Nick Thomas continues to look at his set up for duo and also the patterns he uses.
In last month’s issue of ESF (Dancing a Jig) I described my methods for fishing the duo rig of a dry fly and a nymph using dry flies tied on jig hooks. The two flies described here are my favourites for fishing suspended under an indicator dry fly. They are not imitations of anything specific, more impressions of life and edibility. I generally don't get too hung up on tying or fishing realistic imitations; my style is less matching the hatch and more approximating the appetite. These two nymphs, the first approximating the nymphs of up-winged flies and the second a caddis or grub suggestion, pretty much cover what a trout, grayling or other hungry fish might expect to see drifting past as a river buffet.
The Radyr Nymph
This is my go to point fly for river nymphing, spring, summer, autumn and winter. It’s a simple pattern using a minimum of robust materials designed to do a job; get down in the current and look like fish food. It imitates nothing specific, but can be taken for anything. This year, and previous years, it has taken brown trout, sea trout, grayling, chub and barbel.
I always carry a variety of sizes in dark and light colours tied with different bead materials and sizes to suit a variety of different fishing situations. Versions with big heavy tungsten beads are used for short line nymphing, those with smaller tungsten beads are used for longer casting of a rig with an unweighted nymph or spider on a dropper and those with lighter metal or plastic beads are used for fishing on the duo rig. When tying versions for suspending under different sizes of dry flies tied on jig hooks it’s wise to experiment with the bead used for the nymph to get combinations of dry fly buoyancy and nymph weight that balance. Simply take the dry fly you are going to use, hook a beaded nymph into the eye, or into a short loop of tippet tied to the eye, gink up the dry and drop the pair into the kitchen sink. It’s not a perfect simulation; currents and ripples will tend to reduce flotation in real life, but it will give you an idea of what will work and what won’t. Take note of which pairs float and which sink; it can be surprising just how much weight a bushy dry fly will carry before it goes under.
Once you know which combinations of dry and weighted nymph are compatible all you need to do is adjust the length of tippet linking the two flies to get the nymph swinging at the right depth in the water you are fishing. The standard rule of thumb is to use a length around twice the depth of water, but in practice you’ll need to experiment for different depths and speed of flow; which is why it pays to have a few nymphs pre-tied on different lengths of tippet in your bag or vest.
For me the magic of fly tying is taking a small number of simple materials in the right combination and creating something that gives the impression of life. The Radyr Nymph uses just three key materials. Organza fibres give a muted sparkle in the tail and thorax, plastic tubing provides a segmented abdomen with minimal effort, and barred rubber strands the impression of flailing legs to complete the illusion. A plastic, brass or tungsten bead provides the impression of the nymph’s head and adds weight when required. I’m not too fussy over the bead colour as long as it’s fairly dark and muted, and in any case most of the colour on tungsten beads soon gets knocked back to raw metal if it’s being fished properly and is bashing into all the rocks on the river bed. If your fly has a pristine head at the end of a session you aren’t fishing it right. I tie this one in three colours; black, olive and light brown just by changing the colour of the organza ribbon.
Hook Fulling Mill 35045 Jig Force Barbless size 12 or 14
Bead Plastic, Brass or Tungsten 2-4mm
Thread Veevus 10/0 black
Tail Organza fibres
Abdomen Ultra Lace tubing 1mm olive
Legs Veniards mini speckled
Thorax Organza ribbon
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Fit bead on hook, run on the thread, take down to the bend in touching turns and bring back up to the bead.
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Cut a 4 inch length of organza, cut a 3mm strip from one edge and strip out the long fibres (see ESF #33 for full instructions for preparation of organza ribbon). Fold the a few of the fibres in half around the thread and tie in along the top of the shank to form the tail and trim to length.
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Return the thread to behind the bead and catch in a 4 inch length of Ultra Lace tubing. Use the front end of the tubing pressed into the back of the bead as you tie it in to push the bead against the hook eye. If you are using slotted tungsten beads use the end of the plastic tube in the slot to lock the bead the right way up over the hook eye.
