Fly Pattern #4: Super Floss Rubber Legs

This is the fourth installment of the Magnificent 7, a list of seven different fly patterns that I believe will keep your fly box organized and populated with proven patterns, ready to entice trout on practically any  stream or lake . Flies covered in this series to date are The Birds Nest,  Zebra Midge and the Pheasant Tail Nymph. In this post, the Super Floss Rubber Legs is added to the Magnificent Seven.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Fly Fishing Fly Selection Refined

 #4 The Super Floss Rubber Legs

This is, for some, the long awaited fourth post in the Magnificent 7 series of must have trout flies. As I write, it is 9:30 PM and 28 degrees outside here in Lewiston, California. The Trinity River flows only an informal stroll from my cozy domicile, a 28ft. 5th-wheel camper. Hundreds of fin bedecked fish known as “Steelhead” are moving through the Trinity River tonight, swimming upstream to the aqua-ladder that provides entry to their birthplace, a fish’s fishy home called the Lewiston Fish Hatchery. Me?  I just work here, on the Trinity River. My trailer is base-camp for guided fishing operations, conducted almost daily from late October through mid March on the marvelous Trinity River.

Super Floss Rubber Legs

Fly anglers flock to the Trinity River in California hoping, lusting, dreaming of  the moment when once tight to pure verve, all cares, worries and even pain are relieved completely for a significant amount of time. The steelhead is arguably the most spectacular fish to come up against with a fly rod. An elusive fish on most coastal streams, not so elusive on the Trinity River. The steelhead is a “trout”. A rainbow trout to be exact. Consider the steelhead a more highly evolved version of the rainbow trout. Why? Steelhead swim to the ocean and then, after a few months to a couple years, return to the stream of origin as adults and spawn. They come from the ocean! Steelhead are large. And, they will eat a properly presented fly! Usually.

In a crowd of die-hard steelhead anglers, names like “Silver Hilton”, General Practitioner”, “Green Butt Skunk” , “Thunder Pussy”, to name a few, refer to fly patterns attached to 0x/1x leaders, cast into mysterious water, with hopes of seducing the chrome colored, cold blooded vertebrate, fresh from the sea. Such steelhead flies are considered “worthy” and “righteous” by most traditional steelhead anglers. Anything else is sacrilegious, uncouth and improper. But, there are other flies. Oh yeah. Flies that work just fine. The flies I speak of can be cast, flung and swung on a fly rod just like the old traditional, conformist patterns! We’re talking flies fished by the angler unwilling to accept the aid of experts or professionals. The angler that won’t be told. The angler fishing his 9ft 5wt on the Trinity in a flannel shirt and neoprene waders and extra large tennis shoes, tight to a 10lb red sided buck, amongst the trendy droves of the latest switch rod wielding, spey rod waving, Skandi line jacking, versi-tip throwing, techie vest wearing, 21 year old guide hiring, 30-something husband and father to-be that just got laid off and is now firmly locked into fly fishing purgatory and a divorce. (all said, spey rods are really fun!)

Consider these examples; The Pheasant Tail Nymph is one of the best steelhead flies on the Trinity River. The Bird’s Nest has produced more steelhead on the Lower Sacramento than any fly I can think of. But, there is a fly that works exceedingly well for steelhead and rainbow trout in just about any freestone stream, tail water or coastal stream harboring healthy populations of stoneflies and stick-caddis. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Bet not. The fly I’m writing about is the “Rubber Legs” fly pattern! Sometimes called the “turd fly” or the “stupid fly” . The Super Floss Rubber Legs has become an incredibly versatile pattern for trout and steelhead alike!

The Rubber Legs is basic, simple, multifaceted and multi-talented!. Using a #6-8 Tiemco 5268 hook, Super Floss Stretch Body Materiel, Brown Chenille, lead wire and 8/0 brown tying thread, a half dozen of these funky flies can be produced in less than 30 minutes by an experienced tier. Fish the Rubber legs with heavy split shot on the bottom of the river under an indicator or high stick it through bubbly, tight slots, bounce it off the boulder in the middle of the river were that bubble blowing bad brown is holding. Swing it at the end of the smooth glide, at the back of the tail-out for Mr. Enormous. Strip it for Carp, Bass, Trout, Catfish, Red Fish Your Fish! It’s for the lake, the stream, the pond. Look, it sells itself! Buy it or tie it, fish will eat it even if they are not hungry! Works in virtually any water conditions! Featuring genetic response fishing action, fish will clobber this fly. And if you believe all that, then go buy the banjo minnow too!

The Rubber Legs makes the Magnificent 7 list because it is a proven fly here in N. California on rivers like the Pit, Hat Creek, the Upper Sacramento and McCloud River! Over in Oregon on the Deschutes, Umpqua, Elk and Sixes it’s a magical fly. In Idaho on the Snake River, Teton and Henry’s Fork it produces hook-ups daily. In Montana (always Montana) on just about every river in the state! Anywhere rainbow and brown trout are found, the Super Floss Rubber Legs is a reliable pattern to show the fish. Never go fishing without it. Now for the recipe: