Blog

@anna_on_the_fly is on the water constantly. She is constantly trying new things -- new flies, new techniques, and new gear. We are grateful that she's an Ambassador for DiscountFlies. And, we're grateful that she shares her knowledge and adventures with us here in the "Fly of the Week" (or month during the "off" season) Column.

14-Jul-2022

FLY OF THE WEEK! Summer is here and the rivers have become literal BUG FACTORIES! That being said there are too many amazing flies to have just one a month so for the remainder of summer I’ll be doing a “fly of the week” every Thursday to help ensure you have a successful weekend on the water

This weeks fly is definitely my top 3 all time favorite flies - the Chubby Chernobyl!! I’m sure most everyone knows this fly, it’s a MUST HAVE imo for every anglers fly box & it’s great as a dry dropper/hopper dropper as its extremely buoyant & can easily hold 2 tungsten bead flies.

One thing a lot of people think is that this fly ONLY imitates hoppers, stoneflies and skwalas but that is simple not true! Two of the most important things when looking at flies is the color and the profile. Because of the white wings and the overall profile- the chubby is actually fantastic during a caddis hatch- proof in the photo above. Last night I was fortunate enough to be right in the thick of a caddis hatch- at some points I didn’t even know which fly was mine and I was fishing a “picky trout” river but they didn’t seem to know the difference either!

That being said color is the second thing I look for and my favorite color to fish a chubby is going to be tan foam with a yellow thread body. There are so many instances where I’ve caught fish during a PMD or yellow sally hatch because when the fish looks up they see that yellow and it aligns with the other yellow bugs so they eat it. This is especially true as we move into the heat of summer and the trout move into the faster water. They don’t have much time to think so seeing that yellow belly is enough for them to go for it!

I first discovered this because I had PMDs crawling all over with bright yellow bellies so I threw on the only yellow fly I had and it worked. I thought “this fly is way bigger than a PMD how does this work?” Well we give fish too much credit, when they see a bug they too are looking at color and profile. So having one or both of those will guarantee fish in the net!