River Pattern Guide

Best Flies for Klickitat River

Where the Cascade Mountains meet the Columbia River Gorge, the Klickitat River carves a dramatic 90-mile course from the glaciated flanks of Mount Adams to its confluence with the Columbia near Lyle, ...

View full river guide →

13 recommended patterns

Streamer

Woolly Bugger

If you could only fish one fly for the rest of your life.

Sizes 2–10

Egg

Glo Bug

When trout are gorging on eggs, nothing else comes close.

Sizes 10–16

Streamer

Slumpbuster

John Barr's Slumpbuster is a cone-headed pine squirrel strip streamer designed to imitate sculpin an

Sizes 4–8

Streamer

Sex Dungeon

Kelly Galloup's Sex Dungeon is a massive, articulated streamer designed to trigger predatory aggress

Sizes 2–6

Streamer

Zonker

The Zonker uses a rabbit strip tied over a Mylar tube body to create a baitfish imitation with incre

Sizes 4–10

Streamer

Clouser Minnow (Trout)

Bob Clouser's iconic dumbbell-eyed minnow pattern, scaled down for trout water. The weighted eyes ma

Sizes 6–10

Streamer

Autumn Splendor

Mike Schmidt's Autumn Splendor is a balanced leech/baitfish pattern designed to be fished on a jig h

Sizes 8–12

Egg

Nuke Egg

The Nuke Egg is a smaller, more translucent version of the Glo Bug, tied with McFlyFoam for a realis

Sizes 12–16

Egg

Y2K Bug

The Y2K Bug features a bright center dot surrounded by a translucent veil of egg yarn, imitating a f

Sizes 10–14

Egg

Sucker Spawn

The Sucker Spawn imitates a diffuse cluster of eggs rather than a single egg, using loosely tied McF

Sizes 10–14

Egg

Blood Dot Egg

A realistic egg pattern featuring a contrasting red or orange dot in the center of a pale egg body,

Sizes 10–14

Egg

Egg Pattern

Simple yarn or chenille egg patterns imitate fish eggs drifting in the current during spawning seaso

Sizes 10–16

Streamer

Barely Legal

Kelly Galloup designed this articulated streamer to push water and create maximum vibration on the s

Sizes #2–#6