Czech yourself!

Here's a couple of new patterns I'm toying with.

I got word that pink worms are killing the steelhead right now so I figured I'd try to work in some new patterns in hot pink. Here's a pretty straight forward czech nymph. I used a tungsten scud body to keep it heavy, and I kept the profile really slim so it sinks quick. I also add a few strands of shaggy dub for legs, and a tiny bit of movement near the thorax.

Size 10 scud hook
Spectrablend pink nymph/scud dubbing (rear)
Fly D&K UV body quill - pink rose (under rib)
4x monofilament tippet (over rib)
Sybai diamond braidback - pink (scud back)
Sharpie marker to color in the diamond braid near the head


Next, I was reading this month's Fly Fisherman magazine and there's a great tying article from Charlie Craven mentioning the use of CDC on nymphs. He had a sweet looking pheasant tail in the article. His had a wing case and CDC out the sides for legs, but I decided to hackle the head with CDC on mine. I went with a tung bead and skipped the lead to keep the body a little more slim. This one will definitely move in the water.

Dohiku barbless nymph hook size 14
french tinsel gold (rib)
4 pheasant tail fibers
Coq de leon (tail)
Jan Siman UV peacock bronze dubbing
CDC natural
Gold Tungsten bead


You can click on both of them for larger images. The czech is a little sloppy because it was my first one, but I'm sure they'll clean up after I knock out another half dozen or so.

Also, I had my 2nd fly tying class last night. I brought my nymph box in to show the teacher some of my patterns and I received a lot of compliments from the guys in the class on some of my flies, which was really cool. We tied two patterns. The first was a greenie weenie (which took about 15 seconds to finish!) and the 2nd was a grey hackle peacock, which is a classic wet fly. I think this thing will definitely pass for a caddis pupa on the swing.

I'm going to wait until the class is finished and then post all 60 patterns we learned at once so you can see the progression each week (unless we learn something that is truely badass)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go weave an entire ringneck pheasant skin into my hair.