Overview
This Charlie Craven pattern from Charlie's Fly Box represents a highly effective stillwater pattern that imitates water boatmen - aquatic insects that are abundant in lakes and ponds. Water boatmen swim to the surface to collect air bubbles, making them vulnerable to trout throughout the water column. The mottled bustard thinskin creates the distinctive mottled appearance of natural water boatmen backs while the pearl lateral scale underneath adds the silvery flash of trapped air bubbles. The gunmetal glass bead provides just enough weight to sink the fly while adding a realistic head shape. Black superfloss creates the extended rear legs that water boatmen use for propulsion. The ice dub body provides both color and subtle flash. UV resin coating over the shellback creates durability and the glossy, wet appearance of natural insects.
Related patterns
Behavior & presentation
- Natural Behavior
- Water boatmen propel themselves through mid-water depths using rapid oar-like leg strokes, surfacing periodically to capture air bubbles before diving back toward vegetation. Their jerky swimming and constant vertical movement make them conspicuous year-round prey in lakes and ponds.
- Where Trout Eat It
- Trout cruise mid-column in lakes and ponds, intercepting water boatmen during their air-refilling ascents and descents.
- How to Fish It
- Use erratic strip-pause retrieves mimicking the darting swimming motion, or fish upward toward the surface to imitate air-seeking behavior.
- Best Water
- Work weed edges where water boatmen concentrate, drop-offs along vegetation transitions, and shoals with aquatic plant growth.
- Strike Type
- Strikes feel like firm pulls or steady line draws as fish intercept the moving pattern mid-retrieve.
Fishing strategy
- Rigging Suggestions
- Fish on a 12-foot leader with 4X-5X fluorocarbon tippet. Use a floating line and count down to reach different depths. Can also be fished under an indicator for a more static presentation.
- Seasonal Timing
- Effective year-round in stillwaters, with peak activity during warmer months when water boatmen are most active. Can be particularly productive.
- Pro Tips
- This is a sinking pattern designed to probe the water column. The dark coloration provides visibility to fish while the pearl flash suggests the air bubble water boatmen carry with them.
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
Water boatmen swim actively through stillwater environments using their oar-like hind legs, periodically surfacing for air bubbles that shimmer visibly before diving back toward aquatic vegetation. Their jerky swimming motion and year-round availability make them important forage in lakes and ponds where trout readily intercept them during their constant vertical migrations.
- Order
- Hemiptera
- Family
- Corixidae
- Common name
- Water Boatman
- Organism
- insect
- Life stage
- general
Pattern details
- Stillwater
- Rocky Mountain
- dead-drift
- indicator-nymph
