The Lacky Sunken Stone is a variation of a salmon fly pattern created by the late Nick Nicklas of West Yellowstone MT. Nick’s pattern was tied with an orange body on a 6xl hook in sizes 4 and 6. He also tied golden stones on size 8 hooks. Fortunately we don’t need such large flies to imitate the good yellow stonefly hatches that we usually see during May and June on the Lackawaxen. We’ve slightly modified Nick’s original to match our stones. The original was tied without legs and is quite effective that way. The fly is essentially several elk hair caddis tied in succession along the hook with rubber legs tied in “X” style as shown in the picture. Begin by tying in the deer hair tail (which actually imitates the extended wing of the natural), cover the butts of the hair with dubbing. Tie in a clump of deer hair so that the tips reach back to approximately the middle of the preceding clump. Cover the butts with dubbing and keep repeating the process until you reach the eye of the hook. The last clump is finished off by trimming the butts as shown. If using the legs tie them in at the next to last clump. Cover the tie in with dubbing and proceed to the final clump.

Hook : Dry fly; #10, 2xl and 3xl
Tail : Natural deer hair
Wing : Natural deer hair
Body : Yellowish dubbing
Legs : Medium tan centipede legs (optional)

Alan Bowers

Fly tied by John Lazar