t.z. | Friday, 18 December 2015
Water insects spend most of their lives under water.
I fetched a few sentences from Wikipedia. There it says that the larva's appearance is generally very different from the adult form. A larva often has unique structures and organs that do not occur in the adult form, while their diet might be considerably different.
Larvae are frequently adapted to environments separate from adults. For example, some larvae such as tadpoles live almost exclusively in aquatic environments, but can live outside water as adult frogs. By living in a distinct environment, larvae may be given shelter from predators and reduce competition for resources with the adult population. Animals in the larval stage will consume food to fuel their transition into the adult form.
So imitating a food source like a larva is done with so called "nymphs". That´s flies which sink and look something like the stuff the fish eat pretty close to the bottom.
So the parameters to consider are:
- weight - the fly needs to sink fast enough to reach the part of the
- water column fish are feeding
- looks similar to the very in size and shape
- behave similar
A lot of thoughts - but do not worry - the solution can be extremely simple. The tricky bit is to find the balance between "sink rate" and "natural behavior". One main concern is that you know what you have at the end of your line. You, the angler needs to "be with the fly at the end of your leader". That for me is the essence of flyfishing, might it be dry-, streamer- or nymph-fishing. Dead drift nymph fishing is maybe the toughest bit. It takes a lot of imagination. The funny bit is that tying the flies - even the simplest ones - yourself. The time you invest pays off. You "know" that bug at the end of the leader. Don´t laugh please, but it feels like the thing speaks to you through the line.
So the simplest way of getting weight to a fly is using a small metal bead. Such beads come in copper, lead or tungsten. Tungsten is the ideal material in my view as it has the highest density (weight/size ratio). So you get away with a rather small bead and still add good weight to the fly.
If you want to be fancy you can add colored beads and even this e which are formed like real insect heads. Pretty cool, but honestly catches more fishermen than fish. The prime aspect is to wiggle the nymph in front (and not above) the fish.
Here is a little Step - by step on a simple bead head nymph. Please modify to your liking - just don´t overdress it - less is more.
- Materials and tools needed: hares mask, dubbing, wax, thread, hook and beads
- slide bead over the hook bend towards the eye
- lay a thread base
- tie in a few hare pelt fibres for the tail
- wax the thread
- dub the thread and wind on
- finish with a whip finish
- the finished fly
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