Articulated Nymphs

[whheff]

I have been thinking of tying an articulated small nymph and today I finally gave it a shot. What do you think?

 

[dc410]

whheff,

Nice idea! You got my wheels turnin' on that one. What size hooks did you use and how did you attach the rear hook to the front one? I wonder if it would be better to leave the rear hook intact and clip the front one? Just a few things flying through my mind. That idea might work well for an Iso nymph with as active as they are. Something else to add to the list of things to experiment with at the tying bench. Thanks for sharing.

 

[lv2nymph]

Very nice, the burrowing nymphs are perfect to copy with this style of tying. The whitefly is a good one only about 11mm but worth playing with, and of coarse the drakes. I like to nymph with these flies before the gd hatch on penns, then get gone before the top water people move in.

 

[whheff]

dc410 wrote:
whheff,

Nice idea! You got my wheels turnin' on that one. What size hooks did you use and how did you attach the rear hook to the front one? I wonder if it would be better to leave the rear hook intact and clip the front one? Just a few things flying through my mind. That idea might work well for an Iso nymph with as active as they are. Something else to add to the list of things to experiment with at the tying bench. Thanks for sharing.

dc410, I used a size 16 nymph hook for the front and a size 18 for the tail. I used a piece of 5x tippet to attach them. After I tied the tippet in I put some super glue on the thread and tippet. I was trying to keep everything small.
I decided to cut the back hook because of the way I connected it to the front hook. Most articulated flies are streamers and they use fireline to attach them together. That makes them very strong but bulky.
The Iso nymph sound good. Post some pics of them if you tie them

lv2nymph, like you I live to nymph. Hopefully this will be a good fly to nymph with. I may try to go smaller but I think that smaller may not articulate that well.

Thanks guys for your comments and other fly suggestions.

Bill

 

[eunanhendron]

Those look good. Check out senyos wiggle iso and senyos wiggle stone fly

 

[CathyG]

I'm going to experiment with tying these today

 

[blueheron]

I am going to tie something like this at the pre pre pre pre xmas tying jam. See some of you there

 

[whheff]

I will do that Eunan.

I don't think I can make the jam this year blueheron. So I will have to wait and check out the pictures of all the great flies everyone will be tying.

CathyG, please post some pictures of you flies. I always like to see how other tiers flies look.

 

[dsmith1427]

I tied an articulated nymph once and lost it on the bottom on my second cast...

Don

 

[dc410]

Bill,

I tried one of the articulated Iso nymphs using your style. Overall, I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I used (2) size 16 nymph hooks and attached them together the same way that you did (but I used 3X instead of 5X because I just happened to have a spool of it laying there by my tying table). The overall length is about 20 mm, a little bit longer than the average iso nymph. It is a pretty "busy" pattern to tie on these size hooks but it was fun. I used 14/0 brown thread due to the amount of materials that I included in the pattern to try to reduce the amount of thread build up as I tied it. I used some of lv2nymph's red mink fur that he gave me for the dubbed body (mink fur is great stuff, thanks again, Jack). I wouldn't really want to try to tie them on anything smaller. Thanks again, these kinds of threads get me thinking which is a part of fly tying that I really enjoy!

 

[whheff]

dc410 wrote:
Bill,

I tried one of the articulated Iso nymphs using your style. Overall, I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I used (2) size 16 nymph hooks and attached them together the same way that you did (but I used 3X instead of 5X because I just happened to have a spool of it laying there by my tying table). The overall length is about 20 mm, a little bit longer than the average iso nymph. It is a pretty "busy" pattern to tie on these size hooks but it was fun. I used 14/0 brown thread due to the amount of materials that I included in the pattern to try to reduce the amount of thread build up as I tied it. I used some of lv2nymph's red mink fur that he gave me for the dubbed body (mink fur is great stuff, thanks again, Jack). I wouldn't really want to try to tie them on anything smaller. Thanks again, these kinds of threads get me thinking which is a part of fly tying that I really enjoy!

That Iso looks great. I agree with you about tying this style on smaller hooks. The size 18 I used for the back of mine was about as small as I want to go too.
Which hook did you cut off? The reason I cut the back hook on my fly was because it was tied in the round style, it didn't have to be tied to the front hook so the hook would hang down correctly. Also, the front hook had a bigger gap to hook a fish with.
I feel that the articulation will over ride the length issue. Also, that red mink makes that fly pop.

 

[dc410]

whheff wrote:

That Iso looks great. I agree with you about tying this style on smaller hooks. The size 18 I used for the back of mine was about as small as I want to go too.
Which hook did you cut off? The reason I cut the back hook on my fly was because it was tied in the round style, it didn't have to be tied to the front hook so the hook would hang down correctly. Also, the front hook had a bigger gap to hook a fish with.
I feel that the articulation will over ride the length issue. Also, that red mink makes that fly pop.

Thanks Bill. I cut the back hook off. I was feeling that the articulation would be better without dragging a hook point around with it.

 

[lv2nymph]

Hey John nice use of the mink there, looking good. These are some of the ones I've been fishing. Most of them are 22mm long not including tails, the smaller one(lower right) is about 12mm (white fly). The main hook on the larger ones is a daiichi d1560 #12, and the smaller one is a daiichi 1640 #14 straight eye 2x short. I cut the abdomen hook off, it's some kind of mustad I picked up in a bargain bin at Sumerset years ago.

Some of them have been chewed on and a little ratty looking. :-D
The tails, gills,& legs are ostrich plume
the rib is thread
the wing case is golden pheasant
hairline dubbing
and a veil of antron to hide the connection.
legs on the little one is golden pheasant as well.

 

[blueheron]

That's some buggy stuff everyone is throwing, I like 'em.

 

[OldLefty]

Here's a G D articulated.

It is important to cut off the hook from the abdomen since there is a weak attachment to the thorax hook. I wouldn't want a fish hooked on the abdomen hook and the stress of battle separating it from the thorax. After all, my tippet would have no connection to the abdomen hook. Major potential for disaster.

 

[lv2nymph]

Is that a swimming nymph hook for the abdomen? I like that, I'm going to do that on the next group I tie up.

 

[BrookieChaser]

I like the idea of articulated nymphs, though I've never tied them or fished them.

 

[OldLefty]

Correct, the abdomen is tied on a swimming nymph hook.

 

[Leteras]

Here is an articulated nymph my buddy ties.

 

[whheff]

Leteras wrote:
Here is an articulated nymph my buddy ties.

Very nice fly.