Jeff Serena
Maine
I'm not one of those creative fly
tiers who can sit down at the vise and solve fishing problems with fur, feathers, and flashes of genius.
I pretty much depend on the work of others, usually following patterns as closely as my poor skills allow, occasionally tinkering a bit but not
really inventing anything new.
Having spent most of my fishing life out West, my move to Maine a few years ago has been one revelation after another. I do most of my fishing now for smallmouth bass and stripers. Both of them are great game fish but there are also brook trout, rainbows, browns, largemouths, northern pike, chain pickerel, salmon, stripers, mackerel, bluefish, and various sunfishes and perch available within convenient driving distance, most within minutes.
I've been learning traditional New England featherwing streamers and big
saltwater bucktails, and I've also been spending more of my trout-fishing time with
old-fashioned winged wet flies and conventionally hackled dry flies than ever before.
I have an interest in the history of the sport and tie a lot of older patterns, especially the British flies
that provide the basis for so many American patterns.
Photo taken June 1999 by Jeff Grossman on the Passagassawaukeag ("Passy") River at
Belfast, Maine.
Select One of Jeff's Flies:
Number Nineteen No-Hackle Caddis
Kite's Imperial
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Tier: Jeff Serena
Select One of Jeff's
Flies: Number Nineteen No-Hackle Caddis
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to Jeff's Introduction.
Tier: Jeff Serena
Note
2 Fishing the Floating Woolly Bugger: This is a very minor variation of Russ Blessing's wonderful fly, which he developed in 1967 as an imitation of fish-fly larvae on the Little
Lehigh River in Pennsylvania. Back in 1992, when I was living near Evergreen, Colorado, I was invited to fish some local trout ponds that
were leased by The Blue Quill Angler, a fine fly shop in nearby Bergen Park. One was called Crystal Pond and had a good population of large
rainbow trout. The first time I fished the pond I put in a float tube just at daybreak.
As I kicked out into the pond, I tied on a woolly bugger-almost a reflex for me when fishing new trout water where there isn't any obvious feeding
activity. I flipped the fly out to get it wet but it didn't sink immediately, so I gave it a twitch to pull it under.
It didn't have time to sink; a good fish grabbed the fly as soon as it moved and I
had my first trout of the day. That fish taking on the surface didn't make much of an impression on me, but when the scene virtually repeated
itself a couple hours later, after I'd switched to a fresh fly, I began thinking about the possibilities of a woolly bugger fished as a dry fly. Select One of Jeff's
Flies: Number Nineteen No-Hackle Caddis
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to Jeff's Introduction.
Tier: Jeff Serena
Select One of Jeff's
Flies: Number Nineteen No-Hackle Caddis
Return
to Jeff's Introduction.
Tier: Jeff Serena
Notes:
Like a lot of other tiers who hang around the VFS web site, I'm pretty enthusiastic about the old Yorkshire
soft-hackle patterns, and I've slowly been working on a project to tie all of the flies illustrated in T. E. Pritt's
North-Country Flies. This is one of four March Browns in the book; it's also illustrated in the reproductions of Mr.
Pritt's plates in Syl Nemes' The Soft-Hackled Fly Addict. This fly is a little different from most of the soft hackles you
see in American shops and catalogs: It's winged. It is also a good example of an old soft-hackle pattern designed as a
specific imitation. I've been using this fly for a couple of years and have found it especially effective for early-season
brook trout on some ponds here on the Maine coast. We have a stillwater mayfly of the right size, dirty brownish
yellow in color, that matches up well with the colors of this fly Select One of Jeff's
Flies: Number Nineteen No-Hackle Caddis
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to Jeff's Introduction.
Number Nineteen
No-Hackle Caddis
Tier: Jeff Serena
Note
2 Fishing the Number Nineteen No-Hackle Caddis: It's a very simple fly, but in addition to being pretty deadly during caddis hatches, it's also a very effective searching
fly in slow or bouncy water. In smaller sizes, it's an effective emerger pattern for light-colored mayflies, something I
discovered by happy accident one evening on the Eagle River in Colorado. The body is roughly dubbed.
You hear a lot of stories about how old, ratty flies catch more fish than bright, neat, new flies.
I haven't usually found that to be the case in my own fishing, but I believe it's true of this pattern.
So I dub the body roughly but not too full, making sure to leave some fibers hanging off the back of the fly.
The main drawback of this pattern is that is doesn't float very well after it has been slimed by a fish, but it's so fast and easy to tie I just carry a bunch of Number Nineteens
and switch to a fresh fly when one gets waterlogged. Even a slow tier can easily produce more than a dozen of these
an hour, and a fast tier can do two dozen without breaking a sweat. I like this fly best in smaller sizes.
The best trout I've ever caught on a dry fly took a size 18 one afternoon on the Colorado River in Byers Canyon. Select One of Jeff's
Flies: Number Nineteen No-Hackle Caddis
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to Jeff's Introduction.
Tier: Jeff Serena
Select One of Jeff's
Flies: Number Nineteen No-Hackle Caddis
Return
to Jeff's Introduction.
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for your tying needs.
Hook:
TMC 100, size14.
Thread: Black.
Tail: Brown rooster hackle barbs.
Body: Stripped peacock herl.
Wing: Lemon woodduck flank.
Hackle: Brown rooster hackle.
Notes: I enjoy tying Catskill dries, especially the quill-bodied patterns.
Now that I'm living back East, I actually get a lot of chances to use them.
This is a Cahill Quill, the dressing from Ray Bergman's Trout. You don't see this
pattern very much anymore, but it's a good searching pattern and does a fine job of matching brownish mayflies.
Hook:
Dai-Riki 060, size 6.
