If you would limit me to only two flies that I could ever use to catch fish - be it trout, bass, panfish, etc - the gold ribbed hare's ear nymph would be one of the two (a black woolly bugger would be the other, but that's for another day). It is one of the most useful patterns ever created for catching fish, in my opinion.

So, it's no surprise that there are a lot of different versions of this pattern out there. If you've recently began the journey (re: madness) into tying your own flies, then this nymph is one you want to know how to tie. 

Here is a really well made video showing a very nice way of tying up this pattern. You can't go wrong by following the directions here & this version of the nymph is a great one to carry in your fly wallet.

So sit back & enjoy. I seriously wouldn't want to spend a minute on the stream without having one of these nymphs with me, because it's just one of those patterns that will work on days when nothing else will.

Most nymphs move along the stream bottom in a start & stop fashion. Some crawl some swim, some scurry very quickly in undulating motions. No matter how they move, they will get caught up in the water current, losing their footing, & tumble down stream for a bit. When you're fishing with a nymph imitation, you want to try to mimic this movement.

Gary Borger, in his classic book "Nymphing" describes a technique called "The Strip / Tease" (we just called this 'working the nymph' when I was a kid). The method is pretty simple: cast your nymph across - up or down & across, wherever - so that it gets to the bottom in the part of the stream where you think the trout are laying. The, very slowly, strip in short amounts of line (using the hand twist retrieve). Start & stop the retrieve often, allowing some time for your nymph to drift down stream. This will mimic the natural nymph movement well - if you're on the bottom.

You can also use this tactic casting straight down stream, if you're in lower water. It makes your fly look like a nymph struggling in vain to move upstream.

This strip / tease method is very effective in the early season, when there's more water in the stream & the water temperature is colder. Also, use this method anytime & anywhere you see the trout flashing their sides. When you see trout flashing their sides, it most likely means they are rooting the bottom, trying to dislodge some nymphs from the bottom.

One thing about this technique - most anglers do it TOO FAST. You must go very, very slowly!! As a general rule of thumb, the colder the water the slower you must retrieve. Give your fly plenty of time to sink.

As you retrieve the line with the hand-twist method, keep the line under your index finger of your rod hand. You need to be in constant contact with your fly to feel every bump & titch of the line so you don't miss any strikes.

Finally, if you're using any weight or split-shot to get your fly down to the bottom, you need to think about where you put your weight on the leader. In order to mimic the real nymphs, you need to know how far off the bottom they're coming when they lose their footing. There's no way to know for sure, so you must experiment with how far up or down on your leader you put the weight. Keep moving your weight up or down your leader until you start picking up strikes. If you move to another spot on the stream, you might have to move the weight again, but at least you'll have a reference to start from.

So, to summarize:

1.) Cast your fly so it gets to the bottom where the trout are. Give it lots of time to sink.
2.) Slowly retrieve your line in a start & stop manner.
3.) Experiment with where you place your weight (if any) on your leader.
4.) Keep in constant contact with your fly & line so you can feel the fly. 
5.) Remember to go slow. Most anglers fish this method too fast.

​You've seen them advertised : a kit containing everything you need to get started in fly tying including the basic tools & enough hooks & materials to tie up a few of the basic patterns. Maybe that's how you got started - or what you're using now. These kits are a great way to get started in fly tying & I always recommend a good quality kit for those looking to start tying their own. But what do you do after you've used those materials that came with the kit? 


If you're like most of us, you begin to collect materials a little at a time based on the patterns you want to tie. This takes time & if you should find a pattern that calls for something you don't have, then you'll be making another trip to the fly shop soon.

But some of us don't have a fully stocked fly shop just up the road. Those folks usually order their supplies through the mail. These days, with the cost of shipping, it isn't feasible to place an order for only a small pack of fur. You need to order more stuff to justify the shipping costs & to pay less in shipping. So what to do? At best you might be guessing what you'll need in the future & that might end up with you collecting a bunch of material you'll never use. That's wasted money.

So, if you're a beginning fly tier & wondering what you might need in way of supplies (now that you've exhausted your beginner's kit), here's a list of some basic materials that every fly tier should have on hand:

Hooks:
    -Wet / nymph: #12 - #16
    -Dry: #14 & #16
    -Streamer: #8 & #6
Materials:
    -soft hackle feathers in black, brown, & partridge.
    -black marabou feathers
    -animal hair: elk, buck tail, & white calf body hair.
    -body material: dubbing in both natural & colors of green, grey & brown
                          -peacock herl
                          -chenille in black, green, & brown
    -gold & silver tinsel, both round & flat.
    -pheasant tail feathers (these are used in many ways)
    -dry fly hackle: in grizzly & brown colors, sizes #14 & 16.

This list is intended only to give you a start in building a fly tying supply. I'm sure I've forgotten something, but you can tie a lot of different types of flies with the stuff listed above. Of course, if you know you're going to need something for a specific pattern remember that it's cheaper to buy this stuff in bulk when you can. Most of the materials listed above should last you quite a while, too as a little goes a long way when tying most flies. 

This list also assumes that you've got all the basic tools you need to tie flies like a vise, bobbin, scissors, thread, etc. Most kits come with all these tools anyway. The only upgrade you might want to make to your tools would be to get a new vise, as some kits don't include the best of vises. Now you don't need a fancy rotary vise with all the attachments. Those are nice, but you don't need them. In fact, I've been using my same old, simply designed Thompson vise for decades. It's basic, well built, economical, & serves me just fine.

​I hope this list & info helps those of you who spend time looking over catalogs or websites scratching your head wondering how to start building a fly tying collection of materials. Just bear in mind that no matter how much stuff you amass thorough the years, you'll still find yourself needing a type of feather, fur, or hook that you don't have!!! Consider it just an occupational hazard to fly tying with so many different fly patterns in the world.

​I've heard many different versions of the history of this fly. Mostly though, it's considered to have originated in Western PA. It supposedly gets it's name from the green weenies used at Pittsburgh Pirates games through the years. Those green weenies would hex the opposing baseball team while giving good luck to the Pirate players when the weenie was pointed at them. Read more about the green weenie of the Pirates, HERE.

No matter where it came from, or how it got it's name, the green weenie remains an effective fly for trout as well as steelhead in many places outside of Western PA. It is a great fly to start someone out with in fly tying, too, because of how simple it is. The legendary PA outdoor sports writer Charlie Meck called this one of his "one minute flies" because that's about how long it takes to tie one. 

Here's a short video showing how to tie this pattern:
(one note: this is a slight variation of the green weenie in this video. It's traditionally made with medium, or even micro, chenille - not the fuzzy stuff shown here. It's also usually bright or fluorescent green. I'm showing you this video because the tying is spot on, the colors are close, & it's the best video I could find to show how to tie it.)

​If you happen to be looking for trout rather than a pot of gold, the green weenie is an excellent pattern to try. You'll have a lot of luck when you try this magical fly!!

Sometimes the simplest patterns work the best; & sometimes the patterns that look like they might be a little tricky to tie are the absolute easiest. Funny how that works.

The Glo Bug falls into those categories. When I was learning how to tie I though, how do you make a perfectly round ball of yarn on a hook? Once you see how, it couldn't be easier. Also, the Glo Bug is extremely effective. It can be a real go-to pattern for steelhead & salmon, but don't neglect it on early season trout either. Look in any live bait shop & you're sure to find jars of cheese or salmon eggs for the bait angler to use. They work well at catching those early trout & so will the Glo Bug.

Here's a short, easy to follow video showing the best way I've seen so far of tying the perfect egg pattern. As you head out to the cold waters at this time of year, be sure to give pattern a try.

