Whiskey Creek Fly Fishing » Sofa Pillow

Updated Modified Sofa Pillow – Step by Step

WhiskeyCreek — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 15:31:05 +0000

Last week, I was experimenting with a pattern that is patterned after the sofa pillow, by Pat Barnes of West Yellowstone. Here is a step-by-step sequence of the resulting pattern.

Hook: Tiemco 200R
Tail/Egg-sac: Black Poly Yarn
Body: A Girl’s Secret sporty foam wrap
Rib: Black thread (size A used here)
Wing: Deer or Elk
Hackle: Brown, undersized

Start with the hook firmly in the vise. I think I grabbed a Cabela’s curved nymph hook here instead of the Tiemco. What’s important is to get a curved shank hook, feel free to substitute. These flies are large, size 4-6.

Start the tailing material about the 75% mark on the hook. Starting at the wing position hides any bumps or transitions, allowing a smooth body.

Tie in the thread for ribbing (or simply leave a tag end for your tying thread), then tie in the body foam. Antron yarn and uni-stretch are decent substitutes if you’ve run out of the Sporty Girl Foam.

Wrap the Sporty Girl Foam forward, rib with the thread, and don’t forget to trim the tail.

Stack some deer hair and tie in for the wing. You may notice that I also switched to orange thread. You can tie the entire pattern with orange thread.A spot of glue here doesn’t hurt.

Finish the fly by hackling the forward portion. The hackle and wing will provide the flotation, with the body and egg sac in the water.

Updated Sofa Pillows

WhiskeyCreek — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 03:03:21 +0000

With spring, young men’s fancy turns to love. Those of us that have seen a few springs, we turn towards the upcoming hatches. Today’s preparations are for the salmon fly hatch.

This is an updated version of the classic Sofa Pillow. Differences are the poly-yarn egg sac (instead of red duck quill tail), antron ribbed with thread instead of floss, and the “stimulator” style front. The curved hook shank is meant to get the egg sack into the film.

Hook: TMC 200R, size 6
Tail/Egg sac: Black Poly-yarn
Body: Burnt Orange Antron yarn
Rib: Black thread 3/0
Wing: Elk/deer
Hackle: Dun, sized for 12/14 hooks
Front: Orange Angora goat

Please comment on this pattern. I’m thinking of a few tweaks, and would like to get some input.

Instead of thread ribbing, small black wire to add more durability (as soon as I can get to the fly shop)
Thicker brown hackle (bring it closer to the original pattern to add more flotation and darken the pattern a bit.
Use darker hair for the wing. Also, maybe tart up the wing a bit with some flash.

I can’t wait until June to give these a try.

Sofa Pillows, Stimulators, and Such

WhiskeyCreek — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:40:56 +0000

The sofa-pillow is one of the first stone-fly patterns. Created by Pat Barnes in West Yellowstone, the story goes that a bunch of fishermen were visiting from Texas. The lone-star fishermen were having difficulty fishing small flies. So, Pat took out some streamer hooks and created large, bushy, easy to see fly. The name came from an exclamation that the fly is as large as a sofa pillow.

(photo from Fly Anglers Online)

As time went on, Pat improved the sofa pillow, adding a deer hair tail, palmered body hackle, and deer hair wing instead of the squirrel. Lots of imagination went behind the new name, Improved Sofa Pillow.

The next evolution went, strangely, east. Jim Slatterty, a fly tyer and punk-musician in New Jersey tied this fly to simulate a fluttering stonefly. He named it the Stimulator. He added the deer hair wing (parallel development?), the dubbed front half, which gives another opportunity to add color, and the more sparsely hackled thorax/front half.

The Stimulator was made popular in the west by Randall Kaufmann.

(Photo from TroutFlies tutorial)

Why the history lesson? I’ve been experimenting with these patterns for a stone-fly pattern to try out this spring. Check this space tomorrow for the new pattern.