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Coffin Fly
A dry fly, tied #8–12, a spring pattern. It is tied against 1 named insect in this book — May–June.
The spent spinner of the Green Drake, tied on a 2X long dry-fly hook in sizes 8–12 with white 6/0 thread. Three black moose or paintbrush fibres form the tail, the body is white foam or white poly dubbing, the wings are dark grey poly set spent, and the badger hackle is clipped underneath so the fly lies flush in the surface the way a dead spinner does. It is a spring pattern, fished at last light and after, where the Green Drake duns came off two hours earlier and the spinners return to the same water. The natural is Ephemera guttulata, on the water in May–June at 52–64°F, and trout are the fish. The white body against a dark sky is what makes the fly trackable after dark, and the whole design — spent wing, flat profile, no hackle beneath — is built for a fish that eats slowly off the top in the last of the light.
- #8–12Hook size
- dry flyType
- SpringSeason
- 1Hatch matched
What it looks like
A drawing, not a photograph, and not traced from one. Its proportions were read off 5 independent reference photographs of the pattern and written down as 5 measured characteristics — wing angle, tail length against the shank, how far a hackle fibre reaches — every one of which had to hold across more than one of them before it could be drawn. What survives across many photographs of a fly is the fly.
What it imitates
Each of these is the same hatch record the app's own panel reads, so a pattern recommended on a river card in the app is recommended for one of the insects below.
Tying recipe
In tying order. This dressing is the standard one — these patterns have been in the publicrecord for decades — and materials substitute freely: the proportions and the silhouette are the pattern, not the brand of dubbing.
| Hook | 2X long dry-fly hook, sizes 8–12 |
|---|---|
| Thread | White 6/0 |
| Tail | Three black moose or paintbrush fibres |
| Body | White foam or white poly dubbing |
| Wings | Dark grey poly, spent |
| Hackle | Badger, clipped underneath |
When to fish it
The Green Drake spinner, after dark. Fish it where the duns came off two hours earlier.
A spring pattern. The insects it matches are active may–june, in water from 52°F to 64°F.
Target species
- Trout
Rivers it fishes well
Rivers with a page here that sit in the regions where the insects this pattern imitates are recorded. It is a claim about coverage, not a report of a fish caught.
- Catawba River the North Carolina mountains · July mean 76.7°F
- Jackson River the Virginia mountains · July mean 66.3°F
- Smith River the Virginia mountains · July mean 51.9°F
- Tygart Valley River the Virginia mountains · July mean 74.6°F
- Aaron Creek the North Carolina mountains · July mean 76.7°F
- Aaron Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 77.1°F
- Aarons Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 74.2°F
- Abb Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 77.1°F
- Abes Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 71.1°F
- Abram Creek the Virginia mountains · July mean 57.7°F
- Acorn Branch the North Carolina mountains · July mean 74.2°F
- Adamcamp Branch the North Carolina mountains · July mean 76.7°F
Related patterns
Same type of fly, or tied for the same insects.
- Green Drake dry fly · #8–12 — The two-week Appalachian event. Size 10 and hard to miss.
- Stimulator dry fly · #8–16 — Attractor and stonefly both. Floats a dropper better than almost anything.
- Adams (Catskill) dry fly · #12–20 — The original. Rides higher than the parachute in broken water.
- Adult Cranefly dry fly · #10–16 — Long trailing legs, sparse hackle, skittered rather than drifted. Autumn and spring evenings on the bank side.
- Adult Damsel dry fly · #10–14 — Blue or olive extended body on a foam post. For midsummer afternoons on slow weedy water.