I will always be a fan of the purple haze fly after a day fishing for cutthroat trout at a favorite high country lake in the Colorado mountains. On this particular day, the slowly cruising cutthroat were more interested in the purple bodied fly than anything else in my fly box. A friend had given me the single purple fly the weekend before and I am glad he did as it was the fly of the day and many days after.
As the warm summer days start giving way to cooler autumn afternoons and evenings, I decided to tie up a few of these favorites flies to remind me of a few of those Colorado summer mountain memories centered around blue skies, wildflowers and colorful cutthroat trout. It will be nice to have these in the fly box for the next high country lake trip.
For me, fall days and a nice, darker beer seem to go together perfectly. So, to help wrap up this set of size 16 dry flies, I decided to pair my tying with a Graham Cracker Porter from the Denver Beer Co. The porter was true to its advertised chocolate-vanilla flavoring with a biscuit/cracker aftertaste. While certainly not a session beer, it was a nice change of pace, just like the change of seasons, and a perfect beer for a nice mellow break from life and responsibility finishing up another set of flies for the fly box.
Purple Haze Fly Recipe
Hook: Standard dry fly of your choice (I used Size 16 TMC100's)
Tail: Moose Body Hair
Body: Purple Thread
Post: Calf Body Hair
Wing: Grizzly and Brown Hackle
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