I’m guessing you’ve had this before, deciding what to try next when the fish aren’t taking, you find amongst the various weird and wonderful flies that you have had collecting dust in your fly box one that just gives you a new confidence it might work. Usually first cast and it works, somehow you knew already it would and it’s usually the only one of it’s kind in your fly box. How many times have you got to the end of the day having caught a load of fish with it only to snag it in a tree before you had chance to take it home and copy it?
Well for once, rescued from the tree, battered from having caught a dozen or so fish including a rather nice wild brown trout of around 2lb I managed to get the fly back home only to drop it down a crack in the floor boards in front of my tying bench! Thank goodness for super magnets, I couldn’t see the fly but a quick sweep plucked it from the crack and gave me chance to get a photo and work how to copy it. After comparing quite a few hooks I found the Hends 404 #18 to be a perfect match and 2mm silver slotted beads fit them very nicely. The rest of the materials:
- Hends 404 BL #18 barbless hook
- 2mm Slotted silver tungsten bead
- Semperfli Black Nano silk 18/0
- Hends superfine 0.09mm copper wire
- Glo-Brite floss pink, strands doubled twice
- Pheasant tail
It’s a fairly easy tie: bead on, drop of UV resin in the slot and zap to hold in place. Build a bit of a tapered body then catch in the copper wire and pheasant tail using the tips to create the tail and winding up the rest to form the body, tie off and cut off excess pheasant tail. Wind the copper wire the opposite way up the body so it holds the pheasant tail in place then tie it off at the head. Form a thorax with the black thread, whip finish and you’re done !
I’m calling this my fly of the year, I fished it as a dink under a klink but also fished it french nymph in the runs. I’ve not had chance to use it again so I can’t claim it will do the same next time but it made my day and caught me a lovely wild trout of around 2lb to boot:
