I’m hoping to fish places where I might need a few of them this spring. After looking at some patterns on line as well as pictures of live nymphs this is what I came up with. I didn’t include the white stripe down the back that many patterns do but it wouldn’t be hard to add one. Has anyone tried them both ways? What was the result?
Nice tie, I’d eat it
Looks good, I’d fish it just as a generic nymph pattern as well
Do you have a SBS? I’d like a closer look. Nice tie and photo.
PT with a claret-dubbed thorax? I assume the bead is mis-shaped because of the camera lens? Cool fly.
Regards,
Scott
Thanks guys. Scott has it pretty well right. The thorax is a blend of brown hares ear and claret antron from a package of bright steelhead dubbing mixed to come close to the color of the abdomen and roughed up to give legs. The only way I could get the autofocus to lock on the fly was to use the bubble effect. Otherwise I got an out of focus picture of a fly in front of a very nice picture of the weave of background cloth. Lastchance, the tie is pretty straight forward, The materials are:
2x long nymph hook
black bead (3.2 mm for size ten hook)
lead wire wraps under thorax and filling bead
fine gold wire rib
three pheasant tail fibers for tail
pheasant tail abdomen
butts of pheasant tail pulled over thorax for wing case
brown hares ear/claret antron mixed dubbing for thorax
fibers picked out for legs
I tie them with and without the stripe and haven’t noticed any difference. However, I like the stripe and usually include a thin strand of pearl flash over the wingcase.
However, one thing that I have found with Isos is that they are very active swimmers and fly movement is significant. I like an extended body fly. I use a shorter shank hook (scud hook or emerger hook) and then add an extended abdomen of either marabou or furled yarn. This gives the fly a wiggly, swimming motion in the water. Here’s a picture of one with the furled body.
Thanks John. I hope I have the swimming part covered with some pheasant soft hackles (wire ribbed pheasant tail with black tipped brown pheasant back feather). I do like that furled body and I think I have some hombre dazzleaire yarn with sections in about the right color.