When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be like two of my idols, Anthony Kiedis, the singer of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Gary LaFontaine, the author of scintillating books such as Caddisflies and The Dry Fly, New Angles. As I’ve grown older, I’ve realized that maybe I’m not fit to be the frontman of California’s famed funk rock group, but as I’ve become an adult in the fly-fishing industry who designs and sells flies, the teachings of Gary LaFontaine still bounce around in my head every time I sit down at the vise.
Fly design is a funny thing. In one aspect, you strive to tie something aesthetically pleasing and artistically fulfilling, but you also need the fly to act like or imitate something a fish eats. Merge the two, and you’ve got a fish-catching machine on your hands. The truth is, most anglers don’t have faith in ugly-looking flies, me included. I have a hard time putting on a fly that doesn’t match my beauty standards, which may keep me from fishing the best fly in existence while it hides in my “ugly flies” pile, but the reality of fly design is that they have to capture the angler first. A fly you don’t believe in is a fly you’re generally not fishing well.
So how do you make a fly that is pretty, but actually catches fish? I tend to prioritize profile and action first. Even when you’re fishing an attractor pattern, I want the profile and the action to remind the fish of something natural that they would eat normally. Size is also important, not only to match the forage, but also to target specific individuals in a group of fish, such as big bass that only feed once a day on a trout. The last thing that I consider from the fish’s perspective is color, although from an angler’s perspective, color can often be the first thing people discuss. That’s not to say color isn’t important — it can make a world of difference — but I often think it has more of an effect on us than on the fish. You can get away with a fly with the wrong color but the right action, but a fly in the color of a shad with a crayfish profile will probably not do as well as a fly of any color and the profile of a shad.
The Central Coast fisheries where I guide and fish for most of the year are interesting in a lot of ways, especially in the sense that I get to play around with fly patterns in order to be successful on the water. Whether it’s relatively simple fly designs for carp or elaborate bass flies designed to imitate a large variety and size of prey, I am constantly trying out new ideas to solve the problems I run into while fishing. Fly tying and fly fishing are intrinsically linked in my mind, and part of the fun of fishing every day is thinking about tweaks that will make your flies swim slightly differently or otherwise attract fish you weren’t able to catch before. Flies are in a constant state of evolution, just as an angler should be, getting better and better with experience.
Bass Flies
All species of bass are predatory animals, and on the Central Coast, we have a variety of bass to chase. While the predominant species is the good old classic bucketmouth, the largemouth, we also have fisheries for spotted bass, white bass, smallmouth bass, and striped bass. In fact, California’s only white bass fishery is located on the Central Coast at Lake Nacimiento. The variety of bass species in the area constantly forces you to adapt fly patterns to suit different species, based on the structure each species prefers, how they hunt their prey, and where they live. While there are certainly patterns that work fantastically well for all bass (Clousers, Deceivers, Muddlers), slightly tweaking your fly patterns to suit the type of bass you’re chasing can pay dividends.
Take largemouth bass, for starters. These are short and stout fish, perfectly designed by nature to be killer ambush predators. Largemouths generally tend to lie in wait tight to structure such as downed trees or submerged rock piles and under aquatic vegetation. Most of the time when you are targeting this species, your casts need to be tight to the structure and vegetation. In other words, you are casting as close as you can to snags. Fishing a fly designed to be weedless will help prevent the heartache that comes from losing a fly you spent hours tying or a lot of money on.

So how do you go about making a fly weedless? The classic way is to take a short, three-to-four-inch section of hard mono, bend it in the middle, and glue it like a mustache just behind the eye of the hook. Another popular method is tying in the mono at the back of the fly first, before tying the fly, then, right before finishing the fly, coiling the mono under the hook and tying it in at the eye. Neither of these do much of anything to make the fly snag-free, in my opinion, and I won’t discuss them further.
