Intro to the Bullet Head Skwala

Hey guys, Tyler at North 40 Fly Shop in Coeur d'Alene. Today we are going to tie a bullethead skwala.

Coming into springtime here, one of the main hatches in the Northwest is the skwala. One of the first big stoneflies that we see of the year. A lot of guys really anticipate this hatch, it's a great one. Some places we start seeing them as early as late February, the first part of March. Through March and April, this has been a good one I've fished over the years.

It's got a poly underwing, helps it float a little bit. Little egg sac to represent the female laying eggs but really cool looking little fly. It's got a foam body on it so it's gonna float like a cork. The poly wing helps it float. Great, great fly. This is one of my go-to skwala patterns when I'm fishing that hatch. I'll show you how to tie it.

Step-by-Step Tying Instructions

All right. We're using a ... This is gonna be a size eight, I believe a 203 Umpqua. I'll go ahead and tie in. We're using a fairly heavy thread here, this is 210 Danville Flat-Waxed in a yellow. Go ahead and get tied in. We're gonna move that to just past the bend of the hook here. This hook has a slopping bend to it so we're gonna come back a little bit beyond the hook point.

Next, we're gonna use some black ice dub and we're gonna create an egg sac for this guy. Give a little flair. I use a fair bit. Go ahead and get your dubbing put on there. Scoot it up. Just wrap in one spot here, creating a ball for the egg sac. There you go. Nice and neat.

Okay. Next, we're gonna do the tail. We're doing some Goose Biots in brown. What you want to do is get these guys reversed here, against each other, splayed out. Like so, if you can see that in the camera. Okay. Go ahead and split the hook. Get one on each side. They'll just sit and hang out a little bit there. There we go. Cool. Go ahead and bring your thread forward.

Okay. Next, we're gonna do is our body. We're using Rainy's Evazote Foam here. Has a nice look to it. It's olive. Has that good skwala look. Nice and squishy too so it's gonna compact really well when we tie this in here, you'll notice it's gonna compress down quite a bit. There we go. Okay.

Next, let's get our hackle tied in. We're gonna do some Whiting brown. Go ahead and prep your feather. Get a stem started here. Tie it in and then right back there. Okay. Bring the bottom forward.

Next, we're gonna give this guy a little bit of reinforcement. I'm gonna do just a touch of Super Glue or a little Zap-A-Gap. I apply it with my bod pin here. Just a touch on here. That foams gonna pick that up and really help hold that fly together. Now we're gonna wrap. Give it a good stretch. Don't really want to bulk it up too much here. Every time I'm wrapping, I'm giving a little bit of a stretch there. That's good. Tie that end, trim your excess. Good. Okay. Then we're gonna run our hackle. Forward. That's good. Tie that off.

Okay. Next, we're gonna do our underwing here. A little bit of gray poly wing or widow's web. Let me get a better piece here. Little fuzzy poly. I want to measure. I want it about as long as the tail is there. We're gonna come slightly forward here, to create a little bit of a taper upfront. Good. Trim. Good.

Next, we're gonna do our wing, our over wing. Little elk hair. I'm gonna use about yay much there. Trim out your underfur. Put it in our stacker here. Get it down to the amount where you want. A little bit thick. That's good. All right. We're gonna measure. We want about the length of the wing there. I'm gonna stack this one more time. Don't like how that looks. There we go. Almost. Hair's not liking me today. Last time here. There we go. Okay. What I was trying to do there, is trying to get this hair, it's got a little bit of natural curvature to it. Kind of sweep back along that same arch here. When you guys are picking your hair out, you may want to look for that or try and find some hair that's straighter but it kind of looks cool when it has that swoop to it. Trim. Bring your bobbin nice and close to the poly wing. Tie that in.

Again, this is where I'm using a pretty heavy thread. We're using a pretty generous amount of hair there. You gotta put some good pressure on that thread. All right. Cool. Got our wing in.

Now we're gonna do our bullethead. The same thing, we're gonna use elk hair again. I'm gonna, again, take a fair amount here guys. As you're learning fly tying, you're gonna learn that any deer hair, elk hair, as you guys are tying with it, it's hard to add to it later so always take more than you think you need. Then just whittle it down till you get a topper. That'll ... You've got a lot ... Sometimes a lot of under fur there that you need to clean out. Kind of like picking fruit out at the grocery store. You want to select it. Take it out of the pack in the fly shop and look at it. All right. Get more than one be hair. All right. Looking good.

Bullethead Skwala

Bulletheads are tricky guys. It may take a little bit of practice. Get your bobbin all the way up towards the eye here. We're gonna set that hair in there. Do the pinch move with your thread. Get a couple of wraps on there. Start compressing and then let it roll. Bring it all the way around. Throw a few back in there. Then I'm gonna come in and trim some of these butt ends down in here so they don't show through your bullethead when you're all done. Some guys will go, and just depending on the pattern or maybe your hair you may actually put a ball of dubbing right behind the bullethead there to give it a little bit rounder look to it. I'm gonna come back through, clean this up here. Bring your thread back where you want it. Put your finger right in the middle there. Get it to flair out. Make sure you can get your eye open. Then cut it back. Soft wrap and then we're gonna crank her down. Get rid of those guys there. All right. Looking good.

All right. I'm gonna come underneath here. I'm gonna expose the belly. You can see that there opens up the hackle, cleans it up just a little bit. All right. Moving along.

Rubber legs. We're gonna go with these brown and black variegated centipede legs or silicone legs, whatever you want to call them. I usually get mine set. There's two here and I'll set them right up on top. Some guys do one at a time. I found if you just get them right up on top and you can separate off the sides like so. Okay. We'll get a finished fly here. Clean it up and then shorten the legs just a little here. Looking good, looking good. All right.

Last, little bit of head cement. Okay. Right on your thread there. I actually come into the bullethead as well. Underneath and there we go. All right.

There's your bullethead skwala. It's coming up guys. Late February, the first part of March, Yakima River, Clark Fork, Bitterroot. This is the first big fun bug we get of the year. It's a great hatch if the water's conducive. It's a really, really, really fun hatch to fish. There you have it.

If you have any further questions on fly tying, please come visit us at any of our retail locations or North40.com.

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