bdhoover77
Well-known member
What body material do you use for the beatis nymphs?
What Are You Tying Today?
- Thread starter DaveKile
- Start date
MJMFlyfisher
Well-known member
They're tied "bullet head style" actually VERY easy to do.
Use comparadun hair.
Tie the abdomen then skip to the eye.
Tie the tips in as far forward as you can, facing forward.
(The trick is getting the correct length after you fold them back)
Then dub the head backwards to the point you stopped the abdomen.
Fold the wing back over and hold it evenly and tie it down securing the wing and creating the head at the same time.
I whip finish right at that point.
They float like a cork and the aerodynamics are cool.....they allow you to skitter the crap out of them, and they work great in flat water too.
They're basically indestructible.
I've caught fish from PA to the flat water of the Railroad ranch on the Henry's Fork with that style.
MJMFlyfisher
Well-known member
There is a slight tapered underbody of olive thread, then the abdomen is wrapped with "midge" UTC olive vinyl.
Wingcase is medallion sheeting "dark dun"
Thorax is an olive/ brown dubbing mix
Legs and tail are wood duck flank.
Small bead of UV resin on the wingcase and drug back into the abdomen to create that long teardrop taper.
dc410
Well-known member
I worked my butt off to catch two rainbows one afternoon on a caddis hatch on the flat water of the Railroad Ranch on the Henry’s Fork back in the summer of ‘21.
That can be some really technical fishing with all of those micro currents from the heavy aquatic vegetation. I kind of remember catching them on some kind of a cdc caddis emerger pattern after throwing practically everything I had in my caddis box at them! Great memories though!!
Kms
Well-known member
Red head parachute ant on #18 Mustad curved caddis hook.
JimNovo
Well-known member
My version of Tim Flagler’s Simple Golden Stone. Sizes 8, 10 and 12.
dc410
Well-known member
Snakehead popper, tied on a size 1 Gamakatsu B10S hook.
mt_flyfisher
Well-known member
I posted one of my worm flies a couple days ago in the thread on Early Spring Confidence Flies and there seemed to be some interest in it there. (That fly actually works most any time.)
Here is my version of another related worm fly, the Wire Worm. The only difference between mine, as pictured here, is that I’ve put about 3-4 coats of Sally Hanson’s Hard as Nails (SHHN) coating over the wire, where the original does not.
Tied on a Mustad 37160-BL size #6 hook, using heavy red wire, UTC 280 Fl.Orange thread, and coated with SHHN.
The Wire Worm is a very popular fly in the West, particularly in the higher water of the early spring when you need to get your flies down quickly. It’s often used as the upper fly on a 2 fly rig.
It is a very simple, effective, and quick fly to tie when using only the thread and bare wire wrapped on a hook. My version is equally simple to tie but takes a bit longer to apply, and let dry, the coats of SHHN.
Here is my version of another related worm fly, the Wire Worm. The only difference between mine, as pictured here, is that I’ve put about 3-4 coats of Sally Hanson’s Hard as Nails (SHHN) coating over the wire, where the original does not.
Tied on a Mustad 37160-BL size #6 hook, using heavy red wire, UTC 280 Fl.Orange thread, and coated with SHHN.
The Wire Worm is a very popular fly in the West, particularly in the higher water of the early spring when you need to get your flies down quickly. It’s often used as the upper fly on a 2 fly rig.
It is a very simple, effective, and quick fly to tie when using only the thread and bare wire wrapped on a hook. My version is equally simple to tie but takes a bit longer to apply, and let dry, the coats of SHHN.
nfrechet
Well-known member
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- Mar 14, 2013
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White Tiger
Hook - Mustad 3907 B #4 or substitute
Thread - White under floss, black head
Tag - Flat silver tinsel
Tail - Orange schlappen fibers
Body - Orange floss
Rib - Silver oval tinsel
Throat - Orange schlappen fibers
Wing: White hackle flanked by grizzly hackle
Eye - Jungle **** nail
Author's Note
While researching for the Streamers 365 project, Darren was unable to find Gray Wolf's website as it had been taken offline when he retired in 2009/2010. Darren was lucky enough to find a cache of images on an archive of Gray Wolf's site, and among the images was one for the White Tiger pattern. The pattern may not be 100% correct as he was going off of a small grainy image, but he believes he has caught the spirit of the pattern.
Originated by Gray Wolf
Streamers 365 - Vol 1 - Darren MacEachern
Kms
Well-known member
I cannot verify this, but this gives me some concern (found in another forum):
Dave Whitlock excerpt from
Trout and Their Food: A Compact Guide for Fly Fishers
"The first San Juan worm flies I saw were constructed on curved shank, size eight, six, and four English bait or caddis hooks and clear red vinyl jibbing material. These looked very wormy and were extremely effective but as deadly to trout as swallowed live bait on barbed hooks. Trout took them greedily and deep into their gill-throat areas and so they were nearly always lethally hooked. Another bad effect of the large English bait hook was that it often blinded one eye of the fish because the bend and gape was so large it passed through the roof of a trout's mouth and into one of its eyes. Most catch-and-release fly fishers, guides and fly shops stopped using them and some catch-and-release areas even outlawed them."
mt_flyfisher
Well-known member
If Dave Whitlock were still around I’d love to discuss this with him in more detail. I don’t think there’s any question as to the effectiveness of this style of fly, but I’m not sure that the hook style alone contributes to any more gill-throat and lethal hookups than another hook style would, or if any other effective nymph or San Juan style fly does tied on a different hook style.
I first began tying and using this fly in the mid-1960’s when I was a student at Penn State, and lived for a time on the banks of a small tributary to Spring Creek. When I found some aquatic worms in that stream, I developed a fly much like this one and first used it at Fisherman’s Paradise. And I caught LOTS of trout with it there, including many of the largest trout that resided there at the time. I wasn’t using this Mustad bait hook back then, but I bent Mustad’s streamer hooks, which had much softer wire then than today’s hooks do, to closely resemble worms twisting in the water - quite similar to Mustad’s bait hook. And I always bent the barb down.
I can’t remember if I used this fly when I fished all of the handful of other streams I fished nearby State College at that time, but I do remember using it successfully in Penns Creek, and shortly after I left Penn State I had success with it when fishing Big Spring and Falling Springs, and a couple other limestoner’s (who’d have thought?) in central PA.
It’s only been more recently that I switched to using Mustad’s bait hook, primarily since the steel used in todays hooks are nearly impossible to bend, but I don’t think the hook style is the culprit, and I honestly can’t recall having a higher percentage of lethal hookups on that fly than I’ve had using other nymph patterns, which is pretty low overall IMO.
Back when I first began fishing this fly there weren’t, to the best of my knowledge, many other fishermen using these worm style flies. Today, lots of fly fishermen use San Juan worms, Squirmy Wormy flies, Wire Worms, and probably others, all of which are very effective. Do any of them have more lethal hookups than, say, an egg fly for example, or another effective nymph (say a Pat’s Rubber Legs). I don’t personally think so.
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Kms
Well-known member
Thank you for your very thoughtful reply. If you’ve been fishing this fly for 50+ years, then you should have a large enough data set to have noticed if it were more lethal than others.
It’s certainly a brilliant looking fly, one I’d very much like to try, and I thank you for sharing it.
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