How often do you check if your nymphs flip over in the water?

[Sylvaneous]

I've tied some pretty neat looking march brown type nymphs that, because of all the efforts I took to make them awesome looking, made them flip right over on their back. (I named this tying defect after my sister. I call it a 'sally' 😆) But this has happened with other nymphs as well. How much of the time are nymphs riding upside down even IF they look OK when we test them in the water at our feet, if we even do this? Nearly all Euro/Czech nymphs are 'tied in the round'. How much are we fooling ourselves with wing cases and wood duck flank legs splayed nicely on each side (and whatever else.)? You can see if a dry flips over onto its nose. Not so with a nymph.

 

[redietz]

Tim Flagler (Tighlinevideo) has a video somewhere showing that nymphs pretty much are always hanging vertically, suspended from the tippet, even bead heads and jigs. This is ok, because the naturals orient themselves vertically when they're drifting. It really doesn't matter which side you put the wing pad on.

Euro nymphs are tied in the round because the emphasis is on sinking quickly. Legs add motion, which is also a desirable trait, but slow the sink rate. It's a trade off between the two.

If I can find the video I'll post it later, but I think he tacked on to one of his tying videos, so it may take a while.

 

[redietz]

Here's the video:

 

[JeffK]

There definitely is a school of thought for tying in the round. Joe Brooks years ago worried about nymphs tied with a dark top and light underside like naturals tumbling in fast water showing alternate light and dark sides that look fake to a trout. Since real nymphs swim to orient themselves properly they typically either show a dark or light side depending on point of view. Therefore, he developed a bunch of nymphs, especially larger stonefly nymphs. tied in the round.

Most of my weighted nymphs are tied in the round, but some just look right with a wingcase, especially those tied unweighted that could be drifted close to the surface during emergences - that looks better to me although maybe not to the fish. i.e, I tie unweighted sulphur nymphs with wingcases to be fished under dries during a hatch. My unweighted olive nymphs have wingcases as well, but often I use a starling soft hackle for emerging olive nymphs which does as well, so I guess I am inconsistent.

BTW, The Egan's red dart pattern shown was one of my best patterns last year.

 

[redietz]

Since real nymphs swim to orient themselves properly they typically either show a dark or light side depending on point of view.

Except that they don't orient themselves "properly" when drifting or swimming. If you watch videos of actual live nymphs, they orient themselves nearly vertically, and show both sides,

 

[wildtrout2]

Well, I guess that settles that.

 

[hooker-of-men]

Plus, that video looks to be in relatively still water / slow current, so couldn't one assume that in fast water they are tumbling and orienting themselves in myriad ways? I would guess an artificial, regardless of orientation, is going to present to match some form of that erratic movement?

Can someone give me a visual representation of a nymph tied "in the round" versus not? The term is new to me.

 

[redietz]

Can someone give me a visual representation of a nymph tied "in the round" versus not? The term is new to me.

Think of a soft hackle, like a partridge and orange. It's tied "in the round" with no obvious top or bottom. Of course, it doesn't need to be a soft hackle; many tied in the round nymphs have a dubbed abdomen, then a more heavily dubbed thorax with fibers picked out on all sides.

 

[hooker-of-men]

Ah! Directional vs. not. (e.g. pheasant tail w/ wing case versus soft hackle pheasant tail.) Got it!

Dunno why that didn't signify for me. Much appreciated.

 

[Bamboozle]

I've caught my share of fish on dry flies that were laying on their side and I use some so small I wouldn't know which way they were oriented when they land.

As a result, I never check my nymphs or any other subsurface flies because I couldn't care less which way they are drifting and I have a funny feeling based on the fact I catch fish, that the fish don't either.

I'll leave the underwater cameras and scuba gear to those anglers with a solution in search of a problem.

 

[CRB]

Back to the drying board...
I'm goin to try and tie some with the tails up and the head a the curve of the hook.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

Just to overthink the nymph video from #5 some more... That looks like a borrowing nymph (drake?). It would naturally swim head down to borrow for safety, no? Would crawlers and clingers do the same? Caddis? Stonefly?

