If you’ve been following the fly-fishing world over the past few years, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard of Blane Chocklett’s Game Changer-style of flies. There’s a reason for this: the patterns are effective imitations of a number of different baitfish, and you can tie them with a number of different materials. It’s a platform that you can use to tie the pattern a number of ways (another popular platform, for example, is the Clouser Minnow).

There’s a reason for this: the patterns are effective imitations of a number of different baitfish, and you can tie them with a number of different materials. It’s a platform that you can use to tie the pattern a number of ways (the Clouser Minnow is an example of another popular platform of fly patterns).

The pattern has all the moves you could want, and you can tie it as big or as small as you desire (Chocklett recently posted a picture of one he tied that wasn’t much bigger than the circumference of a quarter). It all depends on the number and size of the articulated shanks and hook(s) that you decide to use (I typically only use 10mm and 15mm shanks).

If I’m fishing around here (say, on Spring Creek), I typically use Game Changers that are in the 2.5-3 inch range. Nothing huge, but enough to give the fish a nice meal if they want it. In the box photos below, you’ll see a lot of ones that are tied in natural colors to imitate the sculpins that are prevalent around here.

These do take some time commitment to sit down and tie, but they’re fun to do once you get going. There are some very interesting color blends you can get depending on the colors of feathers that you use! Eventually I’ll try one of the Mallard Flank versions… Someday.

You can find a whole lot of different tying tutorials of the Game Changer platform online using any number of natural and synthetic materials. To make things a bit easier, a few of them for you here (the first two are longer, step-by-step tutorials with explanations):