Overview
This Charlie Craven pattern from Charlie's Fly Box demonstrates the elegantly simple egg fly construction. The pattern's beauty lies in its simplicity - McFlyfoam provides the perfect translucent, glowing appearance of a natural fish egg while being easy to tie and extremely durable. The curved caddis hook (2488H) helps the egg maintain a round shape and provides excellent hooking characteristics. Tied in various colors to match salmon, steelhead, or trout eggs, this pattern is a must-have for fishing below spawning fish.
Related patterns
Behavior & presentation
- Natural Behavior
- Dislodged fish eggs tumble helplessly downstream through spawning gravel without any escape ability. Their concentrated protein and fat content provides exceptional nutrition without requiring chase effort. Trout gorge on these nutrient-dense morsels during spawning runs.
- Where Trout Eat It
- Fish hold near bottom in tail-outs, runs, and riffle edges below spawning redds where current delivers drifting eggs through feeding zones.
- How to Fish It
- Dead drift along the bottom maintaining drag-free presentation. The slow-sinking McFlyfoam requires proper weighting to reach bottom where fish feed.
- Best Water
- Target tail-outs, riffle edges, seams, and pocket water below spawning activity where eggs concentrate.
- Strike Type
- Indicator dips, slight hesitations, or subtle line tightening signal takes.
Fishing strategy
- Rigging Suggestions
- Fish under a strike indicator with split shot to achieve proper depth. Use 4X-5X fluorocarbon tippet for invisibility. Excellent as part of a two-fly rig with a stonefly or attractor nymph as the point fly.
- Seasonal Timing
- Most effective during through spawning seasons when trout, salmon, and steelhead are actively spawning. Becomes a primary food source in rivers with salmon and steelhead runs from September through April.
- Pro Tips
- The McFlyfoam body provides a natural translucency that mimics real eggs. Common colors include pale orange, apricot, peach, and chartreuse.
Where to fish it
Rivers anglers pair with this fly, with local shops that stock it.
River details and fly shops from River & Run, our sister site.
Entomology
Dislodged fish eggs tumble downstream through spawning gravel, drifting helplessly in the current with no ability to escape predators. Trout gorge on these nutrient-dense morsels during spawning runs because a single egg provides concentrated protein and fat without the energy expenditure required to chase active prey.
- Organism
- egg
- Life stage
- egg
Pattern details
- Moving Water
- Pacific Northwest
- Great Lakes
- Alaska
- British Columbia
- Rocky Mountain
- Northeast
- Midwest
- dead-drift
- indicator-nymph
- caddis-hatch
- stonefly-hatch
- beginner-friendly
- attractor
- searching-pattern