Much better options include using worm-style hooks, which have a flat section right behind the eye where you can tie your fly. The hook bend aligns the hook point with the eye, and the belly of the hook sits underneath the fly. This keeps the hook point on top, and the way it sits in line with the eye allows you to tie in material in a manner that protects the hook from catching snags. The simplest way to do this is to puncture a rabbit strip past the barb, then tie it in at the flat section behind the eye, making for a simple Zonker-strip leech/worm pattern or a quick and easy baitfish pattern. If you need more space on the hook to tie a more elaborate pattern, you can add a shank or a tube to the front of the hook and build the main body of the fly there, with the worm hook acting almost as a weedless trailer hook. An alternative is to use a hook specifically designed for weedless fly patterns, such as the Ahrex PR378 GB Predator Swim Bait hook. All bass species like to eat crayfish, and my general approach to crayfish flies is to keep them simple while still imitating their general profile. If I’m spending more than 10 to 15 minutes on a crayfish fly, it’s too much. You’re fishing these flies on or near the bottom, and in our lakes, that can be anywhere from 5 to 30 feet down, which means these are flies you are going to lose. When fishing that deep, I prefer not to tie them in a weedless style, because the sinking line’s disconnect between you and the fly often makes it hard to hook fish that have time to feel the monofilament and spit the fly out. I keep my deep flies simple with a jig hook, dumbbell eyes, a tuft of dubbing in the back, rabbit strip claws, a dubbing brush body, and a lot of rubber legs, either at the back of the fly by the claws or like a skirt at the head of the fly. If I’m fishing crayfish flies in shallower water, making them weedless with the same techniques as mentioned above is no issue. Only when fishing really deep do I stay away from tying them in that style, for a better hookup ratio.
Moving away from weedless flies, we get into flies for striped, spotted, and white bass. These are fish that tend to chase baitfish in open water, which largemouth bass will do, as well. With some exceptions, for largemouths, I tend to fish my flies more slowly, with more pauses, which presents some interesting design challenges. When fishing a fly fast, a jigging action or vertical action can be quite useful, whereas when you’re fishing a baitfish fly slowly or with a lot of longer pauses, your enemy becomes the vertical drop. Most of my baitfish flies for largemouths tend to be suspending flies with very little up-and-down action and instead have a side-to-side swimming action.

Air bladders in fish keep them relatively level in the water column, even when the fish is injured, which is part of what makes a suspending fly so deadly, especially in lakes and slow-moving rivers, where getting the fly down fast is not important. There are many ways to go about suspending your flies, but the best ways tend to be the simplest. Tying flies with naturally buoyant materials is by far the easiest way to make a suspending or very slow-sinking fly. Materials such as bucktail, deer belly hair, faux Zonker strips, and foam strips are all easy to incorporate into most fly patterns to help slow down the fall of the fly and make it suspend when stopped. Some of my favorite flies to incorporate these materials are Bulkhead Hollow Flyes, Beast Flyes, faux Zonker strip leech imitations, Game Changers, and the Drunk and Disorderly.
Another of my favorite ways to make a fly suspend, especially with Game Changers, is to put a layer of silicon glue over the head of the fly. I use GE Advanced Silicone Adhesive, but a variety of brands will work — just make sure it is clear. Putting silicone over a bulky fly head, such as a wool head, trimmed dubbing brush, or any material that has air between the fibers, traps the air underneath the glue and thus increases the overall buoyancy of the fly. When applying silicone to a fly, I generally finish the fly as I normally would, trim the head to the shape I want, then get a little dish with water and a drop of dish soap. I dip my fingers in this soapy mixture to help keep the silicone from sticking to them while I shape it over the head of the fly. I start with just a small drop of silicone — a little goes a long way, and the amount will vary based on how big the fly is — but start with less than you think you need. Then use your moistened soapy fingers to shape the silicone over the head and the eyes, if used. I generally cover the area from the eye of the hook to behind the eyes, about to where the gill plate of the baitfish would be. Silicone takes 24 hours to dry completely, so make sure to plan ahead when tying flies like this and don’t just sit down at the vise an hour before you’re going fishing. The great thing about silicone heads is that they will extend the life of the fly, because the silicone protects the tie-in points at the head. The silicone also blocks water from going through the fibers, making the fly push more water and giving it a great side-to-side action when the fly is paused with some slack.
