Little Olive Flymph
Hook: Mustad 94840 dry fly hook #18 or #20
Rib: X-small copper wire
Thread: Olive
Tail: Dun hackle, hen or whimpy cock
Body: Olive dubbing, rough, with lots of synthetic flashy crap in it, Squirrel Brite or similar
Hackle: Dun, originally cock but now I'm using Whiting Genetic Hen, stiff and short
There is a whole story that goes with this dumb looking little fly. I was going to call it Austin's Phlenomenal Flymph or some other catchy thing, until I realized that this fly has been invented probably dozens of times. That said, one September day I was on the Mad river, and olives were coming off right and left, and I was catching no fish on dries, to my complete amazement. I was finally taking a break, letting my #18 Parachute Adams dangle in the water, when a fish hit it. I knew what this meant, and it meant wet flies. So I went home that night and tied up some flymphs. Now I had only the haziest idea of what a flymph was, from an article I'd read way back in the '70s, but I knew I wanted something that would rise to the surface and fish in the film, or just below, a kind of floating wet fly. I knew I wanted size #18, but had no hen hackle that small, so I used cock hackle instead, but collared like a wet fly, slanting backwards. I used a dry fly hook because I had no wet fly hooks small enough, and didn't want this sinking much anyway. The next day, standing in the exact same spot, I caught over 20 trout, including my first two holdover fish, 13 and 14 inches respectively, with gorgeous Fall coloration. Up until that moment, in five years of fishing the Mad, I'd never caught anything over 12". Anyway, the fly proved itself again out West this year, and I'm in love. Use a light sinker 8" above the fly or so. Quarter it upstream a bit, mend upstream, dead drift it down, and do a Leisenring lift at the end. You'll be amazed.
Rib: X-small copper wire
Thread: Olive
Tail: Dun hackle, hen or whimpy cock
Body: Olive dubbing, rough, with lots of synthetic flashy crap in it, Squirrel Brite or similar
Hackle: Dun, originally cock but now I'm using Whiting Genetic Hen, stiff and short
There is a whole story that goes with this dumb looking little fly. I was going to call it Austin's Phlenomenal Flymph or some other catchy thing, until I realized that this fly has been invented probably dozens of times. That said, one September day I was on the Mad river, and olives were coming off right and left, and I was catching no fish on dries, to my complete amazement. I was finally taking a break, letting my #18 Parachute Adams dangle in the water, when a fish hit it. I knew what this meant, and it meant wet flies. So I went home that night and tied up some flymphs. Now I had only the haziest idea of what a flymph was, from an article I'd read way back in the '70s, but I knew I wanted something that would rise to the surface and fish in the film, or just below, a kind of floating wet fly. I knew I wanted size #18, but had no hen hackle that small, so I used cock hackle instead, but collared like a wet fly, slanting backwards. I used a dry fly hook because I had no wet fly hooks small enough, and didn't want this sinking much anyway. The next day, standing in the exact same spot, I caught over 20 trout, including my first two holdover fish, 13 and 14 inches respectively, with gorgeous Fall coloration. Up until that moment, in five years of fishing the Mad, I'd never caught anything over 12". Anyway, the fly proved itself again out West this year, and I'm in love. Use a light sinker 8" above the fly or so. Quarter it upstream a bit, mend upstream, dead drift it down, and do a Leisenring lift at the end. You'll be amazed.