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Fly Tying in Person at Revision Brewery

About this event

Join us for a couple hours of in person fly tying at Revision Brewery in Sparks. We will have plenty of space, great beer and good pizza available for purchase.

Since Pyramid Lake opens October 1, we can tie a couple of classics that work well in the early season - marabou jigs and balanced leeches. Of course, these are good Stillwater flies in general and the techniques can be used on other flies.

Marabou Jigs
We use these large flies in the early (October/Nov) season and the late season (May/June) when the LCTs are feeding on Tui-Chubs. We fish them on full sink or heavy shooting heads straight down from your pontoon or float tube. The takes are often aggressive! They can be tied in several colors. My favorites are Olive over white, Chartreuse over white, Olive and Black. I like a bit of flash in the tail.

Since you may be fishing fairly deep, we use large weighted hooks to get down fast. The big Voodoo Super Jig below in a 1/8 oz is my favorite hook for these big flies. Make sure the hooks are heavy duty, you don't want to loose a big fish on a bent hook. Other materials include:
- Marabou in the colors of your choice,
- thread that matches the marabou and I like some red thread for just behind the head,
- Flashabou in silver or pearl for the tail flash.

Balanced Leech/Minnow
Balanced Leeches and Minnows are used throughout the season, typically fished under a strike indicator. The difference between the two is typically in size. Smaller balanced flies are called leeches and larger (size 4 or 2) are called minnows.
The key feature of these flies is that they will present horizontally when fished under an indicator. We achieve this by mounting a tungsten bead in front of the hook eye on a jig style hook (either a 60 or 90 degree bend).

Early versions of these flies called for using a straight pin to hold the bead but we quickly found that the pins bend easily and with big Pyramid fish, they were one fish flies. The solution I found is to use a brad nail made for an air hammer (see below). This box of nails is cheap and includes many lifetimes supply. The 3/4" size works well but I keep a side cutter tool at my desk to cut them to the right length for the hook I'm using. If you don't have these, I will bring plenty.

There are various ways to build these, the ones pictured below use a marabou tail, dubbing bodies and beads of matching or contrasting colors. My favorites include the Midnight Cowboy (Midnight Fire), Olive Ice Dub, and Wine dubbing. They can be made in sizes ranging from 2 to 12.

Materials you will need:
- Jig hooks with a 60 or 90 degree bend (again, heavy wire is indicated), brand doesn't matter. I'll tie with a size 8.
- Tungsten beads to match your hook size - for a size 8, I'll use a 3.8 mm (5/32") bead,
- a nail to hold the bead
- thread to match the color of your dubbing,
- Marabou to match the color of your dubbing,
- Dubbing color of your choice.

You should have a dubbing brush to brush out the dubbing fibers. Let me know if you have questions (rwgander@yahoo.com).

Date and Time

Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 1:30 PM until 3:30 PM

Location

https://revisionbrewing.com/
380 South Rock Boulevard
Sparks, NV
USA

Event Contact(s)

Dick Gander

Registration Info

Registration has closed - Event is past

Bring your tools and materials (to be listed). If you don’t have tools, let me know as we can likely get you some to use.

All experience levels are welcome as are non-members.