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Stretch the tubing back and tie in along the shank to the bend. Make touching wraps of the tubing up the shank to form the segmented abdomen slightly easing off the tension on the tubing as you progress to form a tapered body. Tie in and trim away the excess.
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Trim off the short fibres from 1cm at the end of the stripped organza, tie in this section down in front of the abdomen and cut off the tag end.
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Cut three lengths of legs from the bunch and tie in at their mid-point on one side of the hook. Pull the forward ends over the top of the shank and tie down on the other side.
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Take one wrap of organza behind the legs to splay them out and then further wraps in front up to the bead. Secure the organza with a couple of thread turns, trim off the excess, smear the thread next to the bead with superglue and whip finish.
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Gather the ends of the legs together, pull back and trim to the length of the abdomen.
The Latex Organza Larva
The LOL is not an imitation, a reproduction, a copy or a facsimile of anything in particular. Rather it’s an impression, a feeling, a sense of something buggy, helpless and above all, edible. The combination of soft squidgy latex and sparkly organza give a juicy body that just looks and feels like food and is taken as such by lots of fish. This fly takes a bit more finger dexterity to tie than the Radyr Nymph, but I recommend you give it a go. If you tie up a few and put them in your box I guarantee you’ll not leave them there; they just look so damn good that your fingers will be drawn to them again and again.
Hook Partridge CZ Authentic Czech Nymph 10-16
Thread Veevus 10/0 white
Underbody Floss
Abdomen Natural latex and organza ribbon
Thorax Hare’s Ice Dub
Legs Veniard centipede legs mini speckled
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Run on the thread at the eye, take around the bend in touching turns and bring back to halfway up the shank.
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Cut a 5mm strip of latex sheet about 6 inches long, trim the end to a point and catch in with tight turns of thread. Stretch the latex and bind down around the bend.
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Tie in a length of floss binding down the tag end towards the eye. Wind the floss forwards to the eye to build a smooth body, tie in and trim off the excess.
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Take the thread back three quarters of the way back to where the latex is tied in and catch in a 6 inch length of stripped organza ribbon trimmed to 5mm wide. Melt the free end of the ribbon in a flame to prevent it unravelling as you wind.
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Wind the thread up towards the eye to the point where you want the abdomen to end. Put a half hitch or whip finish in the thread to avoid bumping it off at the next stage.
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Stretch the latex and take overlapping turns up the hook shank up to the organza.
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Pick up the organza and keeping the latex stretched wind the two materials together up the shank with the latex wound over the organza (see diagram below). Keep the woven edge of the ribbon in the middle of the latex so that the short organza fibres project out backwards from under the latex. This step is a bit tricky at first but is easily mastered; if it all goes wrong let go, unwind and start again. Continue three-quarters of the way up the shank and tie in the latex and organza.
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Make some further tight thread turns and a whip finish to secure everything. Cut off the waste organza. Stretch the latex tag end and trim it off tight against the shank.
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Cut three lengths of rubber legs and tie in on one side of the hook. Pull the strands over the hook and tie in on the other side of the shank giving three legs pointing forward on each side of the hook.
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Apply a small amount of dubbing to the thread and take a couple of turns behind the legs. Pull the legs back and take further turns of dubbing to complete the thorax.
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Build a small head, whip finish, colour the thread with a permanent marker pen and seal with superglue or varnish.
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Trim the legs to length and swipe the top of the latex abdomen with a dark permanent marker pen.
I like to use a bright green or orange floss for the underbody, some of the colour shows through the latex and aids the illusion of edibility. When colouring the back a very nice effect can be achieved by using a Letraset Promarker in an olive colour to swipe the top and sides of the abdomen followed quickly while the ink is still wet with a couple of strokes of a black Sharpie pen on the top of the body. This produces a soft blend of colours and sheen which looks very naturalistic in the water.
Nick Thomas lives in South Wales. He started fly fishing on Scottish hill lochs many years ago and continues to design, tie and fish flies for trout, carp, bass and anything else that’s going.