LaFontaine's Buzzball - A Step by Step Guide

LaFontaine's Buzzballs!

In the book Trout Flies: Proven Patterns by Gary LaFontaine, he sates that he developed this fly for the great winter midge hatches on the Missouri River here in MT.  I have found that this simple and effective little fly does a great job mimicking midge clusters wherever they are found.

In recent years, the Buzzball has had a huge resurgence in popularity with the credit mostly going to Mark Raisler of Headhunters Fly Shop in Craig, MT.  He has found that the Buzzball also works great in the summertime on the MO when there are a ton of dead bug parts on the surface.  I, as well as everyone else he's turned onto this fly (I actually think Sara R. gave me my first one), have had amazing success with it.

It doesn't end there.  Being the endless experimenter that I am, I've taken the Buzzball all over Montana and used in on a variety of waters.  I've tested it on everything from the freestone rivers and Georgetown Lake, to stocked borrow pits and high alpine lakes.  I've also experimented with the recipe.  The variable here is the orange hackle used in the original pattern.  If you use brown or black instead of the orange, you can cover a variety of lighting and hatch situations.  I've also found that substituting a cream colored hackle for the orange is extremely effective for the spruce moth which occur on the west-side, freestone streams.

The Buzzball is ridiculously simple to tie, easy to see on the water, and extremely effective in a variety of situations.  In my book, that is what makes a good fly!  Here's the recipe for the original and step-by-step instruction.

Hook:  Size 18-12 dry fly hook (16 is my favorite)
Thread:  8/0 burnt orange
Hackle:  1 grizzly hackle in the appropriate size (approx. 1 1/2 gap length); 1 light dun hackle (smaller, but size doesn't matter); 1 orange hackle (smaller, but size doesn't matter) 


Step 1:

Wrap the hook shank thoroughly and evenly.


Step 2:

Tie in the grizzly hackle in a size appropriate to the hook.

Step 3:

Tie in the orange hackle (size is not important because this is going to get cut).


Step 4:

Tie in the light dun hackle (again, size in not important because this going to be cut) and the advance thread to front of the hook.


Step 5:

Palmer both the orange and light dun hackles to the front of the hook.

Step 6:

Cut the orange and light dun hackles to about hook gap length all around the hook so that it resembles a bottle brush.

Step 7:

Palmer the grizzly hackle forward and then whip finish.

Step 8:

Cut the grizzly hackle flush to the orange and light dun on the top and bottom of the fly only.  Your done!

Missoula area fishing report - Bighorn Edition - Early August

Handsome Ram

Rock Creek:  The fishing at Rock Creek is elementary and outstanding right now.  The hell with salmonflies, give me the spruce moth!  The spruce moths have cyclical hatches (like a lot of our bug friends) and this year is a heavy one.  I've been seeing them on all the local streams and the fish are more excited than me about it.

Get off the paved road and away from people.  Make sure to have decent wading boots with studs because the rocks in the creek are super slick right now and the flow is still good.  Fish the shallow faster-fast riffles with your Elk Hair Caddis selection and move your way downstream hitting above and below every mid-stream rock.  When there is good pocket water or riffle which runs up against the bank, stand in the middle of the river and cast towards the bank.  You should be catching bucket-loads of small fish with lots of bigger fish mixed in.  If not, your fishing skills need some work because it is unreal up there right now.  Honestly, your fish count will directly correspond to your ability to move up and down the stream to cover water.  I covered about 2 1/2 miles and caught fish on the dry, all day long.

While I was climbing on top of a log jamb, I looked down and saw a huge bull trout hiding in the shade right underneath me. I froze and tried to slowly reach for my camera as he slid slowly into better view.  Then, I could see him look right up at me and, POOF- gone.

Clark Fork:  The Clark Fork is in great shape and the fishing is really good, even around town, and even with the tubers.  I caught some great fish right in between tubers this week.  It's funny to have a drunken audience when your catching fish, especially because most people don't realize that there are such great fish right around town.  I just wish the tubers didn't trash the place. Anyway, the spruce moths are gonzo and the big fish are one em, big-time.  The Kingfisher Fly Shop put a great tip in their fishing reports.  They mentioned using a Prince nymph as a dropper under your whatever.  Boy, whatever the trout are taking that for, I don't know.  But the Prince nymph dropper is working like an electrofishing wand right now.  I switched over to a double Prince set-up but that was not as effective.  It seems like the trout want the dropper on a pretty short leash.  Anyway, in the afternoon, cut the prince nymph off and trail an Elk Hair Caddis of the back of your smaller hopper for the spruce moth.  The big fish are eating on top - nuff said.

Bitterroot:  The lower Root is also fishing great with smaller hoppers and spruce moths as well as some remaining PMDs and caddis in the evening.  Although it's been hotter than a two dollar pistol here in Montana, we are still maintaining good flows on all of our streams.  Hopper season on the lower Root is really fun.  There are a lot of BIG cutthroat down here love to slow-sip the hopper.

Blackfoot:  I haven't been up there in a while but with the insane amount of spruce moths I've been seeing everywhere, I'm thinking the Blackfoot would be really fun right now.

Lakes and ponds:  You tell me.  It's up in the air whether I'll be fishing an alpine lake, wildeness stream, or restored mine disaster this week.  Stay tuned.

Hey baby, why the long face?

Montana traffic jam

Elk Hair Caddis

A previously munched Al Troth's Elk Hair Caddis

I don't think I'll be happy until I have an entire boat box filled with Elk Hair Caddis in every size and color combination.  I'm getting there, slowly.  One of my favorite sizes and color combinations is the cream hackle/ light hair in a size 16-14.  It covers 3 bases and is durable - it's why it's a classic.

First, it obviously works for the small light colored natural caddis.  Second, it's super visible and works for any colored caddis on those 11pm sunset, caddis insanities we're about to experience.  Third, it is the perfect pattern for the spruce moths which come along later in the summer.