Go Ugly Early or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying 'Cause This Fly is the Bomb!

Peacock Skwala Stimmy

hook: TMC 200R #10
tail: deer hair
aft hackle: brown saddle
body: peacock herl
wing: deer hair
fore hackle: grizzly saddle
thorax: yellow Superfine dubbing

Those winter steelies better get with the program. I'm giving them one more month to start biting before I retreat back to the trout streams.
Sometime in early March the skwala stoneflies start hatching. Couple that hatch with a staunch blue wing olive emergence and you got some of the best trout fishing of the year.
This here skwala fly is my most productive pattern. I have tried to tie more complicated and convoluted imitations but I keep coming back to this one. An oldy but goody to be sure but the secret to getting the most out next month's skwala hatch is to get on it before everyone else. The homestream gets crowded and after seeing 10,000 or so skwala imitations the trouts get a little weary of big an hairy flies.