Or, just tie impressionist nymphs in the round as suggested and forget about all that. Simple and effective.

 

[redietz]

Just to overthink the nymph video from #5 some more... That looks like a borrowing nymph (drake?). It would naturally swim head down to borrow for safety, no? Would crawlers and clingers do the same? Caddis? Stonefly?

Or, just tie impressionist nymphs in the round as suggested and forget about all that. Simple and effective.

Any nymph that finds itself above the bottom (expect swimming nymphs like Iso's or Baetis) is desperately trying either regain the bottom get to the surface if trying to emerge. A trout doesn't care which, just that it's oriented vertically. It will both sides of nymph, so seeing a dark and a light side doesn't look fake to it at all, so it doesn't hurt to have wing pads or a dark and light side or legs along only one plane; potentially those could be triggers.

OTOH, tied in round nymphs are generally faster to tie, so you're more willing to put them in places where the fish are -- near bottom, under overhanging branches, etc.

They both catch fish. My only point in posting the video was that it doesn't matter.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

I'm sure you are right.

 

[JeffK]

I used to feed mayfly and stonefly nymphs to trout and the nymphs mostly seemed to swim well. The ones that swum well with a wiggling motion were grabbed by trout right away but the dead ones that floated funny (especially stoneflies) were left alone. Hard to get that nice wiggle with a fly IMHO and I think it affects our fly effectiveness. I think disturbed nymphs swim well. Not sure what they do during drift periods - they may just drift along. Many years ago when I fished bait stonefly and mayfly nymphs never worked that well and I thought they should do better which started my feeding nymphs to trout to see how the trout go after them. I think flies work better for these - I assumed it was the funny drift that dead nymphs have that caused fish from grabbing them. Caddis larvae, cranefly larvae and helgrammites did work well.

When hatching nymphs and pupa go through all sorts of gyrations in all sorts of directions. Fortunately they stop for a breather now and again which a dead drift fly does well.

The video is of a burrower nymph. Swimmers and crawlers may swim better.

Both nymphs in the title page of Flaglers video, the red dart and the zebra midge, are tied in the round.

 

[JeffK]

I hope I'm not be a cranky old man, but I've been curious about why trout do and don't take nymphs. What are the trigger(s) that makes them grab a fake bug in all the junk that is drifting downstream? Just last week me and my buddy where fishing tightline nymphs and the fishing got slow, so my buddy fished them under an indicator and they started hitting again. This has happened a few times and we cant figure it out. Maybe they hang more vertically? Maybe they are fishing a different depth? Who knows.

 

[redietz]

Even the swimmers do so vertically. Here's an Iso:

 

[Dave_W]

I tie most of my nymphs to drift hook upward by using a curved shank hook and tying the weight at mid-shank. I fish most of my nymphs down low and this reduces bottom snags. For my flies that have a dark top over a light bottom, such as stonefly nymphs, I tie the wing case and dark top on the inside curve of the fly. Whether this really affects the success at catching trout, I'm not sure. However, for me, it's a confidence thing.

 

[afishinado]

I tie most of my nymphs to drift hook upward by using a curved shank hook and tying the weight at mid-shank. I fish most of my nymphs down low and this reduces bottom snags. For my flies that have a dark top over a light bottom, such as stonefly nymphs, I tie the wing case and dark top on the inside curve of the fly. Whether this really affects the success at catching trout, I'm not sure. However, for me, it's a confidence thing.

I do exactly the same (curved hooks (TMC 2457 or eqiv.) for my nymph patterns and they do ride hook point up. When I use a bead, I tie lead lead wire in behind the bead which secures the bead and keeps the fly riding hook point up.

Dumbbells also work to invert the hook. Tying in the DB just in front of center makes the Clouser type fly ride horizontally and glide through the water rather tan giving a jigging motion like baitfish (which the Clouser is tied to imitate).

 

[Sylvaneous]

I've dropped a lot of nymphs into the stream and watched them. They orient themselves and swim, except for stone flies. I remember discussion around the picknick table at the Little Lehigh about nymphs "tumbling" and how they don't do that.