A note on color: in clear water, I tend to keep my flies close to the natural colors of the forage. When that’s shad, it’s white and silver with flash, and when the bass are focused on bluegills or other bass I use olives, greens, and hues of blue. When the water is muddier and I’m fishing deep, I go for darker colors, such as black or purple. However, when it’s muddy or off-color and I’m fishing near the surface, where there is still a decent penetration by the sun, I tend to go for the whitest white, and if I’m using flash, I mask it lightly with the white material I am using. White reflects a lot of light, and when fishing in stained water, you can see a sort of halo of reflected light around a white fly. It’s the same reason why conventional-tackle bass anglers use the “bone” color a lot when the water is not clear — the reflection on the water surrounding the fly is what draws the fish in. For whatever reason, when you put flash on the outside of a white fly, it doesn’t light up the water the same way as when using straight-up white colors on the outside. I’m no scientist, but my eyes can see the difference.

Where possible, I prefer to control the depth of the fly with the fly line and leader length, rather than by weighting the fly. Unless I need a jigging action, such as with a crayfish fly, or when I need the fly to drop down fast, such as with a Clouser or sculpin streamer in heavy current, I prefer to make my flies as close to weightless as possible. For lakes, 90 percent of my fishing is with an intermediate line, and if I need to get down a bit more, I’ll just wait to let the line sink. That way, I am able to control the depth at which the fly sits and keep it at relatively the same level in the water column.
Carp Flies
For carp, fly design is a bit simpler, because you generally target them in shallow water, on the surface, or just under the surface. Also, the food items they eat tend to be smaller. On the Central Coast, our carp usually feed on clams, leeches, worms, dragonfly and damsel-fly nymphs, algae clumps, and midges. Flies to imitate these food items are generally size 4 to 10, size 8 being my go-to for most of the year. In the fall, I tend to go smaller, because the fish are often a little spookier, and in the winter, when the water is muddy, I go a bit bigger and bulkier.
As designs go, clams provide an interesting challenge to the fly tyer. Because clams don’t move much, most of work of imitation is done by replicating the profile of a clam when they are most vulnerable to being eaten by a carp, which is when they have their feeding tubes out and the shell partially open. When danger approaches, clams dart back down into the mud or sand, where they hide. One of the best ways to imitate this is by using bead chain or dumbbell eyes, depending on the depth of water being fished, and a soft-hackle-style hackle tied in right behind the eyes. Imitating the feeding tube can be done by using a piece of chenille tied in like a worm tail or by using foam discs punched out with a hole puncher and threaded through with a needle and a section of thread tied off in a knot at the end. Threading together different colors of foam “hole” discs — six to seven “holes” tends to be the sweet spot — allows you to make a tail that lifts up off the bottom and is very enticing to a carp. This style of tail was first used in a worm-style pattern by Trevor “McTage” Tanner called the Trouser Worm, and then used in a clam pattern designed by Glenn Ueda of Southern California called the Loco Moco. Both flies are deadly, and that lifted tail off the bottom is particularly attractive for carp feeding on clams and worms.

Another great way to imitate clams is to tie them with your choice of a tail and dumbbell or bead chain eyes, but with a body tied in the Merkin style, made by tying in clumps of EP Fibers in tan or gray from the tail to the eyes, then trimming them to the shape of a clam. The smaller profiles seem to work best in our area, and I start trimming from the eyes, slightly bulging out in the middle of the body, then tapering back down to the tail. This style is great when the fish are on sandy bottoms and in clear water, because it’s a better imitation of the look of a clam. In muddier waters or on darker bottoms, the soft-hackle-style clam patterns tend to work better.
