The Forest Ranger

Salmon flies continue to evolve, with new patterns and styles being produced all the time.  One of the more beautiful, and still functional salmon flies I have been introduced to in a very long time is the Forest Ranger, invented by Dave Burns.  Here is the history of the fly in his own words.  

"I started tying a fly that I called the Forest Ranger in August 1994 as a going away gift for a Forest Service employee.  I did one again in November 2007 as a contribution to a Payette Employees Association fund raiser for scholarships.  That triggered a lot of popularity for the pattern and I've tied somewhere around a dozen since, mostly for moving rangers or retiring rangers or such.  I have varied the materials some but here's the pattern from my logs:" 

Hook:  6/0-8/0 Harrison Bartleet; 

Tag: copper tinsel, or copper wire and pale green silk; 

Tail: golden pheasant crest (gpc) with veil of cardinal, red bishop, or red golden pheasant neck feather; 

Butt: black ostrich herl, or bronze peacock herl; 

Body: 1/4 orange silk, then orange (sometimes omitted), fiery brown, green and maybe black mohair, or seal; 

Ribs: copper tinsel and copper (or gold) twist; 

Hackle: brown, or furnace from the silk body section; 

Throat: guinea dyed green; 

Wing: two back to back jungle cock with two pair of tippets over as in the Durham Ranger, gpc over; 

Sides: jungle cock; 

Cheeks: green parrot or pita; 

Horns: green parrot; 

Head: black lacquer or herl to match the butt.

Naturally I also wanted to give this fly a shot, so, here is my rendition, with slight changes due to shortage of certain materials.  I fully plan to fish this pattern over steelhead this fall.  

In this version I have used Impyan pheasant for the cheeks, and scarlet macaw for the tail.  Hook is a Partridge 3/0 CS 10/3, body is seal.  I love the Pryce-Tannatt look of a well picked out seal body, and usually will incorporate this feature into my seal bodied patterns.  Underwater the sparkle and liveliness of the fur adds to it's killer ability.