Talking the mop fly

Spring has sprung, and the snow is melting.

Quickly.

And with the melt, most of my favorite and very fish-able lakes (and Dawson) have melted off and the fishing is beginning to pick up. It makes me sad to recommend this, but right now it will be best to get low in the deep spots of the lakes and drag some spinners low with hope that you boop a trout nose or two. In the warm water spots, the fish have not been rising as the water and air is still quite cold. I did find luck with the fly rod, dropping a mop fly down low in the deeps and giving my fly rod a slow pull upwards and letting it drop back down while stripping back the line that I had relieved the tension from. A few days ago, I pulled in a couple of bluegill and a decent 1 ¼-pound largemouth with this technique.

Now, there might be one person out there behind their screen who just squinted and rubbed his temples in anger because I mentioned the mop fly. That is because there are a few elitist fly fisherman out there that don’t consider the mop fly a true fly. It is the same with a San Juan Worm. They will tell you it is too easy, that it reduces the intimacy of the sport such as flipping over rocks to see what larvae are hanging out in the waters, that it is a “stimulator” rather than an “imitator.” For the first two things I brought up, I will say to keep it easy and fish how you want to fish. As for the “stimulator” rather than an “imitator,” one could argue quite easily that the mop fly imitates a caddis or cranefly larvae, a caterpillar or even a worm. But all in all, we are all out there for the same thing: to get into nature and spend some intimate time with the silence, and if we catch a fish or two, that is the cherry on top.

Now, the mop fly is quite the easy fly to tie. All you need is mop material from any mop, replaceable mop heads, or even those car washing mitts with the little mop tendrils hanging off of them. The preferred color for this in my opinion is chartreuse, and don’t ask me why: it just works. Take a size 12 jig or nymph hook and add the appropriate bead head onto it. Do a good amount of thread wraps around the hook eye and lay down a tiny bit of superglue on top of the wraps. Then lash the cut mop material on the thread and super glue and make sure it is down tight. Add a bit of dubbing (I prefer a piece of black peacock) and wrap a “head” on to the front. You can either fancy it up from here with some hackle, or just throw on a couple of whip finishes and call it a day. Within two minutes, you have yourself a mop fly. And it does not need to be pretty (as you can see from the one I tied for this report). A report that we should get back to about now.

The Kootenai has had fish jumping each night between 5-7 p.m. anytime that the water is not too high. And it has been fruitful to fish some of your favorite spots on the river. The Moyie is still running a bit cold, and I have not seen much action on either my drifts or by watching the runs. As the snow continues to melt in the mountains, I don’t see it picking up all that much in most of the river until it has started to calm down.

In the same vein as the Moyie, the creeks around the county that I personally believe hold the best fishing in the whole tip top of Idaho have been alright, and they are worth tossing a small nymph or an Idaho Killer Kebari around in before they are blown out for a month or more by the high mountain melt.

Good luck out there, and tight lines.