A fun “hatch” that you often encounter with carp in both still waters and rivers is when they feed on scuds, leeches, and sowbugs. I’ve noticed in the past few seasons that when the water is colder, in January through early March, carp key in on these juicy morsels in the shallows, especially around flooded debris following big rain events. In these situations, I like to fish a generalist imitation of all of the above in sizes from 4 to 12 and colors ranging from black, brown, and tan to olive, green, and purple. Scuds, sowbugs, and leeches move quite similarly in the water, and a great starting point for imitating these movements is a fly called the Bellycrawl by Jay Zimmerman, who literally wrote the book on flies for carp. This is a simple scud-style imitation with a marabou tail and rubber legs — a killer pattern. When he ties this fly, he uses a tungsten scud body weight, which makes the fly sink hook up, scud-back down. I prefer instead to wrap a hook shank with lead and use a foam back to keep the scud top side up as it sinks. This makes for killer action — it kind of wiggles on the fall, and I fish it in the traditional “drag-anddrop” method of casting past the fish, dragging the fly in the surface film until it’s in the path of the feeding carp, then letting the fly flutter back down. But due to how this forage item moves, you can also gently strip this fly into the path of a feeding carp, letting the fly pause for a while between strips, and often the carp will chase this fly way more aggressively than most other flies.
Leeches are probably the simplest style of fly you can tie, and regardless of what species you fish for in fresh water, leeches are always effective. For carp, I tie them with bead chain eyes in lakes and slow-moving rivers and use dumbbells only when fishing in heavier current and I need to get the fly down fast. You might notice a pattern with my preferences with flies — I don’t like them to sink too fast. For the body of the leeches, I prefer a buggy dubbing with micro rubber legs mixed in. You can make this yourself or buy it. Most dubbing manufacturers sell some sort of carpy-buggy-leggy type of dubbing, probably with one of those names. I take this dubbing, throw it into a dubbing loop, wrap the body until I get to right behind the eyes, take a similar color of Antron and dub the thread, then wrap it around the eyes and whip finish. The result is one of the simplest, most durable, and fishiest flies you can tie. I would estimate that in any given month, at least a third of the carp I catch are on some style of leech pattern.

A unique phenomenon with carp, which I don’t run into with other fish species, is that these fish key in on algae clumps as various blooms of algae come and go from the spring through the fall, like hatches in a trout stream. You might go to Montana for the Salmonfly hatch, but you come to California for the algae hatch. Imitating algae isn’t complicated — my main flies are all composed of one or two materials and look more like scruffy egg patterns than beautiful mayfly imitations, but there are more things to consider in the design of algae f lies beyond “Make it look green.” The fish will often get picky about the color of the algae. When it’s bright green, don’t fish a tan fly and vice versa. Algae also mostly floats or hovers just under the surface, so I often incorporate a piece of foam in the fly to slow down the sink rate. Usually in the clump flies that look like egg patterns, I add a long strip of similarly colored foam that I trim on the water, based on how the fish are feeding. Just as on a trout stream, picking out which fish are feeding on the surface and which are feeding just under the surface is vitally important. Being able to make the algae fly float on top of the surface or just underneath can make all the difference.
Tying It All Together
Fly tying doesn’t have to be the most complicated thing in the world, and it should be fun. I think that just as with cooking, sticking to every word of a recipe is not the best way to approach tying a fly. Make it a goal to adapt patterns to your waters, your fisheries. Keep in mind some simple principles of fly design, such as how different materials and tying techniques will affect a fly’s movement and behavior in the water, but the rest is up to you. I often find people get too caught up in the specifics of exactly how to tie in a certain material or the exact lengths of the parts of a fly or other specifications — things the fish really don’t care about. Match the forage, add your flair, and have fun with it. Fly tying is about tying flies you like and will fish with confidence as much as it is a way of getting an aquatic animal to eat a hook with a strange fashion sense.