Pad wrote: “And if you WANT to spend that much time tying a fly, go for it. I'm just amazed anyone would want to……. If I spent 15 minutes on a fly, I'd keep it in a glass case on my mantle.”
LOL - true enough Pad. When I fish these flies I do everything short renting scuba gear to go after it in the water, or hiring a truck with a “cherry picker” attachment to recover it from a tree.
Wiggle nymphs are my go-to, desperation flies used during desperate times. Sometimes they work better than the stiff-bodied flies for large insects. The bigger the fly, the harder it is to fool the fish with an imitation. I was fishing the Ausable River up in the Adirondacks not long ago. If you’ve ever fished this River, you’ll know the true meaning of a “high gradient” river – it moves! - and much of it is pocket water. I have a big black stonefly wiggle nymph that I tie, and used it there sort of high sticking with a tight line and jigging it through the pockets. The fish absolutely loved it. My conventional straight-bodied nymphs didn’t work nearly as well.
The Delaware River has a lot of big flies (stoneflies, mayflies, hellgrammites, etc.), but the fish have seen every fly pattern ever tied. Sometimes a big wiggle nymph is the there ticket to catch a few.
The fly tied on video was a green drake wiggle nymph. The GD nymphs are big squirmy things that inhabit the slow water and live in and hatch from a mud bottom. A wiggle nymph tied with a lot of soft materials, like on the video, may be more effective for catching fish than a stiff-bodied fly in heavily fished places like say Penns or Fishing Creek, for example, during GD time. I plan to give it a try this season.
For those crazy enough to tie wiggle nymphs here are some tips for tying:
Use a straight-eyed short-shank hook for the abdomen and bend off or cut off the point on the rear fly – be careful when doing this.
Use heavy hard mono (some use wire) slightly less in diameter than the hook eye to attach the rear fly.
Tie in your mono to the front hook and build it up with thread, sort of like a ramp before closing the loop to attach your rear section. This keeps the loop more open and prevents it from binding on the eye of the rear fly. You get more movement that way.
Tie a bunch of abdomens first to speed up the process, and then switch over and attach them to the thorax section.
Stonefly proportions are about 50/50 abdomen / thorax, and Mayflies are usually 2/3 abdomen and 1/3 thorax, look at a photo of the insects and tie them accordingly. Remember you must use two smaller sized hooks to end up with a fly that’s not too large.
You get more movement if you have weight in either section. Weight in the abdomen makes the fly ride tail down, and weight in the thorax causes the tail to ride up. Weight both and you have a depth charge for fishing fast and/or deep water. I found some plastic coated wire in various colors and various diameters at a craft store. They are perfect for tying stonefly abdomens and can be colored with a marker. The weight of the wire makes them sink like a stone (no pun).
I’m a believer that movement is more important than realism. For example, the stiff formed legs seen on many realistic flies catch more fishermen than fish. Also, there is no real need to spend a lot of time adding multiple realistic wing cases on a stonefly nymph. Choose soft materials to tie the fly to add movement, and tie in squiggly rubber legs on the fly to seal the deal for trout. A disheveled mess that moves a lot in the water will catch more fish than an exact copy of an insect that’s as stiff as a board – IMO.
Good luck.
