Fly Tying Tutorial of the Week: Purple Hazy Cripple
Posted on October 14th, 2024
The Purple Hazy Cripple is our top dry fly on the Yellowstone River and in the Yellowstone region in general. While it’s most effective in sizes #16 through #18 as an attractor pattern and during sparse mayfly hatches from late August through April, it is also effective in larger sizes earlier in the summer, especially on rougher mountain streams.
We often fish this pattern in preference to “imitative” mayfly patterns, especially on rougher water like the Yellowstone River and its tributary the Stillwater, but it can also work even on gentle meadow streams such as Slough Creek.
The Purple Hazy Cripple is one of our primary fly patterns, and probably our best dry fly overall.
Purple Hazy Cripple – Recipe
Hook: Standard dry fly, #12–20.
Thread: 8/0 purple Uni, or equivalent.
Shuck: Golden brown MFC Widow’s Web or similar poly yarn, such as EP Fibers.
Body: Purple spandex (Life Flex, Sexi Floss, Spanflex, etc.).
Wing: White Widow’s Web or equivalent.
Hackle: Grizzly and brown, mixed, “Adams-style.”
Adhesive: Brush-on super glue.
Tying Procedure
- Start thread 1/3 back from the eye and lay a short thread base before returning thread to starting point.
- Secure a bundle of tailing fibers using touching turns, continuing about half the remaining distance to the hook bend, before returning thread to the starting point.
- Secure a strand of purple spandex using touching turns back to the bend. Stretch spandex as you wrap back to create a bit of body taper. Return thread to the starting point.
- Optional: Create a tapering underbody using tying thread. Only required on #12–14.
- Apply superglue to thread base layer, then wrap the spandex forward in touching turns while stretching it slightly. Secure and clip excess.
- Secure a bundle of white Widow’s Web on top the hook shack, with the thread wraps extending from the forward end of the abdomen forward about halfway to the eye. Return thread to rear of wing tie-in point. Trim the rear end of the wing to a short tuft.
- Secure one brown and one grizzly hackle on the side of the hook shank, with the grizzly behind the brown.
- Advance thread to the forward wing butt and take a couple turns around this bunch of fibers to stand them up slightly. Advance thread almost to the eye.
- Apply super glue to the hackle and wing tie-in points.
- Wrap the grizzly hackle forward. On #16, use about 4 turns, with one full turn in front of the wing. Use more turns on larger flies. Secure.
- Wrap the brown hackle forward. On #16, use about 3 turns, with one full turn in front of the wing. Use more turns on larger flies. Secure and clip excess from both hackles.
- Make a small thread head, whip finish and clip thread, and apply super glue to the head.
- Trim the wing slightly longer than the hackle barbs. Cut a vee-notch from the hackle under the hook shank.
How-To Video
Forthcoming on October 15, 2024!
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Runoff Update and Season Fishing Forecast for June 1, 2024
Posted on June 1st, 2024
If you’ve been following our season fishing forecasts, you know that we saw a warm, dry winter here in Yellowstone Country. For much of the winter and spring, we’ve been anticipating dreadfully low water and tough conditions in late summer. Thankfully, May has largely been cool and very wet, so it seems likely we’ll avoid the worst impacts of the warm and dry winter.
This isn’t to say it’s all wine and roses. While remaining snowpack is above 90% of normal for the date in all of our key basins, and water year precipitation is close to normal, our peak snowpack was only 70% of normal or thereabouts as of May 1 and we remain locked in moderate drought. Long-range outlooks through early fall suggest hot/dry weather which will make these deficiencies worse. So we are still going to have low water for most of the season, and if the hot/dry forecast comes true this water will be very warm in late July and August. 2:00 closures are likely in many areas. This is still an improvement over previous outlooks, when we saw strong possibilities of complete fishing closures in many areas.
Overall, we now expect conditions similar to 2012, 2013, 2015, or 2016, rather than the extreme drought and record-low flows of 2007 and 2021. We’d much rather have the near-normal or above-normal flows of 2009, 2010, 2014, 2017–2020, or 2023, but we’ll take “not what we want but not catastrophic” over “the creeks are running dry and everything is on fire. Run for the hills!”
Snowpack, Runoff, and Predicted Summer Fishing Conditions Update for May 1, 2024
Posted on May 1st, 2024
Winter and early spring 2023-2024 have been warm and dry in Yellowstone Country, just like it has just about everywhere except California through Colorado. For a while we were flirting with record-low snowpack and the potential for a very short fishing season. After strong improvement from mid-January through March, April saw warm and dry weather with an accompanying sharp decline in snowpack and an early pulse of spring runoff (weeks early). We are unfortunately now looking at tough conditions again in late summer and early fall.
Because of anticipated low and warm streamflows and a forecast for a hot, dry summer, we encourage anglers to visit sometime between June 15 and July 15 if you’re looking for consistent summer-type fishing with dry-dropper combos, fast, cold flows, etc. July 20 through August are likely to see very low water and widespread 2:00PM mandatory closures. Early September will see better conditions, but low, clear water will still make for difficult fishing on sunny days. Only in October and November can we be sure of aggressive fish again.
Current United States drought conditions. Our area of SW Montana and NW Wyoming ranges from abnormally dry (yellow) to severe drought (orange).