make it sink

t.z. | Friday, 2 March 2018

Don't you hate it when your fly sinks? I prefer dry fly fishing above other methods. Seeing the take - or the refusal is very exciting. (BTW - this is why "normal" people believe we're all nuts) Nymph fishing on the other hand is mostly "blind". I personally seem to lack the patience for blind fishing methods, so logically dry fly fishing is the easiest and most fun form of fishing closely followed by sight-fishing with a nymph.

However, often sight-fishing or dry fly is not applicable, which leaves two choices. Make coffee or fish something which sinks, a nymph for example.

There are two approaches to tying nymphs. Either neat, semi realistic things with legs, eyes and whatnot or very basic, scruffy flies. Both types catch pretty well. The one shown here is maybe the easiest of them all. However, it takes guts to have such in your fly box and show them to other fishermen. One comment I often hear is that this fly looks like being tied by a kid, which I actually take as compliment. Being in contact with my inner child is a higher aim very high on my list.

All you need for the fly is a standard dry fly or wet fly hook hook, a tungsten bead, thread, copper wire and hares mask. The hook used in the video is a standard down eye dry fly hook (Partridge of Redditch SLD2 - barbless). Feel free to use any other similar hook, I'd just urge you to use barbless hooks. Barbless hooks are much easier to "un-pierce" should they have pierced the wader, you ear, nose or worse. Realising fish is also much easier. I fish barbless since many years and yet have to loose a fish because of this. I even believe a barbless hook penetrates the fishes mouth much better as the barb is not in the way. But it's a belief, like the belief that this little barb keeps the fish on the hook. So switch your beliefs and fish barbless should you not already do it. Competition fishermen do, and they should know.

The bead is made of tungsten, which has very high specific weight, so the beads can be smaller than beads made of copper or other metal or glass. The one I used here is the hippest and latest way to fashion a nymph hook with. It's shaped like the real thing's head. Yeah, why not? It looks cool for the fisherman at least and takes off a litte from the "must hide this" pressure on the poor anglers shoulders.