2026 April Fly Tying

 

Fly Tying   While perusing fly tying articles and videos, I came across a video of Tim Flagler and Brian Flechsig of Mad River Outfitters that piqued my interest. The video, Fly Tying a Pheasant Tail Nymph with tightlinevideo posted to the Mad River Outfitters YouTube channel, talked about a new book titled Pheasant Tail Simplicity. The reason I was interested in the book was that Dennis Erenberger had just given me a number of pheasant tails from a recent hunting trip. The book provides only fly patterns made primarily from pheasant tails. So I picked one up from the Peak Fly Shop and started tying.

Pheasant Tail Flymph

The first fly in the book is the Pheasant Tail Flymph: "It is not a nymph.  It is not a fly.  It is a "Flymph"  and the word was coined by Vernon S. (Pete) Hidy to describe that stage of an insect's life when the nymph leaves the rather comfortable surroundings of the stream bed and swims up through the water column to hatch into the dun on the way to adulthood.  Today you might know it better as the emerger stage." https://www.oldhatflytying.com/what-is-a-flymph.html The difference between a pheasant tail flymph and a pheasant tail soft hackle is the hook. A flymph is tied on a 1x heavy hook and the soft hackle is tied on a lighter dry fly hook. Recipe for the Flymph: Hook: 1x heavy wide gap #8 to #20 (Umpqua UC610BL) Thread: 8/0 olive Ribbing: X-small to med. gold copper wire Tail: 4-8 pheasant tail barbs (4 for #14) Body: pheasant tail barbs Thorax: Peacock Ice Dub or peacock hurl Hackle: Gray Hungarian partridge or quail or other soft hackle substitutes Steps to tie the Flymph: Start with the thread just behind the hook eye and tie in the gold wire. Tie in the pheasant fibers for the tail and wrap the thread forward to about 1/3 behind the hook eye (leave plenty of space behind the eye!). Using the same fibers as the tail, wrap them forward and tie off at the 2/3 point. Wrap the wire forward to lock in the pheasant fibers and tie off at the 2/3 point. Add the Peacock Ice Dub (or peacock hurl), stopping just behind the hook eye. Tie in the tip of a partridge or other soft hackle feather and wrap no more than two times and tie it off. Build a small head and whip finish. In the video mentioned above (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMJKYVTCDvs&t=866s), Tim provides some tips and tricks for tying this fly, especially how to choose and tie in the soft hackle feather. Highly recommend watching the video if you choose to tie this fly. Happy tying! Greg Walters