Welcome to the bench.
I’m Johnny Utah, and these are the flies I tie, fish, and trust.
From photo-by-photo tutorials to full tying videos, this blog’s built for tiers who want to learn the right way—no fluff, no shortcuts, just fishy patterns that work.
I have owned a MP magic tool for what seems like forever. I never really used it. Its a very simple tool set that like all MP tools seems over priced. Its certainly worth the investment. I like it for making simple hackle collars.
I sat down a decided I would design some soft hackle flies. I love to use cdc for soft hackles. It is my favorite next to partridge. So with the magic tool and some cdc I got started.................
The batch
The Atomic caddis
F3
F3
F7
G4
Sealy Rocko Wormy
Now its just a matter of testing how effective they truly are...............I'll find out.
Well after getting some fly orders tied and in the mail. I met up again with Mr. George from Wild Fly 365. We hit my local spring creek for some wild brown action. The creek is still flowing high, but the water is clear once again. We nymphed, and worked are way up stream. We fished about 1/10th of mile of the stream. We got into browns rather quickly. Mr. George was using a Golden Oldie and his hybrid hares ear. I was using the Golden Oldie followed by an improved zuggy. I love zug buggin. Hands down the oldie was the winner. The zug got a few.
I got two wild browns on at the same time. One on the oldie and the other on the zug. Needless to say I was rather surprised as I haven't done this with wild trout before, stockies a couple of time, but not wild. Mr. George got a picture of it.
Several of the trout we caught came on the lift. We noticed some mayflies hatching sporadically. There wasn't enough to get the fish up, but it would seem they were keyed in on the emerging bugs because the lift worked well. With "more than four" and stomachs complaining, we headed back to the vehicles and off to Charlies Pool Room for the best hot dogs in existence!
The top secret midge is a midge pupa pattern that was developed by guide Pat Dorsey of the Blue Quill Angler in Evergreen Colorado. I love to fish this pattern on the lime in PA. When it's tied very small it cleans up. I fish the pattern tandem on nymph rigs, as a dropper on dry drop rigs, and I fish it solo on a greased leader. I havent found a way that it isnt effective.
The Blue quill angler is great shop out in Colorado. They have a fantastic staff and unbeatable customer service. They have a great online fly shop HERE. They offer free shipping on order over $5. Yes that is correct. They have fair and competitive prices and good selection of materials. You can pick up wing material for the top secret HERE, or you pick up some all ready twisted top secrets HERE. The above top secret twisted by Dorsey.
Heres a pair I twisted up. Ones got rusty brown superfine for the thorax region and the one to the left here has dark brown stella dub. I use grey thread for the rib instead of white. Use white if you want a very translucent rib. The white pretty much vanishes. One both I used dark brown uni thread, top secret wing material and Dai-Riki 125 hooks. All the materials are availble at the blue quill angler fly shop.
Heres a video on how to tie Dorsey's Miracle Nymph
Here is a version of the adams I put together some time ago. It works just as well as any adams. It has caught me some very selective trout though, that refused a standard adams parachute. I tie this fly on light wire scud or emerger hooks. This one is tied on a daiichi 1130. I tie and fish them in a range of sizes. Really small ones are very effective. The abdomen of the fly is fibers from a grey canadain goose feather. I wrap them so the under side of the feather is shown on the shank. I then rib the abdomen with dark grey montana midge body thread. It gives it some flash. The abdomen I use grey stella dub. The post is siliconized poly yarn. And the hackle is your standard hackle for the adams, grizzly and brown.
The pheasant tail nymph is a deadly nymph for sure, but an equal to the famous pheasant tail, is the Gold ribbed hares ear nymph. The hares ear also makes a great floating nymph. Its very productive and can be effective in a range of sizes from 12-22 and im sure it would work well if you can manage to tie it smaller as well. In this video I twist one up with a hi-vis post of hot pink parapost. The dubbin I use is my U.V. High Test. I have been using this dubbin for this pattern for some time now and it does seem to give it an edge over your average parachute hares ear. All parachute flies no matter the pattern are emerger flies. And we all know how effective emergers are thanks to Carl Richards and Doug Swisher. Twist these guys up and give them a try.
I did a video of an old pattern. One that has caught myself and so many others so many trout. I did the old school ant, but of coarse I used synthetic dubbin. I tied up a batch of Cinnamon ants, because I am going to fish a spot on a spring creek that I know the trout there get a regular diet of cinnamon colored ants.
