The warming rays of the late morning sun pierce the puffy clouds above the Yuba River, burning away the early chill on this February day. It feels good. It’s a good time to be on the river, too — it’s the beginning of the Skwala stonefly hatch. Last night they crawled out from their homes under stones in the river in search of dry land to split open their backs, wiggle free of their old skin, emerge, mate and perpetuate the species. Female stoneflies now flutter down onto the flowing waters into which they will release their eggs while rainbow trout lurk beneath the surface, hoping to make a meal.
I pull a small fly box from my pocket, open it, and scrutinize the varied Skwala patterns in neat rows of foam. There are many variations, some mine, others tied by friends alive or gone, often with little tweaks in design born from trial and error. Some are elaborate, with eyes, antennae, and egg sacs (like the fly above to the left), while others are quite simple — a dubbed body and a sparse wing tied from deer hair.
Looking over this array of possibilities, I notice one feature common to almost all good Skwala patterns. They are tied with a wing design that floats the fly low in the water, allowing the body to press down into the meniscus. That is how the naturals look on the water.
I choose a simple pattern that I have used for years. It is tied on a 2X-long down-eye hook, size 10, and is pictured above, to the right. Here’s how to tie it.
Two dark goose biots form the forked tail, like those on a Prince Nymph, tied in at the back of the shank. Be careful not to wrap around the bend. Select a size 16 dark brown or olive hackle and tie it in just in front of the bend. (If you don’t have a size 16 feather, feel free to use a larger size; you’ll be trimming it anyway.) Leave it for now. Choose yellowish olive dubbing and sparsely dub the thread (this is not a bushy fly), then wrap the dubbed thread forward three-quarters of the way up the shank and stop. Now wrap the feather forward to the end of the dubbed area, tie it off, and trim the excess as well as the hackle fibers. You have made the abdomen.
To add the deer hair wing, stack a small amount of black and light natural deer hair. Remove it from the stacker, trim it to length so that the tips extend back to the biot tail, and tie the butts down in front of the abdomen. Trim excess. For the thorax, select a size 10 grizzly or black hackle and secure it just in front of the abdomen. Leave it for now. Dub brighter yellow dubbing on the thread and wrap over the hackle butt from the front of the abdomen to the eye. Leave a little bare hook behind the eye. Grab the size 10 hackle and closely wind it through the thorax area, then tie it off behind the eye. Finally, take your scissors and trim short the lower part of the front hackle underneath the hook shank in the thorax area, leaving it be sticking out at the sides and the top. This allows the body of the fly to sink into the surface film.
There you have it — a truly straightforward pattern and a good foundation for years of tweaking to come. My simple fly in hand, I stalk quietly forward, pause, and make a cast upstream. . . .
— Andy Guibord
