I recently had the privilege of meeting a gentleman who invited me to his house to pass on some of the tying techniques he has learned over the years. This man is 88 years old and has been tying for over 70 of them.
He had a tying area and equipment we would all drool over. He tied a squirrel tail nymph that was very simple to tie. Tail was body hair and body was squirrel hair in a dubbing loop wrapped from the tail to the eye and tied off. Sweet and simple. He said if he could only take one fly, this would be it. Apparently, he has fished it over much of the US and has always done quite well with it.
Just curious, has anyone else tied a nymph similar using squirrel body hair? He did say that he only tied this nymph in gray and has never tried it using fox squirrel.
Grey Squirrel body hair with the guard hair in the dubbing is great material. I use it a lot. In fact when a pattern calls for hare’s ear I use grey squirrel.
Mart
There are quite a few such nymphs, ( and wet flies generally) made with various hair and fur. Too many to mention individually. All are successful, and they are also more durable than nymphs made with feather fibre.
As the previous guys have commented, the simplicity and effectiveness of the short bushy tail with a spun fur body or a short Palmer hackle is a classic. It will never die.
Try an all black with a red thread head.
Whitlock’s Red Squirrel Nymph - with or without the soft hackle collar - is a great all-purpose nymph pattern. I think it really should be used more often.
Joe
Doug, this one is a little different than the one pictured. The one the old gentlemen ties has a dubbing loop at the tail with body hair trapped and then wrapped to the eye. Guard hairs stay in all the way from tail to eye.
Hey rookie a pic of that fly would be great, you really got my interest up. maybe a reference to a link to something that looks like it. I’m sure you have described it very well for those who tye alot and can get a good mental picture of what it looks like, but I haven’t tied enough at this point to do that…
Is it squirrel tail, or squirrel body fur dubbed? I would like to see a pic of one if possible. I make a squirrel tail streamer called Lil’ Joe Streamer …it has tinsel in any color, with a squirrel tail in either gray squirrel, or red…for a wing. Then I whip finish with a fairly big head, and paint eyes on it, and use lacquer and all till it looks like it had epoxy on it.
Kelkay, it’s all body hair. The body hair about where the squirrel tail is attached is a little longer than the rest of the hair. Take that hair for the tail on the nymph. Use other body hair for the body of the nymph.
Grubb, I will attempt a picture sometime this evening. I must warn you, not my fortay. When you see the fly, you will be amazed at what it is not. It’s nothing spectacular but when someone this mans age and with his experience tells me it’s his one go to fly, I will certainly try it.
The Pink Squirrel
Hook: #12 Drennan carbon specimen ( You may use any hook of course, but I prefer straight eyed hooks for spiders and a number of other flies).
Body: Yellow silk ( or you can use any 6/0 multi strand thread), dubbed with a mix of 6 pinches of light hare underfur, mixed with 1 pinch of fine red ( pure) wool, ( or other suitable dubbing) and the last third dubbed with dark underfur.
Hackle: Squirrel body guard hair in a split thread technique.
One may also make a similar fly which looks even more “nymphal” simply by making the thread with the squirrel guard hair longer and palmering it. This probably looks a lot like the fly the original poster mentioned. One may also give it a tail of the same hair.
This is also a “go-to” fly for me on a lot of occasions.
That Pink Squirrel is a lovely wee fly. The color is grand. I’ve been using Daiichi 1640 straight eye, 2X short hooks for spiders and some other flies, thanks to you and Donald. Very nice hooks that give just the right look to spiders.
I thought it was interesting, and I like hair flies. I knew a gentleman, now deceased, who used something very similar, with grey squirrel hair, usually on long shanked 12 hooks, and caught large numbers of large trout and grayling with it.
Same hooks as the Drennan Carbon Specimen actually. Just a different label ( made in same factory).
The pink squirrel, and a couple of other hair flies, like the one below are my answer to rather frail soft hackle spiders. These get torn to bits quite quickly by the fish. The hair flies are more or less indestructible, hence the name of this one. One can find a lot of really nicely marked hair and fur for these flies, and some approximates quite well to original soft hackle colours, so I have a range of such flies.
Connor?s Indestructible?
Hook: 14 Drennan carbon specimen.
Tag: Fluorescent magenta floss.
Body: Dubbed black underfur from squirrel tail.
Hackle. Sparse bunch of black squirrel tail, from base of dyed tail, ( where you got the under-fur!) in a dubbing loop or split thread. Split thread causes less bulk!You only need a very small bunch of hair!
This fly has caught me a lot of fish over the years. It seems to work well anywhere. Of course you may dress it in various sizes. 16 14 and 12 are my usual sizes.
It is dressed in the same way as the ?Pink Squirrel?
The macro photos can be very deceptive, although one may dress these fleis in any size, as one is not dependent on hackle length, one needs hair or fur of the right texture. These are actually small flies;
These are small delicate flies, not least because the Drennan hooks are a little shorter in the shank than many other patterns. You may of course use any “style” you prefer, I vary the “style” of fly depending on what I am going to use it for. Here is a size comparison on the palm of my hand. I have used a matchbox for comparison. The macro shots tend to be rather deceiving.
Originally I dressed the Pink Squirrel pattern for a specific nymph which I found in a local stream, but it has proven to be a first class all-round pattern, and like most hair flies, virtually indestructible.
