Kelly Galloup is back on the show today to teach us how to dry fly fish and to share his best dry fly fishing tips and tricks. Kelly also fills the gap on some of the history on dry flies as well as his top 10 dry flies of all time.
Kelly walks us through a year in dry flies with a focus on the Madison River. Many people don’t realize because of his streamer popularity that Kelly was actually a dry fly dude first and wrote the book on Cripple and Spinners.
I brake now more of the basics on dry fly fishing at the Introduction to dry Fly Fishing Post here.
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“Getting a fish to move six to 10 inches vertically is really difficult, even when there’s a hatch.”
-Kelly Galloup
Show Notes with Kelly Galloup
02:10 – Kelly Galloup was on the podcast here on streamers.
03:30 – Doug Swisher and Carl Richards on Selective Trout and Trout Strategies Series started it all.
06:00 – The Troutsman hex was Kelly’s first fly produced in the day and before royalties.
07:00 – Cripples and Spinners was Kelly’s first book on dries.
What are Alternatives to Matching the Hatch
You could always just go out and search anything on the river. The best dry fly fishing on the Madison River in January is for midges. And we’ll go out and throw chubby Chernobyl’s behind a midget larva.
How to tie a Chubby Chernobyl:
You could do general searches. And to tell you the truth, That’s how modern streamers really came about to is that we would basically just search dry flies at Michigan and we had very poor hatches.
You had a spring hatch and the you know, the Hendrix ends. You can search with an attractor like a royal coachman or whatever, some kind of terrestrial or you can run whatever fly you think might hatch later, and hope for that.
27:15 – Here’s my blog post, the Top 10 flies of all time.
29:30 – Kill the Coronavirus is back
How to Fish a Dry Fly
Kelly digs into some tips on specific ideas for fishing a dry fly including the top flies and books he loves to use.
At the 32:00 minute mark we talk about Roberts yellow drake. Here’s some of what kelly had to say:
My number one would be without exception is the Adam’s parachute which is a Michigan fly tied right in Traverse City and number two or one I could mix it anytime I want. It would be what’s called the Robert yellow Drake.
After the 1940s fly that from the Ausable where that whole Swisher and Richard thing was going, which is the deer body hair, but again, total silhouette.
49:00 – Fishing the Caddis as a Living Insect by Leonard Wright Jr is a book that Kelly says everyone should read
–>>Joe Rotter from Reds Fly Shop breaks down some big tips on fishing the blue winged olive hatch in episode 186 of the podcast!
1:03:15 – The Hank Patterson mend mend mend video
1:23:42 – Al Troth created the elk hair caddis
1:25:20 – Kelly as a lodge in the Bahamas on Abaco – Gallops Sandy Point Lodge
1:28:05 – Kill the Corona Virus is a huge fly-tying project
You can Kelly at Slide Inn
Kelly’s Top Ten Dry Flies – How to Dry Fly Fish
- Parachute adams (Kelly does not even carry Adams anymore)
- Roberts Yellow Drake
- Compara-dun
- Compara dun spinner
- The found link
- Ant (with a little flash)
- Corn Fead Caddis
- Look at the bottom of the fly for matching it
- Know how todo a reach cast
- Control your V for waking
We’ve had a number of dry fly episodes in the past including a recent chat with Wanda Taylor who covered dry fly fishing on the Hiwassee River.
Resources Noted in the Show
37:30 – Gary Lonfontaine match the hatch books
Fishing the Caddis as a Living Insect
Cripples and Spinners by Kelly Galloup
How to Dry Fly Fish Videos from the Show
The South Fork Snake Twitch on how to twitch Caddis
Bonus Podcast Episodes
Reds Fly Shop with Joe Rotter — Blue Winged Olive Mayfly Hatch, Yakima River (WFS 186)
Conclusion with Kelly Galloup
Kelly Galloup is here today to share his best tips on fishing the dry fly with a focus on what you need to know throughout the year. We find out which are Kelly’s top 10 dry flies of all time. We dig into the most effective ways to twitch a caddis and what the south Snake twitch is all about.
Kelly wrote the book cripples and spinners way back in the day before he became the streamer father. We also find out how to control your V when waking flies for steelhead.