Rough Water Skwala
Skwala? What the heck is that? If you fish for trout in the West, you know it’s a genus of stoneflies, or at least you should.
Skwala stoneflies are important insects, hatching from late winter through spring (depending on location and species) from California to British Columbia and as far east as Montana and Wyoming. Skwala stoneflies can reach nearly 2 inches in length, about the same size as the better-known Golden Stoneflies of summer—not quite as large as the largest species in the order Plecoptera, but big enough to entice the largest trout to the surface. Overall, they look and behave pretty much like every other stonefly. What sets the Skwala apart is its body coloration and its early-in-the year emergence.
The Rough Water Skwala is the creation of Howard “Bud” Heintz of Modesto, California. He designed the pattern for the late Jon Baiocchi to fish on the Yuba River, a tributary to the Feather River north of Sacramento. The design was a collaborative effort between Heintz and Baiocchi, who had an ongoing friendship of many years until Baiocchi’s passing in April, 2021. The two men collaborated on the final design of numerous patterns. Whenever Baiocchi, a guide on the Feather and Yuba Rivers, encountered a bug he couldn’t find a good commercial match for, or just wanted something a little more precise, he turned to Heintz.
Their collaboration on the Rough Water Skwala was indicative of most of their joint efforts. It began with Baiocchi sending Heintz photos of the Skwalas he encountered on the Yuba, followed by extensive phone conversations about the insect, the river conditions Baiocchi might encounter, and how he wanted the imitations to fish. Using his extensive knowledge and experience designing flies, Heintz immediately set out to capture what he saw in the photos. The two men consulted throughout the design process: Heintz would tie a few prototypes and send them to Baiocchi, who would fish them and then provide Heintz with feedback so he could refine the concept.
The process lasted over a year and ultimately yielded four versions of the fly: the original Rough Water Skwala in male and female versions and the Low Water Skwala in male and female versions. The differences are subtle, but the results on the water proved to be substantial to the trout under specific circumstances.
The Rough Water Skwala described here is the female. This version differs from the Low Water Skwala by the addition of a wire-reinforced hackle palmered over the thorax. Heintz uses a slightly longer hackle over the Rough Water thorax, but it should still be shorter than the traditional 1.5-times-the-hook-gap measurement for dry-fly hackles—he and Baiocchi tried that configuration and it made the butt of the fly ride too low in the water, resulting in a dry fly that got drowned from behind in the rough water it’s intended to fish in. By downsizing the hackle to “just a bit longer than the width of the hook gap,” as Heintz explains, the fly rides at a much better angle. On the Low Water version, keep the thorax hackle “just a breath” longer than the hook gap. Also, omit the reinforced hackle over the abdomen. This configuration allows the fly to ride much lower on the water. In low or slow water, the trout react to it much better.
The female Skwala is larger than the male and has a different-colored abdomen. To match the males, Heintz uses a size 12 hook. To match the abdomen, use cinnamon or light gold dubbing instead of the amber used to match the female. And, obviously, omit the egg sack.
John E. Wood is a Montana-based freelance writer, photographer, and fly designer whose travels take him around the West in search of excellent fishing locations.
Materials
Hook: Daiichi 1260 or TMC 2312, size 10
Thread: Black Veevus, size 12/0
Tail: Black hackle stems
Egg sack: Peacock Black Ice Dub (#283)
Rib: Small copper wire
Abdomen: Amber superfine dubbing
Abdomen hackle: Dark ginger
Underwing: Pearl Krystal Flash
Wing: Fine moose body hair
Legs: Brown, medium round rubber or Flutter Legs
Hackle: Dark Cree, or brown and grizzly, one to two sizes undersized
Head: Hot orange tying thread.
Step 1: Start the tying thread just forward of the midpoint of the hook shank and build a thread base to the bend of the hook. Make a small thread hump at the top of the hook bend. Strip all the barbs off two hackle stems, cut away the tips of the stems, then blacken the stems, if necessary, with a permanent marker. Tie one on each side of the hook to form the tails.
Step 2: Taking care not to compress the splay of the tails, dub on the egg sack, using enough dubbing so that it will be a slightly larger diameter than the abdomen of the fly. Tie in the wire, then dub the abdomen, spinning the dubbing tightly. The front edge of the abdomen should be slightly forward of the center of the hook shank. Tie in the abdomen hackle just in front of the abdomen.
Step 3: Spiral the hackle rearward, making no more than four wraps. Holding the hackle tip snugly, pass the wire over it and spiral the wire forward to form the rib, simultaneously locking down the hackle. Tie off the wire and trim the excess wire and hackle tip, then trim away the hackle fibers on top of the abdomen.
Step 4: Fold a strand of Krystal Flash in half and tie it in at its center point, in front of the abdomen. Fold the forward half back and secure it in place as the underwing. Even the tips of a sparse bundle of fine moose hairs. Tie it in as the wing. Cut the butts at a sharp angle and bind them down, creating a tapered thread base.
Step 5: Tie in the thorax hackle at the front of the abdomen and bind the butts securely. Attach a single long piece of leg material to one side of the hook, then double it rearward and attach to the other side of the hook as shown. The rear-facing legs should extend to the center of the tails. Leave the forward legs as a loop, to be cut after the fly is finished.
Step 6: Fill the space between the hackle and leg tie-in points with hackle wraps. Make one turn of brown and grizzly mixed, or two wraps if you use a single Cree hackle, over the leg tie-in point, then wrap the hackle forward of the legs. Leave a space equal to one hook-eye length for building the head. Tie off the hackle, and whip-finish the black thread. Build the head with orange thread, tie off, and cement. Trim the front legs to length.
