River Pattern Guide

Best Flies for North Branch Potomac River

The North Branch of the Potomac River below Jennings-Randolph Dam on the Maryland-West Virginia border is one of the most underrated tailwater trout fisheries in the mid-Atlantic region. Fed by cold h...

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11 recommended patterns

Nymph

San Juan Worm

Love it or hate it, it catches fish — lots of fish.

Sizes 10–16

Dry Fly

Adams

The original Adams dry fly is the foundation of American mayfly fishing. Its mixed grizzly and brown

Sizes 12–20

Nymph

Prince Nymph

Doug Prince's attractor nymph combines peacock herl, brown hackle, goose biot wings and tail in a pa

Sizes 10–18

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

Olive Woolly Bugger

The olive variant of the Woolly Bugger is specifically effective as a leech and damselfly nymph imit

Sizes 6–12

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

Kreelex

The Kreelex is a simple but flashy baitfish pattern made primarily of metallic lateral scale materia

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

Wet Fly

Picket Pin

The Picket Pin is a traditional stillwater wet fly that imitates damselfly nymphs and emergers. Its

Sizes 10–14

Wet Fly

Woolly Worm

The ancestor of the Woolly Bugger, the Woolly Worm is a palmered chenille-and-hackle pattern that ha

Sizes 8–14

Nymph

Squirmy Wormy

A controversial but devastatingly effective pattern using a squiggly silicone body to imitate aquati

Sizes #10–#14