Mil Spec Perdigon

Cheech - August, 2019

One late night as I was tying for our trip to Argentina I was trying to crank out as many flies as I could, so I turned to the good ol' mil spec technique to create some quill-looking Perdigons. The fly that you see pictured here was actually one of those late night accidents because I was tying them with a gold bead, but I grabbed a copper/brown bead and it ended up on one single fly in my box. You know how that story goes right? Yup... It was the best dropper pattern of the whole trip. I had several others tied with gold beads, but there was something about this color of bead that made the fish eat it without hesitation. We were fishing a very productive run with this fly, and I was worried that I'd lose it so I tied on a gold bead to see if I could catch fish on it... Usually the fish aren't that picky, but in this case, the bead made all the difference because I caught exactly zero fish on the gold bead. Once the brown bead was on again, I started to catch fish. Needless to say I tied a bunch of them when I got back, and made sure to use the brown bead. This being said, you should experiment with different bead colors as you fish because it makes a pretty big difference!
Anyway, this is a very simple and effective pattern that can be tied pretty quickly. That combination warrants a few rows in your box!!