Patterns from ‘Nymph Fishing for Chalk Stream Trout’

Note; Many of the following patterns have no wing-cases.

“The following are, to the date of writing , the most successful dressings of nymphs (built to suggest the natural insect), which I have so far evolved from my chalk stream experience. They are not put forward as standard patterns either for the chalk streams or other rivers. I have no doubt that in time they will be improved upon. Certainly on some other rivers, of which the Usk may be taken as an example, the upwinged duns and their nymphs differ considerably, and in the Usk are a good deal larger and brighter than the Hampshire insects. Moreover in the chalk streams (and no doubt elsewhere) nymphs of the same species differ in colour according to conditions which are not yet understood, and may be of soil, light, food, habitat or what not. The reader must therefore attribute to this fact the differing dressings attributed to the same natural fly. The materials are specified in the order in which they should be used.

 

Large Dark Olive of Spring.(Baetis rhodani)

I. April and Early May.

Hook. - No. 1 or 2 down-eyed round bend, or No. 14 down-eyed Pennell sneck.

 

Tying Silk. - Full yellow, waxed with brown harness-maker’s wax.

 

Hackle. - Darks blue dun hen, or cockerel with woolly centre,

              The centre covering the dubbing suggests the wing cases

              and the points suggest the legs.

 

Whisk. - Two or three strands of dark unspeckled neck feathers of

              the cock Gallena (guinea fowl) dyed dark greenish.

 

Rib. - Fine gold wire.

 

Body. - Dark green olive seal’s fur tapered from tail to shoulder and

           there definitely thickened.