other modern materials in that effort. But I am frozen in time and haven’t progressed. Ralph himself developed subsequent versions of the Skwala.


Ultimately, I can’t go back to that first blush of learning, the fly shop loft, the strict master, the old materials, and the hidden catheter and bag. So much has happened since that time: the fly shop is closed and the master fly-tying instructor has died. I have lived. I feel immensely thankful for all of the friends and teachers in my life. I have benefited from the weekly fly-tying workshops offered by Tom Page prior to the pandemic at the “new” local fly shop, Reel Anglers in Grass Valley. I have also absorbed volumes from our local club, the Gold Country Fly Fishers, and its generous leaders, Clay Hash, Frank

Rinella, and many others.

I’ll always have esteem for my strict master, Ralph Wood. And now I have a new mentor, Steve Bird, who has created a new Skwala for the Yuba, one that has materials and heritage of the past, but through observation, reexamination, and tinkering is a new, fine-tuned design. It is among the best that we have had here, a fly more than worth tying and casting.

Bird’s Yuba Skwala

Materials

Hook: Daiichi 1280 dry fly, size 10

Thread: Yellow UNI 8/0

Underbody: Deer hair

Egg sack: Dark peacock herl

Tails: Two pheasant tail swords

Body: 50/50 blend of light-yellow dubbing and dark golden yellow Antron dubbing

Underwing: Hareline UV pearl ultraviolet Krystal Flash (white or clear would work)

Wing: Mixed gray/brown/black moose (or elk or deer)

Legs: Thin black rubber

Antennae: Two pheasant tail swords (black)

Foam tab: Small square of yellow foam over the thorax

Steve Bird’s Tying Notes

The body of Bird’s Yuba Skwala is a tad more complex than you might guess by looking at it, using hollow hair along the shank to enhance floatation. Steve says, “The hair underbody is built first, then the twin tails tied in (don’t forget the tails!), followed by the peacock herl egg sack and the dubbed overbody.” Here are Steve’s tips.

The underbody: “After winding the hook shank with thread to the bend, a small clump of deer or elk hair is tied in on top of the shank at the bend, with the tips protruding slightly beyond the end of the body, butts extending forward to behind the hook eye. Bring the thread forward with segmented wraps, then return it to the bend. This operation tends to move the hair around the shank.” (Ed. note: You can leave the tips unclipped for additional floatation.)

The egg sack: After adding the tails, “attach and wrap peacock herl at the bend, securing its tag end under the shank with a few wraps of thread before winding the dubbing. When wet, the herl shades through the dubbing to darken the belly, similar to the natural.”

The overbody: “Apply the dubbing to the thread and wrap forward to the eye. Though doing so crushes the hair underbody somewhat, it still provides floatation. The pattern floats best if dipped in a presoak floatant at the bench at least 24 hours prior to use.”

The wings: “The wings of the natural are semitransparent, so light should be able to pass through the hair wing — avoid building a shaving brush.”

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