FLYMPH FORUM

Having attributes of both a spider & a flymph, I suppose this one might fall into the category Bill Shuck defined as a 'splymph'. This one represents a dun, & I sometimes fish it dry. We have larger BWO's in spring, about #17, & I tie these in #16-#18 on #16 hooks.
Hook: Daiichi 1480 ~ thread: light olive Pearsall's ~ hackle: light blue dun hen ~ tailing: coq de leon ~ rib: fine silver wire ~ body: mole touched on the waxed tying silk, with a thorax of pheasant tail

Very Nice, one to tie for sure!

Lovely tie

Beautiful tie Steve thanks for stopping back in. Let us know when that new book might be appearing.

Thanks for the kind words guys. Hope everybody is able to get out & wet a line this spring, while staying well. WDFW closed all fishing in the state of Washington due to the virus, so doing more tying than usual while working on edits to a book about trout spey. Tying is always fun. Editing can be fun too, if you're able to extract a sort of weird pleasure out of going at yourself with a sharpened broadaxe.

ah Steve you hit my interest with your last post. I'll look forward to the new book about trout spey. On that subject, I fish a lot with a 10'6" 3wt nymphing rod when I'm swinging wets. Quite often I'll use a snap T or single spey cast with a standard fly line, 3or4wt forward, floating line. With the talk these days about "trout spey rods" and various lines, I've thought about trying to match a Scandi shooting head to this setup. I have a large arbor reel that balances nicely with this rod of mine, but I haven't sprung for the special Scandi head. Would using a 185 grain or so head really make that much difference over a standard fly line when swinging a couple of small wet flies on a smaller river than your neighborhood? I'm not a big Spey guy, and I prefer the single hand rod to the standard two handed rigs out there, (not to mention the $4-800 bucks they want for one).

That's a great looking fly that's definitely a fish catcher.

I have not been able to fish at all, so with all this time being home, I figure it's a good time to come up with whatever my imagination comes up with.

Handsome little fly. Not an easy tie at that size, with that perfect thorax.

ronr wrote: ↑Sun Apr 12, 2020 4:06 pm ah Steve you hit my interest with your last post. I'll look forward to the new book about trout spey. On that subject, I fish a lot with a 10'6" 3wt nymphing rod when I'm swinging wets. Quite often I'll use a snap T or single spey cast with a standard fly line, 3or4wt forward, floating line. With the talk these days about "trout spey rods" and various lines, I've thought about trying to match a Scandi shooting head to this setup. I have a large arbor reel that balances nicely with this rod of mine, but I haven't sprung for the special Scandi head. Would using a 185 grain or so head really make that much difference over a standard fly line when swinging a couple of small wet flies on a smaller river than your neighborhood? I'm not a big Spey guy, and I prefer the single hand rod to the standard two handed rigs out there, (not to mention the $4-800 bucks they want for one).

I went with a Skagit head for my single hand rod. For the 5 wgt Hardy Zenith rod the guys at OPST suggested a 200 grain head, 35 grain floating tip or 80 grain sink tips and a 30 pound OPST running line of monofilament. I fish a lot of high banked, over hanging branches, no back cast room streams and rivers. This set up is perfect for that. It can also be used as an over head casting line, should the opportunity present itself.

I liked that set up so much I bought an Echo 3 wgt 10'6" switch rod (right around $300) a 225 grain Skagit head, 50 grain flaoting tip and 80 grain sink tips and mono running line. Spooled it all up on an older Hardy Cascapedia. It is a fun rod to cast. Waiting for the rivers to drop into shape after the last round of storms so I can actually fish it.

If your interested, e-mail OPST and ask what they suggest for your particular rod. They are spot on with their info.

Also looking forward to the trout spey book.

REE thanks for the detailed reply.... my Cortland 10'6" rod is very similar to your Echo. I have a 225 grain Commando Skagit head that I use if chucking large flies or weighted flies for Bull Trout with my switch rod. What I'm wanting to do with the small rod is swing small flies, wets, nymphs etc. Wondering if a Scandi will really give me something that my DT floating fly lines can't.
The trout in my home water are usually less than 18", mostly 10-14" and I think the Skagit head is a little bulky for that application...but, I've never owned a Scandi, and I've never used the Skagit to try and swing small wets....