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Top 5 Summer Creek Flies
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Date: 01/01/2025
There’s that blue line on the topographic map you’ve always wanted to check out. It’s a five-mile hike in and you don’t want to carry two thousand flies. Or you’re heading to your favorite small creek to get into the mountains and escape the heat and crowds. Either way, here are five flies that should that should treat you well in both situations. Spoiler alert, these bugs also work great on the larger rivers around Bozeman.
It floats well in the pocket water of small streams, making it a great searching pattern. It has a mayfly profile, but could be taken as a Yellow Sally or caddis. And direct sunlight radiates the red body to make it glow in the eyes of a trout.
This fly catches as many fish each year as just about any other pattern. Many small creeks around here see significant caddis hatches, especially in the evenings. The elk hair wing and dry fly hackle keep this pattern floating high, even after you’ve caught a few fish with it. It is tied in many colors to match different hatches, but the peacock body is my go to. Peacock herl radiates all colors of light, allowing you to use it for a variety of caddis species. Fish will even mistake the larger sizes for a small terrestrial.
No summer fly selection would be complete without a terrestrial pattern. The CFO stands out by sitting down. It rides a bit lower than most other foam patterns, making it look more like a natural grasshopper, beetle or ant that fell into the stream.
Red Headed Bead Head Soft Hackle Hare’s Ear
This long-named fly will come in handy when the fish are being picky and you need to go subsurface. Fish it a foot or two behind a dry fly to keep it up in the water column to imitate an emerging insect. Or, get it down deep, when the fish are refusing to rise from the river bottom. The red collar adds a nice little hot spot just below the bead.
It’s hard to find a better mayfly attractor pattern when fishing slower water. It doesn’t float as well in riffles as, say, a Red Humpy, but “nobody can resist the Purple Haze,” a guide friend once told me. There is something about purple around here that trout can’t seem to get enough of. The parachute post makes it relatively easy to see for the angler, while allowing it to float low in the water. And the slim profile perfectly matches that of a mayfly. Sometimes this pattern works better than a natural-looking replica during a heavy hatch.
Stop by our Bozeman Fly Shop and we'll help you put together a fly selection for your next trip to a creek. We may even point you in the direction of one.
