I am a simple guy. I like flies that are simple to tie and that catch tons of fish. That’s the WD-40. This fly is one of the biggest producers of trout for me in tailwaters and in still water. It imitates a hatching midge and or small mayfly to a T.
Years ago, I had the pleasure of having a conversation with the designer of this fly. We met at a fly-fishing show in Salt Lake City, one of the Fly Tackle Dealer shows back in the day. I owned Saltwater Innovations then, a fly company that produced all kinds of saltwater flies. I still tie some of them for my favorite shops around the county. The man I had a conversation with was Mark Engler. He was in my booth, looking at our saltwater flies and other products we produced for saltwater fly fishers. He picked a fly from its cork and said, “That is my kind of fly.” It was a Christmas Island Bonefish Charlie that was simply constructed with a hook, bead chain eyes, thread, Bob Borden’s Krystal Flash, and some V-Rib. We talked about an hour or so about fly tying, tying materials, and the ins and outs of finding a simple, but effective fly.
A couple of years later, I was guiding on the lower Sacramento River. A guest (that is what I call my fly-fishing clients) had just returned from the San Juan River in New Mexico. He was telling me about this fly that his guide had tied on for him to use. He said it basically looked like a couple of feather fibers with some dubbing by the eye. He couldn’t believe how effective it was. After our trip that day, back at the launch area, after we did the evening shuttle, he pulled some of them out of his fly box and gave a couple to me. They were tied on a small, standard-length nymph hook with feather fibers as the tail, thread for the body, and dubbing for the thorax. The wing case was made out of the tail material’s butt ends. We shook hands, and off I went. I threw them in my fly box later that evening and then forgot about them.
A couple of months later, I was again guiding some guests on the lower Sacramento. The day was tough. I had good sticks on the boat. The wind was slight, it wasn’t a hot day, but the fishing was terrible. We had landed just a handful of fish. We stopped in the shade of a large oak for a drink of water, and I told the guys, “I’m going to change the flies.” At this point, it certainly wasn’t going to hurt. I looked through my box and came across the flies from the San Juan River. I tied them on, off we went drifting, and within thirty minutes or so, we had brought over a dozen fish to the boat.
I went home that night and tied a couple dozen of the pattern in two different colors, olive and black — they had earned a spot in my box. I also emailed the gentlemen I fished with who gave me the flies. I told him the fly was working great on the lower Sacramento and asked him for more information. His reply was vague. He didn’t know the name of it, but he gave me the name of his guide on the San Juan. I contacted the guide, and he told me the fly was called the WD40 and Mark Engler had designed it. I flashed on the conversation I’d had with Mark years earlier, laughed, and said, “That makes perfect sense.”
Since then, I have expanded my WD40 pattern collection. I tie them in seven different colors and six different sizes. They’re a mainstay in my both my tailwater and stillwater boxes. They need to be in yours. This fly is one of my meat-and-potatoes patterns, because it works and is fast to tie.
For Tailwaters
Eight or nine years ago, I was guiding a guest on Putah Creek. I had never used the WD-40 on Putah before, but I was once again in a bind and needed a miracle fly. Even the old Peaches and Cream wasn’t providing positive results. I looked in my fly box, and in a corner noticed a couple of gray WD-40s. I rerigged him with one of the flies, and off we went. On the second drift, the indicator went down, and my guest landed a feisty 20-inch wild rainbow. That is how great the WD-40s are.
For tailwaters, I tie the WD-40 in size 16 to size 20 in four different colors: olive, black, brown, and gray. There are a few rigging tricks that make the fly more productive. The WD-40 imitates both a hatching midge and a hatching mayfly. Because the WD-40 is an emerger imitation, if you’re fishing multiple flies on an indicator rig, it needs to be higher in the water column than the other flies. (If you’re interested in the rig I use, see “Rigging Like a Guide” in the May/June 2018 issue of California Fly Fisher.) My tailwater rig will typically have three different flies spaced 18 inches apart. For Putah, the first (top) fly I tie on is the WD-40 in either black or gray, size 20 (black for dark days and gray for bright, sunny days). The next fly is Lance’s X-May in brown, size 18, and then the bottom or point fly is a Putah Creek Special, size 18. That way, I cover both midges and mayflies. I like using loop knots to tie the flies to the tippet. On the lower Sacramento, I rig the flies on the same indicator system but slightly differently. I usually tie the WD40 as the point fly. On the lower Sacramento, you would think that the would represent a mayfly. It does, but I usually fish the WD-40 for the midge hatch. Many folks don’t even know that there are midges in the lower Sacramento and focus on the stoneflies, mayflies, and caddisflies. But midges are a huge food group for the Sacramento fish. They are always there and hatch throughout the year. There are often two to three midge hatch cycles per day. The summer midge hatch is a little smaller — one to two hatch cycles per day.
To improve the WD-40 for the midge hatch, I add two attributes of Dorsey’s Top Secret Midge to the WD40, specifically its rib and wing. Dorsey’s Top Secret Midge is tied with a black thread body ribbed with white thread, and with a short wing of “secret Flashabou material” (I use opal Mirage Flashabou). My modified fly works just as well as the original. Some years later, I was cruising the internet and saw that Utah guide Carl “Boomer” Stout developed a similar variation, which he calls the WD-50. Great minds think alike.
