Marco's Wood Perch - Fly Tying Tutorial

Marco's Wood Perch is a great swing fly for fall and spring steelhead. We've been using it here in Michigan on the Manistee, Pere Marquette, Muskegon, Betsie, and Boardman rivers. 

Designed to be swung downstream and across, Marco's Wood Perch is a shank-style spey fly that's friendly to tie and easy to put in front of fish. You can use this with a single-handed spey, switch, or spey rod setup. Typically we tie this fly unweighted so we can control the depth with different sink tips or even a split shot. Use a short leader 3-5' of 10-12lb mono or fluoro and secure the fly using a non-slip loop to maximize movement in slower water. 

 

MATERIALS:

TOOLS USED:

TYING NOTES:

This is a great color scheme for Great Lakes Steelhead in clear water. We will also tie this fly with a darker brown head for truly dark days and a tan version for brighter days. The blend of flash types adds variation in movement as well as light-grabbing style. We tie most of our swing flies without a hook so we can choose an appropriate hook on the water. Using something like Powerpro makes changing the hooks out on these flies very friendly and can really extend the life of your flies on the water. 

FISHING NOTES:

Although we generally use this fly as part of a skagit head spey setup, you can absolutely swing this fly on single hand rods and switch rods. Choose your hook based on fish available and water conditions. When there are big fish around, we usually rig up the #2.

 

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