That’s one of the most interesting flies I’ve ever seen. I’d love to see you tie it.
Thank you! I won't even pretend that the concept is mine. I learned to tie nymphs from Dave Rothrock many years ago and subscribe to his match the hatch / unweighted nymphs philosophy. I just adjust the materials a bit to my liking in certain patterns.
The body is a custom Hareline mixture....basically a rusty, amber brownish something or other LOL I don't have the exact mixture and colors in front of me.
The abdomen is basically overdubbed in layers with tight thread wraps to clear the thread underneath to allow the gills to be picked out at the sides between the ribbing and then trimmed to shape.
If you pick and tease it correctly out to the sides, there's very little trimming to do top or bottom....just a few stray wild hairs.
If you look at the natural of the eastern March Brown, they're robust, but flattish, and basically 2 triangles in proportion. The tails create one and the whole body plus legs basically forms the other, facing each other.
The rib I use is generally small brown D-rib but anything dark brown can be used really.
The legs are amber tan dyed grizzly maribou tips. I like grizzly maribou for my bigger nymphs as it's soft and "flowy" and has the barring in just the right places.....and gives a fullness and movement without bulk.
You could use wood duck flank, teal flank .... Whatever.....I just prefer the grizzly maribou in the bigger stuff.
That particular wingcase is mottled dark brown medallion sheeting but I use goose quill or turkey tail flat a lot on my nymphs as well.
The combination of the picked abdomen and legs give the nymph that light fullness implying legs and gills and has that flatness of a clinger nymph.
There's just a few little tips and tricks to get the proportions and legs just right but that's it in a nutshell.