Looking for something to hang on your Christmas tree that will remind you of how much you love fly fishing? Why not decorate for the season by tying up some Christmas tree flies? This one here falls somewhere between crafts & fly fishing. Tie up a bunch & give them to all your fly fishing friends, too.......& this way you'll be able to say you helped make some ornaments for the tree this year!!

Watch this video below to see how its done:

Peacock herl is an excellant body material for wet flies. It has this life-like translucence about it, & the color is just right to match a lot of insects, that it's no surprise that many of the standrard wet fly patterns used peacock for a body.

There is one draw back to using peacock herl: it's not very strong. If you were to tie a wet fly body with only one strand of it, wrapped around the hook, it would be destroyed after one fish. The answer is to add more strands & to form them into a rope. This gives them much more strength to last through a few fish bites, at least. In the video below, we see a great way to make this peacock rope.

Those new to fly tying will often begin with the wooly bugger & then go right to basic wet flies. These basic wets almost always have a collar of hackle. The biggest mistake a beginner makes with these collars is that they make them too heavy. It's almost as though we think that it couldn't be that easy to make a decent wet hackle collar, but it really is. Again, we see this in the video below.

For those of you who are new to fly tying, it's so important to get started on the right foot before bad habits creep into your tying. The Peacock & Partridge is a very verastile fly that will catch fish - & it's a great fly to get started tying wet flies with. Check out the very good video below & see how it's done.

Burlap is an an intersting material that has been used from time to time in fly tying. One use of it is as a body material is in the steelhead pattern - appropraitley named - "The Burlap". A simple & effective pattern, it can be used not on only on steelhead, but salmon just about anywhere as well.

The recipe for this pattern that I've always used is this:

Hook: Mustad 9049, or any low-water salmon hook sizes 2-8
Thread: grey, brown, or black
Tail: grey deer hair fibers, tied about as long as the hook gap is wide
Body: burlap sack material
​Hackle: grizzle, like a wet fly collar

There are other variations on this pattern, one of which can be found at fly anglers online (where the photo above came from).

One reason burlap came into use for fly body material is because you can easily color it along the stream if need be. It's natural color fits the bill for a lot of acquatic life, but if you take along different colors of permenate markers, you can have this fly brighter than a cannary in no time, if you needed to. Plus, burlap is pretty easy to attain, too & cheap. You can't beat that! There are other patterns where burlap has been used & we'll look into those in a later post.

So tied up some of these burlap flies & give them a shot. The steelhead - & all salmon -seem to love them.

​I asked Jerry about his background in how he got started teaching children with cancer how to tie flies & what he told me was truly inspiring. He has a story I think we all need to know. I think that here it’s best if I just let Jerry tell his story in his own words, as he told it to me:

It's been over 60 years since Vince Marinaro introduced the thorax style dry fly to the world. I wonder just how much these flies are fished any more these days? This design of dry was described in Marinaro's legendary book "A Modern Dry Fly Code".

A thorax style dry fly is, basically, a dry fly that has the hackle wound about the thorax area of the fly. It also has splayed tails for a more realistic look & better floating.

These days, thorax dries don't look very strange to our eyes, but in 1950 this was a revolutionary design. It really set the dry fly world on fire.

Marinaro designed these flies for a more real-looking imitation to fool the wise trout on the limestone streams of Pennsylvania. However, these flies will perform well over any difficult trout, - especially at those times when the trout have become selective, choosing only one specific type of bug to eat when there are others on the water. These flies are also good in low & clear water or any place the trout has very good visibility & plenty of time to inspect your fly before it decides to eat it or not. Obviously, this style of fly can be tied to imitate any species of mayfly.

There is one down side to these dry flies: they are difficult to tie. This is not a pattern for the beginner tier. But with some practice, time, & patience anyone can learn to tie these flies.

To that end, check out this video below showing how to tie these thorax dries. So far, this is the best video I've found for this pattern. Videos for thorax flies are great, as it can be difficult to learn how to tie these even with the best of books.