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Rivergod Emerger

By Dennis Potter

This is my #1 “go to” fly in almost all hatch matching situations. It is as close as you can get to a no refusal pattern if it is used in the right color and size and properly presented. I don’t search with it. The pattern shown here is a #18 Slate Wing Olive. I use this pattern in different sizes and colors from #12 for Brown Drakes and Iso’s down to a diminutive #24 for Tricos and Blue Wing Olives. I drop the shuck at #22. I doubt very much that the fish can see that tiny shuck anyway.

Size #16 and smaller have a thread abdomen and dubbed thorax, while #14 and #12 have a dubbed abdomen and thorax. I have included a photo of a dubbed #14 Hendrickson for comparison.

Originally I tied this fly without a tail using only a shuck. That changed several years ago while fishing it during a heavy Hendrickson hatch. I was catching fish after fish throughout the hatch and then it just stopped working. I cast repeatedly to a big fish that I could see eating duns but it refused my fly. I switched to a parachute and took the same fish on the first cast. After a session of applied bourbon therapy, I understood. The hatch was over, thus there were no more emergers on the water. The fish did not want the fly with the shuck. I later added the tail. The same situation presented itself later that season during the SWO hatch in July. Instead of switching to a parachute, I clipped off the shuck and put the fly back over the fish and it took it with gusto. Sometimes I clip the shuck and and sometimes I switch to a dun pattern. More often than not, I can fish the emerger all the way through the hatch.

It is a quick tie, durable as hell, and easy to see on the water. That, my friends, is a fabulous combination.

Don’t get caught up in the “color” debate when it comes to Sulphurs, Light Hendricksons, and PMD’s. The same goes with Slate Wing Olive or Blue Wing Olive. I have perfect color vision and I just don’t find that I need three or four sulphur colored flies for the yellow flies or olive several colors of flies for the olives. Tie all of the sulphur flies with bright yellow thread and pale yellow dubbing and light olive thread and dubbing for the olives. I was told years ago by a prominent Jackson Hole shop owner and his guide that my day on the South Fork of the Snake was doomed because I did not have PMD’s with a hint of pink. My little yellow Rivergod Emerger just knocked the cutthroats that day. If an occasional fish won’t eat your fly because it is a shade off, you don’t want to catch that fish anyway.