Olive Willy Variant

[Ron Eagle Elk]

Years ago Vickie and I were invited to fish Stan Coffin Lake in eastern WA. It was being made into a large mouth bass fishery, but the bass had yet to arrive and the food fish, blue gills and crappie were in abundance. Vickie had never fished for pan fish with a fly rod before so we borrowed a fly from a friend and had at it. Blue Gills became known as "Giggle Fish" because Vickie was hooking up with a gill on every other cast and she could be heard all over the lake, giggling like a mad woman. The fly we used was an Olive Willy.

Olive Willy Variant
Hook is a Mustad 3906B size 10 or 12
The bead is a silver lined red glass bead sized for the hook.
Black Thread or any color really
Tail is fiber of olive marabou tied fairly full
The body on the original was olive chenille. I just twisted up the butt ends of the tail fibers and wrapped them on.
The wing is any red feather fibers. I had teal flank dyed red handy and used that.
The collar is any green hackle. I used a Whiting Brahma hen, about two full turns.

[Mike62]

Giggle fish! I love that description. We had a similar experience last week on St. Froid, throwing flies to slab-sided white perch on 3wt. rods. I'm going to tie up some of Vickie's 'giggle' flies and take them back to St. Froid. Thanks for sharing that remembrance.

[Roadkill]

Back in the early 60's, I used to ride my bicycle out of town to a local pond and test out my flies on bluegills and crappies. They never failed to amuse!

Thanks Ron, for a blast from the past!