Thread: Black.
Tail: Tip of a turkey marabou blood feather, dyed black, tied about as
long as the hook shank and not too heavily.
Body: A black closed-cell foam strip about 1/8-inch wide, wound
around the shank in close turns, from the end of the shank forward to just behind the eye, then back toward the tail, and then forward again.
Hackle: Grizzly saddle, dry-fly quality.
Note 1: If you tightly spiral just one thin strip of foam on for the body, it
won't provide enough buoyancy to make the fly a positive floater. I build the body with multiple layers of foam tied in just firmly enough to keep them well seated.
I started tying up woolly buggers on light-wire hooks, substituting dubbed fur for the usual chenille body, and dry-fly hackle for the webby
saddles I'd been using for woollies intended to sink. Treated with fly
floatant, these "dry" woolly buggers worked pretty well, especially for
stillwater fish. But they'd usually absorb enough water after a fish or two that I'd have to change flies, and those long bodies were taking too
long to dub at the vise. So I substituted closed-cell foam for the dubbing.
This floating version of the woolly bugger is the result. I've found it especially effective for bank cruisers, casting the fly a little behind or to the near side of the fish, and then inducing a take with little twitches.
For bank cruisers, this is my go-to fly.
Another good method I've found for fishing this fly in stillwaters is on a high-density sinking line.
I let the line sink until it's on the bottom, but the fly is buoyed up by the foam.
Depending on the length of the leader and the speed of the retrieve, the fly will ride anywhere from a foot
to several feet off the bottom. It's a very effective method, especially in weedy water that would foul a fly fished on the bottom, or where the fish
are cruising right over the vegetation. 
Hook:
TMC 100, size14.
Thread: Purple silk.
Tail: Dun hackle barbs (or light ginger for late-season
fishing).
Abdomen: A few herls from the trailing edge of a Canadian
goose primary
(or another heron substitute).
Thorax: Built up from two or three layers of the goose herls.
Ribbing: Fine gold wire.
Hackle: Light ginger (or honey).
Notes: I usually like wings on my dry flies but this pattern doesn't call for any.
Kite's Imperial was developed by the late Oliver Kite as an imitation of the large olive dun in Wales.
It's a popular fly in England but is hardly ever seen in the States. Robert
Spaight, an English minister and fly tier, recommended this fly to me as an effective general searching pattern and I've had good luck with it.
The original recipe calls for heron herl on the body; you can substitute long, pale gray barbs from the trailing edge of a Canada goose primary for much the same
effect. The vicar also suggests light gray mole fur, sparsely applied by touch-dubbing, as another substitute for the heron
herl. 
Hook:
Derbyshire down-eye (Syl Nemes Signature series), size 12.
Thread: Orange silk (well waxed).
Tail: Two mottled hungarian partridge tail feather barbs (tied long and
divided).
Body: Fine yellow mohair and hare's
ear fur
mixed (dubbed thinly on the working thread).
Rib: Yellow silk.
Hackle: Brown hungarian partridge back feather (one turn
only).
Wings: Two matched slips from mottled hungarian partridge
wing primaries.
One of the surprising thing I've learned from tying winged soft hackles is how well the quill segments from upland
birds like Hungarian partridge and ruffed grouse behave, both at the vise and in the water.
They don't hold together as well as stiffer duck and goose quills, and they look pretty ratty after a little fishing, but they can be preened back
into shape and they have a lot more movement in the water than a stiffer quill. 
Hook:
Tiemco 100, size 16.
Thread: Brown.
Dubbing: Ligas #19 or similar tan poly dubbing.
Wing: Light deer hair.
Note 1: This is just a no-hackle variation of Al Troth's famous hair-wing
caddis dry. No-hackle versions of that pattern have been tied for years, I
think Sid Neff first wrote about the no-hackle version. I arrived at this one
after a lot of messing around trying to come up with a fly to match all those straw-colored caddis flies that seem to be on every stream in Colorado.
The name comes from the body material, which is the old #19 ("Sand") Ligas poly dubbing.
The name recalls another effective pattern that achieved a bit of local fame on the Colorado Front Range some years ago: the Nineteen-and-a-Half Scud, which was dubbed with a
mixture of Ligas #19 and #20. I think I have a lifetime supply of #19
Ligas, which is a good
thing. I believe it isn't made anymore. The wing is the softest deer hair I can find. 
Hook:
Mustad 37187 stinger hook, size 1/0, front 2/5 of shank bent upward, parallel to the hook
point.
Thread: Black.
Body: Black chenille.
Tail: Black marabou.
Hackle: The palmered hackle is a grizzly saddle, the neck
hackle is a gadwall flank feather.
Weed Guard: Strip of flat, black, closed-cell foam, make a lengthwise cut
in the foam to accommodate the hook point.
Head: Popper cork tied in slider-style, painted black.
Notes: This contraption is a variation on Bill Gammel's clever
Weedrunner. Since moving to mid-coast Maine, I've been struggling with the problem of fishing to bass in shallow water choked with lily pads.
The stuff is so thick by mid summer that even conventional popping bugs with mono weed guards get hung up on the retrieve, and pulling them
free from those tough lily pad stems makes a disturbance that will spook fish for the distance of a fair cast in every
direction. The Weedrunner protects the hook point both by shielding the gape with foam and by floating on the
surface with the hook point up. Despite all the protection against snags, this fly has excellent hooking
performance.
The duck hackle and marabou move in the water even when the fly is at rest, so the fly can be worked very slowly
and still have a lot of movement. This fly can be tied in all colors.
I've worked some up in chartreuse, yellow, and purple, and they all catch fish.
for your tying needs.
