This year I have invested a fair bit of money in both flies and fly tying tools and materials, for all the money I spent I could haved saved most of it because I have used a pheasant tail nymph all season and have caught fish with them in a range of conditions and places.
The above picture is my go-to flybox, I use this all the time and just seem to carry the other half dozen boxes around for the fun of it, I realise this isn’t the way it should be done, I should match the hatch and all that but geez you know if a scruffy nymph works why bother tying on a dry fly?
One thing I have done this season is to tie the pheasant tail nymphs with some stubby legs, I do this by splitting the dag end of fibres remaining from the wing case, I take half back down each side of the fly and tie them in when I finish the head, trim about level with the back of the thorax and you’re good to go. I don’t know what the difference is but somehow the fish really do seem to prefer the stubby legs.
The first 11 fish for this season were all 3 1/2 pounds or better and the majority were taken with this scruffy looking nymph. ( The darker brown flies in the middle )
