Early March - "March Brown" Wet Fly

Life has been getting in the way of hobbies lately. I haven't had many chances to tie, much less fish for a little while, but that should all change soon. Pending managerial approval, I think I'm going to take off a day next week, and like many dead teenagers in the movies, go spend Friday the 13th wandering around the woods and try not to get myself killed. Yes, I've decided to check out Blue Springs Creek again in Bourbon, MO. The first time I tried that creek, I had not been fishing very long, and had been wading even less. I didn't see a single fish all day, mostly due to two factors: first, I was probably wading through all of the best spots and not even realizing it, and second, I don't think I went nearly upstream enough. I didn't even cross Highway N. Next week, leaky waders permitting, I'm going to try and fish all of the public water that I can.

But that's next week. Today, I did a little shopping. This upcoming Wednesday, Mike is hosting another fly-tying session at his auto-body shop (look for a post about it next week), and I needed to stock up on some supplies. Today was the first decent Saturday St. Louis has had in a long, long time, and I spent it running errands with my wife. Luckily for me, Feathercraft is right across the street on Manchester from K. Hall Designs. Fellows, I'm telling you, K. Hall is the best place in the city to buy your lady a birthday/anniversary/Christmas/Valentine's/whatever day present. Just go in, buy some expensive soap, tell your wife/girlfriend/mistress that you got it at some fancy boutique, and you're set. Feel free to omit that part about it being practically next door to a great fly shop. I dropped Emily off there and had all the time in the world to mull around Feathercraft, and was able to get all of the supplies I need.

The most significant purchase was a bag of Hungarian Partridge Feathers. I needed these for the Depth Charge pattern recipe that Mike posted online, but wanted to try them out before Wednesday. I flipped through one of my fly books and found an easy looking pattern that called upon partridge feathers, the March Brown.

The March Brown

It's a relatively simple pattern (don't let my poor tying deceive you). You tie on partridge fibers as a tail and wrap the entire body in brown hare dubbing. I can never seem to get my dubbing quite as tight I would like. I always have fibers sticking out all over the place. You create a rib using either yellow thread or copper wire, and use partridge feathers as your hackle at the eye to form the legs. You pull back the fibers and tie them in with a few more thread wraps, and tie in some pheasant wing fibers for your wing. Whip finish and that's all she wrote.

Here's an inverted view to give better visibility to the partridge hackle legs.

It's supposed to be a good fly for browns and rainbows, so we'll see this Friday. Honestly, if the fishing is lousy at Blue Springs, I'll just pop over to Maramec Spring for the afternoon. It's only about 20 minutes away. I'll post some pics as soon as I can for that trip. Happy fishing!