For Still Waters
For stillwater fishing, I fish two different rigs with the WD-40. The first is the same indicator rig I use on tailwaters, with two notable changes. The tailwater rig uses an indicator one inch in diameter, but for still waters, I drop the size down to half an inch to help improve strike detection. I also remove the weight that I usually add on tailwaters. On all my indicator rigs have a size 12 barrel swivel at the end of the length of leader on which the indicator is placed. The tippet that suspends the flies is tied to the swivel, allowing the latter to function as weight when I fish the rig on still waters. At Manzanita Lake, fish will grab the fly, but if I use a heavier split shot they may reject the fly quickly, alerted that something’s wrong by the drag of the weight. Removing the split shot, and relying only on the swivel for weight, gives you a bit more time to set the hook. I have seen a 31 percent increase in fish being hooked without the weight. Again, when I rig the WD-40, I place it as the first fly on the leader, putting it higher in the water column to represent a hatching midge. I can adjust my indicator rig to fish from 12 feet deep to 3 feet deep. My normal indicator rig at Manzanita Lake when fishing midges is a gray WD-40, size 18, as my first fly, with a black size 18 WD-40 below it and a Chan’s Bomber in black with a red rib and a pearl bead, size 18, as the point fly. All of the flies are 18 inches apart.
At Manzanita Lake there are three life cycles of midges per day — sometimes four — and all the life stages of the midge are available for the fish to eat, from the larva to the midge that has blown its gas bubble and started to ascend to the surface. As an emerger, the gray WD-40 rigged higher in the water column reflects more light. As I tell folks all the time, if the fish can’t see your fly, it can’t eat it.
The second way I fish the WD-40 on still waters is with what I call the “straight-line” method. This requires you to be a good caster. I fish a single WD-40 on a floating weight-forward line and a long, 15-foot leader with the fly in the surface film or just beneath the film. I like a medium-action rod for this application. A fast-action rod will break a light tippet every time you try to hook a fish. I construct the leader myself. I begin with a 9-foot tapered 5X monofilament leader and tie 3 feet of 40-pound .024-inch-diameter monofilament to the butt section, and then add 3 feet of 5X monofilament tippet to the terminal end. (I tie these sections together with back-to-back Nail Knots, which creates a 100-percent strength connection. I dislike weaker knots that might fail and leave the fly in the fish’s mouth.) Then I tie on the WD-40. I like the olive, gray, or black versions. If the sun is still up, I fish the gray version, and if the sun has set, I use the black or olive version.
The basic approach is to cast the rig and then leave the fly sitting in the water until the ripples from the line disappear. I then start an extremely slow retrieve, keeping the line and leader just barely taut, with only a smidgen of movement to the fly. When a fish eats the fly, all that is needed to set the hook is a quick, simple, one-foot strip of the line. Sometimes I add floatant to the WD-40 to hold it right in the film or just on top of it. This method I use early in the day, when the fish aren’t worried about ospreys or bald eagles yet.
At Lake Almanor, I have been fishing with this straight-line method during the Blood Midge hatch for the last couple of years. I use the same leader setup that I use at Manzanita Lake, but move up from a 5X leader to a 3X leader and tippet. The fish at Lake Almanor are much larger than at Manzanita, and they are usually not leader shy. I also change to a fast-action rod — 3X will not break with a fast-action rod behind it.
I have used the WD-40 everywhere from California to Alaska to Colorado and in Arkansas. From tailwaters to still waters, the fly fishes great. And it’s a great fly for a beginning tyer to tie and use.
Lance’s Favorite WD-40 Patterns
Mark Engler’s Original WD-40 (shown above)
Hook: TMC 3769, size 16 to 18
Thread: Olive Danville Flymaster 6/0
Tail: Natural mallard flank fibers
Body: Olive Danville Flymaster 6/0 thread
Wing case: Natural mallard flank fibers
Thorax: Brown rabbit dubbing
Tying note: the tail on Engler’s WD40 extends straight back from the shank, not at the tilt used for the flies below.
WD-40 Black (Lance’s Version)
Hook: TMC 2499SP-BLB, size 16 to 18
Thread: Black Danville Flymaster 6/0
Tail: Natural mallard flank fibers
Body: Black Danville Flymaster 6/0 thread
Wing case: Natural mallard flank fibers
Thorax: Black rabbit dubbing
WD-40 Gray (Lance’s Version)
Hook: TMC 2499SP-BLB, size 16 to 18
Thread: Gray Danville Flymaster 6/0
Tail: Natural mallard flank fibers
Body: Gray Danville Flymaster 6/0 thread
Wing case: Natural mallard flank fibers
Thorax: Gray rabbit dubbing
WD-40 Olive (Lance’s Version)
Hook: TMC 2499SP-BLB, size 16 to 18
Thread: Olive Danville Flymaster 6/0
Tail: Dyed olive mallard flank fibers
Body: Olive Danville Flymaster 6/0 thread
Wing case: Olive dyed mallard flank fibers
Thorax: Olive rabbit dubbing
WD-40 Brown (Lance’s Version)
Hook: TMC 2499SP-BLB, size 16 to 18
Thread: Tobacco brown Danville Flymaster 6/0
Tail: Root beer dyed mallard flank fibers
Body: Tobacco brown Danville Flymaster 6/0 thread
Wing case: Root beer dyed mallard flank fibers
Thorax: Brown rabbit dubbing
Lance’s WD-40 Blood Midge
Hook: TMC 2499SP-BLB, size 10
Thread: Red Danville Flymaster 6/0
Tail: Root beer dyed mallard flank fibers
Body: Red Danville Flymaster 6/0 thread
Wing case: Root beer dyed mallard flank fibers
Thorax: Blended brown and red rabbit dubbing