MARCH BROWN
Hook: Wet fly, size 10–14.
Thread: Orange.
Tails: 2–3 fibres speckled partridge tail.
Body: Dubbed mix hare’s ear and yellow mohair.
Hackle: Brown speckled partridge.
Wing: Bunch of fibres from speckled partridge tail or hen pheasant tail (optional).
SILVER MARCH BROWN
As above, but body flat silver tinsel.
This tying is a very good fly for sea trout, salmon, when the rivers are low in summer, and large lake trout. It could be taken for a small fish (e.g. fry or minnow).
BUSTARDS
Though they are not soft-hackled flies, Bustards have the same origin. It is almost 200 years since Bustards first appeared in print (in G. C. Bainbridge, The Fly Fisher’s Guide, 1816). They were devised for only a few trout rivers in north-west England, and yet they are great catchers of trout, anywhere in the trout world. They should be fished, in rivers, in high summer when the river is low and the weather hot, through the dead of night (provided the law permits night fishing). Then, large trout that have been hiding away by day emerge and seek food. Fish a strong leader. Cast the fly under the far bank and tweak the fly back. Takes are often explosive!
WHITE BUSTARD
Hook: Wet fly, sizes 10–12.
Thread: White.
Body: White wool or chenille.
Hackle: White hen.
Wing: Palest barn owl wing (white goose as substitute).
RED BUSTARD
Hook: Wet fly, sizes 10–12.
Thread: Black.
Body: Red wool or chenille.
Hackle: Red hen.
Wing: Dyed red barn owl wing (white goose dyed red as substitute).
BROWN BUSTARD
Hook: Wet fly, sizes 10–12.
Thread: Brown.
Body: Brown wool or chenille.
Hackle: Brown hen.
Wing: Darkest tawny (brown) owl wing (white goose dyed brown as substitute).
The following is a fairly modern fly, having been invented (or perhaps, more accurately, publicised) by T. C. Ivens in Still Water Fly-Fishing (1952). ‘This fly’, stated Ivens, ‘is the best all-rounder in my box.’ It will catch trout, and other lake fish, that are eating floating snails (they crawl along the underside of the surface film, sucking down trapped microscopic algae), black caddis pupae (on the surface at the point of hatch), and a wide range of land-bred insects from larger black gnats to black beetles (on some lakes over 90 per cent of surface foods are land-bred insects). The BLACK & PEACOCK SPIDER seems to have gone out of fashion in recent years (why?), but in the 1970s it was so well known that two flyfishers, seeing trout feeding like pigs on a huge fall of black heather flies, reported that: ‘There was a massive fall of Black and Peacock Spiders!’
BLACK & PEACOCK SPIDER
Hook: Wet fly, sizes 10–14.
Thread: Black.
Body: Peacock herl.
Rib: Fine or medium oval silver tinsel (optional).
Hackle: Black good-quality hen or henny-cock.
With the actual natural nymph to be represented floating under one’s eye … the length of the hook’s shank necessary to give room for the thorax and abdomen can be exactly ascertained … In the representation, it is well to get the actual outline and taper as correct as possible.
G. E. M. Skues, Nymph Fishing for Chalk Stream Trout, 1939.
Three major groups of aquatic trout foods have an incomplete life cycle consisting of a egg, followed by a nymph, followed by the adult: the upwinged flies (or mayflies), or Ephemeroptera; stoneflies, or Plecoptera; dragonflies and damselflies, or Odonata. The nymph is the growing stage, so that after hatching from the egg it is minute, whereas just before the adult emerges the fully grown nymph may be very large. Some Ephemera and Hexagenia mayfly nymphs attain length up to 1 ½ inches, or 4 cm, whereas the nymph of the huge stonefly Pteronarcys calfornica, of America’s West, can exceed 2 inches, or 5 cm.
One feature of many nymphs is a slender abdomen and a thicker, rounder thorax. Thus the tying of the body is usually separated into these two components. Nymphs also develop wing buds or wing cases as they grow, and in the final stage the wing cases are very prominent and usually a darker colour than the body colour. They are often included in the tying of artificial nymphs.
While less bulky nymphs often sink fairly quickly, larger ones do not. It is therefore essential to have some weighting (provided the rules permit the used of weighted flies). If lead is permitted, wind fine lead wire down the hook shank in touching turns in larger nymphs, down the front half of the hook shank (i.e. under the thorax) in smaller patterns, or lash two or more strands of lead wire along the hook shank. If lead is not permitted, use tungsten or copper wire. Another alternative is to have a drilled metal bead fixed in place behind the hook eye (tungsten, brass, or silver
