Silver Dr. Blue Bomber Saddle

Silver Doctor Blue Bomber Saddle

Silver Doctor Blue takes its name from one of the most famous salmon flies ever tied, and the color has earned its spot in every serious salmon box since. It is a bright, clean kingfisher blue that reads like sky on the surface and like baitfish underneath.

The Ewing Bomber Saddle puts that color on 4–6+ inch genetic rooster feathers with dense, stiff barbules and a stem that wraps without cracking. One feather palmers a full-length Bomber body. Pull two or three together and you have a Deceiver tail with real movement.

Use it for Atlantic salmon dries and Bombers, steelhead skaters, blue-backed baitfish for stripers, bluefish and dorado, and collars on hair-wing salmon flies.

Recipe 1: Silver Doctor Bomber (Atlantic salmon dry)

• Hook: Daiichi 2421 or Partridge Bomber hook, #4–#8
• Thread: Black 6/0, switching to 3/0 for spinning hair
• Tail: White calf tail, half a shank length
• Rib: Fine oval silver tinsel
• Body: Natural deer hair, spun and clipped to a cigar shape, fattest at the middle
• Hackle: One Silver Doctor Blue Bomber Saddle feather, palmered through the body
• Wing: White calf tail, tied forward at 45 degrees over the eye

Tying notes: Tie in the hackle by its tip at the tail before you spin the body. Clip the body tight, palmer the hackle forward in 6–7 open turns, then counter-wrap the silver rib through it to lock every turn. A Bomber gets chewed; the rib keeps it fishing.

How to fish it: Cast quartering down and across on a floating line and let the Bomber drift drag-free over a holding lie. If you get a rise without a take, change nothing and cast to the exact spot again; salmon often come back on the second or third pass. In skinny riffles, mend downstream so the fly wakes slowly across the current. Lift late. Salmon take with their head down, so wait until you feel weight.

Recipe 2: Silver Doctor Blue Deceiver (saltwater baitfish)

• Hook: Gamakatsu SL12S or Mustad 34007, #1/0–#3/0
• Thread: White 210 denier
• Tail: 6–8 Silver Doctor Blue Bomber Saddle feathers, three to four per side, curves facing in
• Flash: 8–10 strands of silver Flashabou alongside the tail
• Body: Silver Mylar braid
• Belly: White bucktail, extending past the hook bend
• Back: Blue bucktail, topped with 6 strands of peacock herl
• Eyes: 3D stick-on eyes, 1/4 inch, coated with UV resin

Tying notes: Match the feathers so the curves face in. That gives the tail its kick on the pause and keeps it from fouling. Tie the bucktail sparse and hollow so it breathes.

How to fish it: Fish a sinking-tip or intermediate line around rips, jetty edges and bait balls. Strip 12–18 inches at a time, fast and steady when bluefish or dorado are crashing bait, then add a two-count pause between strips for stripers. Most eats come on the pause, when the saddle tail flares. Strip-set; do not trout-set.