Steve Sobieniak is a bamboo rodmaker and fly shop owner in Lanesboro, MN, which is in the heart of the Driftless region. The South Fork of the Root River flows through town, right across the street from his shop. He approached me a couple of years ago, asking if I would be interested in tying a fly that he designed, or maybe saying he happened upon it would be more accurate. The story went that his dad was fishing the Metolius River in Oregon oh so many years ago, and he found a broken-off fly in a tree along the bank. He thought it still looked fishable, so he tied it on and proceeded to slay the trout for the rest of the day. He showed it to Steve afterwards, and it quickly became a family favorite. They labeled it the "Metolius", after the river it came from. Apparently it has gained quite a following amongst Steve's customers, and he had become unable to keep up with the demand. So, that is where I came in. I have now tied about 75 dozen of them for Steve in the past couple of years, and I still can't quite wrap my head around it. It's rather ugly. Or, if not ugly, at least atypical. I had to teach myself to make sure I didn't tie them too nicely. Here is one I recently tied:


Not really sure what it's supposed to imitate, but maybe it's more of an attractor.

The recipe:
Size 14 dry fly hook
6/0 thread, gray or pink, or whatever you'd like
Elk hair for the post/tail (or is it the post/wing? not sure...)
Brown hackle, sized one size too big
Brown or tan dubbing (I almost always add some pink around the post, but that is optional

Let me know if you have any questions, or if you tie some and have some luck with them. I will be posting a tutorial video on YouTube soon, if you are interested.

The rustic appearance reminds me of a McClain's Drake, except the body on that fly is from the wool of an old sweater.

Which hatch do the locals fish with this fly most often? Hendricksons, Brown Drakes or just a general attractor?

I am not sure which hatch, if any, it is used for down in the Lanesboro area. Personally, I have never fished with one, but I plan on tying a few extra for my own box.

Size 14 is on the large size for our local mayflies and caddisflies, and really, with the tail/wing hanging off the back, it is about twice the size of a normal size 14 fly... I have a feeling it just looks buggy and delicious, kind of like a wooly bugger. Just looks yummy without looking like anything in real life...

That pattern will do well in a larger size and in olive for the Green Drakes out here in the west. Thanx!

My Youtube tutorial will go live on Friday, and I will post the link here. In the meantime I have changed the color scheme for my next batch of 5 dozen.
The recipe for this batch will be:
Same hook (Kona BDH size 14 dry fly hook)
Olive thread
Bull Elk for the post/wing
Coachman Brown parachute hackle
Brown squirrel/Antron dubbing for the front and rear sections
Peacock Sword colored Ice Dub, just around the base of the post


This should work well, too, I would think...

Totally agree. Looks like a parachute hackled Goddard Caddis. I think the post/wing probably isn’t as much of a trout trigger as the overall silhouette. Even if the Metolius doesn’t have day time hatch of similarly sized bugs there could be a nighttime hatch of a large caddis that most folks don’t see. I can think of one river in NC that has a nocturnal oversized caddis that I’ve never seen in the day.

Or it could just be the attractor factor :-)