2 flies to rule them all

2 flies to rule them all

Martyn White | Thursday, 13 April 2023

I've fairly been burning through the beads and hooks as I work on the replacement nymph box. A lot of those beads and hooks have gone on just a couple of patterns; walt's worms & pheasant tails.

Yes I'm tying other patterns, I wouldn't be without duracel's, peeping caddis or a range of perdigons but ultimately about 40% of the new box will be taken up by the walt's & pheasant tails in various sizes and weights. The reason being they are, to my mind at least, perfect flies. They catch fish, but so does pretty much every other nymph and while it might seem odd, that's not really what I think is a benchmark for a great fly. It's obviously part of it, but it's not the be-all-and-end-all because if you're trying to come up with a nymph that will catch fish, it's harder to fail than succeed - provided, of course, you've any idea what you're about.

So what makes these 2 so good? Well first of all they're simple ties, the sexiest of walt's worms takes under 3 minutes to tie ditto the pheasant tail, even with a hot collar. I think this is particularly important for nymphs and other flies you are likely lose frequently, not so much for stuff like bonefish flies, loch tyle wets or stuff for off-shore. I'm not at all concerned about losing a 2-3 minute fly which means I won't hesitate to fish them properly and heavy enough to find bottoem in places where I might be a bit leery of using something else, which would mean it wouldn't get fished properly.


The next thing is the matetials;hooks, beads, thread, wire, tinsel hare's ear and pheasant tail are readily available, as cheap as chips- possibly even free if you know the right people. There's nothing in them that you'd be unlikely to have in your tying kit anyway, but if you didn't even the worst fly shop should carry everything you need to put a load of them in your box.

They're also easy to make fairly durable if you're not averse to a bit of glue for the underbody. even a delicate pheasant tail abdomen will last  tonnes of fish if you wind it over a thin layyer of CA and then counter-rib it with wire. You'll probably lose ot before the fish destroy it.

Lastly, they're versatile, they're suggestive rather than specifically imitative so are fairly universally applicable. Switching the bead size and colour or thread colour allows you to tailor the fly to specific conditions you're likely to encounter or target species- I really like a sexy walt's with a silver bead and fluo. pink collar for winter grayling on sunny days, for example.

Maybe I'm being a bit utilitarian in my approach to this box, but I really don't think it's going to cost me many fish. I'd be reasonably confident approaching a season with just these two patterns in various weights and a couple of sizes. I wouldn't be completely happy about it though, as I do enjoy perusing my box as I decide what to tie on- even if I do keep pulling the same few flies out each time!