Lake Michigan River Run Kings

Guest Blogger: Perry Morrison aka Montana Guy Flies

I was raised in Montana with a fly pole in my hand. Shortly after moving to Wisconsin I was, by a friend, introduced to the October run of salmon into the Root River in Racine Wisconsin. I immediately purchased an 8 weight fly rod with reel and scoured the internet for ideas for flies to tie. I tried everything from egg patterns to stone fly patterns. I came up with a very simple pattern to tie that works great for the river run Kings and Browns. Using large sparkle chenille in black with green I made the bodies. The one thing that I have found the color of the chenille is not what determines the aggressive strikes but the clear sparkle crazy legs I tie into the body are what drives the fish crazy. I use this in a two fly combination with an egg pattern or stonefly pattern as the bottom fly. I weight the stoneflies enough to get them down quick. I tie most of the patterns on a #4 TMC 7999 steelhead/salmon hook. I have tied different egg patterns using Cactus Chenille in orange, pink, and chartreuse. With these patterns I have added both the clear and shrimp colored crazy legs. I have found these patterns also to be very successful. These patterns work on steelhead as well and big brown trout. Thank you J. Stockard for having such a wide variety of fly tying materials to chose from. Only problem is I am running out of space on the wall to hang everything. To all my fellow fly tiers and fisherman give these a try in your neck of the woods you may be pleasantly surprised.