Ants of this color are always small, well at least were I am from. They usually are between a 22- 26. I tie them in size 28 as well. If the trout are being picky, the smaller sizes are required. In the video I tied a Huge one so the video would be clearer. I also tie these tiny ants in dark brown. This color represents the common ants that you see all the time. Yup they to fall in the water and become pray to the trout. The browns I tie in the same sizes.
I need to fire up the dye bath, to dye some tiny hackles red. There is an ant, one I have only ever seen on two streams. One in New Jersey and the other in P.A.. The body on these ants is the same color as trico, a super deep brown, pretty much black. The kooky thing about them is they have bright red legs. Weird looking they are for sure. But the trout are aware of them and they do look for them. I discovered these ants one July morning some years ago. I was fish the trico hatch and there was a rather large trout sipping occasionally. He was my last trout catch, I got the others, and put the rest down from catching them. I drifted my trico over that trout several times without even a look. I swapped patterns, going through my trico arsenal, and nothing.
I stood and watched the trout feeding. The rises were not in any kind of timing, but they were sipping rises just like the trout was taking spinners. I got my binoculars out of my car and peered at the film, I could see trico spinners, drifting right over the trout. I noticed a smiggin a extremely small bug on the water, smaller than the tricos. The trout came right up and took it. I thought hmm perhaps it was a midge or maybe an ant. I tried a griffiths gnat #26, the trout looked but no take. He didnt look again. I swapped out for the old timely cinnamon ant. I tied the size 26 ant on the line and cast it over him, it came into his window and he came right and sipped it right in, or so it appeared. Once I got the trout in, I saw he was fowl hooked. By chance i managed to hook him on the top of his head. Hey you try and keep track of a size 26 ant 15ft away. lol
Once he settled and I removed the hook from his head, I pumped his throat. I had to see what he was eating. To my surprise, I pumped out a mess of the dark, red legged ants, and just a couple of small cinnamon. I have a huge arachnophobia, I mean I will scream like a little girl when a big spiders on me. When i pumped the throat load on my hand, I could of swore those little ants were spiders. I nearly threw it right in the stream. Upon closer inspection i noticed only six legs, but they were red. I went home and picked a mess of hackles off the white neck i had and dyed them red.
Two weeks later later I returned to this stretch of stream with my hatch matching ants. I thought well they should work. I had tied a couple up parachute style and a couple the old way. I tried the parachutes first. Not even a look. Hmmm. I put a trico on and started catching fish. I got down near the area where I had the run in with that selective trout. A couple of trout were rising under the large sycamore. I watched the fish for a short while. I noticed one rising that was certainly larger then the rest. I set my trico a drift to him. He refused it. I tied on the old school red legged ant. Sent it a drift, and nose up, dorsal, tail, he was one. A great fight with a 17" wild brown. After I released him, I made my way back up to the fish that refused he parachute. There were some which didnt want my trico, and I wondered if they would take the ant. I got every one of them with it, one the first drift to them. From that day on, I always carry red legged ant, tied the traditional way.
Heres a video of the traditional fur body ant. As I said earlier, its a large cinnamon. I tie the red legged ants to small for video. And I dont have a pic because as I stated earlier, I need to fire up the dye bath and dye some size 26 hackle red.
Well after getting some fly orders tied and in the mail. I met up again with Mr. George from Wild Fly 365. We hit my local spring creek for some wild brown action. The creek is still flowing high, but the water is clear once again. We nymphed, and worked are way up stream. We fished about 1/10th of mile of the stream. We got into browns rather quickly. Mr. George was using a Golden Oldie and his hybrid hares ear. I was using the Golden Oldie followed by an improved zuggy. I love zug buggin. Hands down the oldie was the winner. The zug got a few.
Here is a version of the adams I put together some time ago. It works just as well as any adams. It has caught me some very selective trout though, that refused a standard adams parachute. I tie this fly on light wire scud or emerger hooks. This one is tied on a daiichi 1130. I tie and fish them in a range of sizes. Really small ones are very effective. The abdomen of the fly is fibers from a grey canadain goose feather. I wrap them so the under side of the feather is shown on the shank. I then rib the abdomen with dark grey montana midge body thread. It gives it some flash. The abdomen I use grey stella dub. The post is siliconized poly yarn. And the hackle is your standard hackle for the adams, grizzly and brown. 
