I imagine my steelheading brethren cringe at the site or mention of a trout fly. And, I am equally certain those that chase trout (the non-ocean going variety) would take exception to me categorizing my concoction as a flymph. I first heard of flymph’s while reading the works of Dave Hughes and Rick Hafele in the early 90’s. I understood it to be a basic nymph pattern (not a wet) with an additional use of a wound hackle at the front (soft hackles). Here, I have added a root beer brown bead. The original flymphs were without a bead for sure. The tail and abdomen are dyed peacock herl and the thorax is a concoction of dubbings (dark brown). The hackle is from a PP Starling patch. No wingcase. The hook is an old Mustad 3906.
The flymph, as designed by “Pete” Hidey, is NOT a “basic nymph pattern” with hackle added. Dave Hughes did NOT describe the flymph that way in his book Trout Flies nor in his book Wet Flies (both books were written in the 90’s so I assume you are referencing them), so I don’t know how you could understand it as you say you do.
A flymph is understood to be, as its originator described it, “No more a nymph but not yet a fly”.
Simply put, it is an emerger soft-hackle pattern constructed of a dubbed body and thorax. The first serious emerger pattern!
This distinction in design is important because it has everything to do with function. The functionality of the flymph is multi-faceted, giving the fly-fisherman more choices in presentation than, say for instance, the standard soft-hackle. It can be fished dry, as an emerger and as a drowned adult in consecutive casts. It can be fished in rough water as well as smooth with equal effectiveness.
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REALLY nice– I don’t believe I’ve seen peacock herl that color. And it’s flymphish enough to me…
cheers
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Thanks. Locate Nature’s Spirit, ‘bleached and dyed peacock sticks’. They come in about a 16 colors, mostly darker trouty colors.
http://www.worleybuggerflyco.com/naturesspiritt/Natures.htm I have not seen it in the Portland shops, but if you don’t feel too tainted, go to sportman’s wholesale down on SE 82nd. They have a large selection. It is a very nice product to work with…you’ll like the colors. At first it seem fried and brittle but it does not break and it produces nice wraps. I don’t see it on the WorleyBugger site but they make it.
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