The honey troglodyte

  I have been tying along a particular theme recently, that being nymphs with a V-Rib body and a tungsten bead. On this one I was focusing on getting a glowing translucence in the body: Place a 2.5mm black tungsten bead on a #14 or #16 nymph hook. Tie in a rough base (for grip) of bright yellow silk (70 denier used here) Tie in a tail of natural blonde squirrel tail, and use the tag end to build up the thorax a little , so securing the bead. Tie in a small bunch of cock pheasant tail fibres as

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Gill bodied nymph revisited

I recently wrote about a new technique for created in a nymph body with breathing gills along the sides. In more recent weeks, I have been working up a few more variants and exploring the concept further.Fly tiers will know that such experimentation is a frustrating thing in many respects. You end up with several disasters before you get anything worthwhile. Materials are not as fine as you thought they would be, or not quite subtle enough, or too slippery to bond against, and so it goes; and you end up with little film canisters of tangled cast offs, of

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