Fly Tying

A trout fishermen know that the buggy nymphs are the best all around flies for trout fishing. They are great searching pattern because represent caddis flies, stone flies and even mayflies. Tied small a buggy nymph imitate baetis nymphs and emergers too. For these reasons is good to have a few nice buggy nymphs in your boxes.

As you can see I make them on curved hooks. Frankly I like more the curved hooks because I noticed a better hook rate compared with other models. I tie buggy nymphs on jig hooks when the snagging risk is higher ( rivers with lots of sharp stones like granite or sandstone).

The hot spotted versions are used when water is warm and fish are very active:

Usually hot orange,and hot pink are most efficient colors as triggers. But sometimes green seems to work better in rivers with rhyacophila ( swimming caddis larvae ).

When I choose what model of buggy nymph to use I take in consideration the following factors depending of season

Spring buggy nymphs :

• bigger hook
• bigger beads
• heavy dressed
• tied minimalist
• hot spotted

Summer buggy nymphs:

• medium sized hooks
• slimmer bodies compared with Spring versions
• hackle made of Partridge – for extra movement
• with or without hot spots

Autumn buggy nymphs

• small or medium sized hooks
• tied light dressed
• dark colored dubbing seems to work better
• red, purple and green for hot spots
• hackle made of CDC, seems to be more efficient

I use natural grey dubbing ( from hare mask and from squirrel ) olive or yellow mixed with olive if the olive is too dark and black mixed with grey. These colors are my most effective colors. I dropped to use others. Sometimes I mix a little bit of blue, UV white and purple because I noticed that in Autumn these colors works better.

A small tip: use an air compressor to mix your dubbing. The coffee grinder blades cuts the guard hair , is not the best option. If you don’t have the possibility then mix the dubbing using your fingers, is simple but will take more time 🙂

If you want to see other buggy flies and what I use when the season start here is another article: