Too Simple Mayfly Dry

[al-campbell]

I believe Militant Tiger summed up what many
of you feel about simple flies in the chat room
last Thursday night. He said he didn’t believe
simple flies could even catch a cold. I think
many of you feel the same way. If it isn’t
complex or an exact replica of an insect, it
won’t work. A lot of you refuse to even try
simple flies for that reason. It is purely
your choice.

A few others have asked why I don’t show more
CDC in my simple patterns. I’ll fix that this
week with the too simple CDC mayfly. I usually
just call it an EZ Baetis, but this is too simple
stuff, so you can call it a too simple mayfly if
you like. After all, it doesn’t matter what you
call it as long as it catches fish.

I won’t go into a lot of text about advantages
of this pattern verses another pattern. Some
of you won’t believe it anyway, and the rest
will try it whether I tell you how well it works
or not. I’ll just tell you that my too simple
patterns are designed to give you simple patterns
to tie when you are in a time crunch or just don’t
feel like tying a lot and need flies fast. They
aren’t meant to replace anything specifically,
but rather to fill the gap when time is a factor.

This pattern is just that, real simple and real fast.
You can tie a half dozen in about 10 minutes and go
fishing without devoting your fishing time to the
fly vise. You can substitute materials and use what
you have handy to create flies that still work fine,
but don’t take a lot of time to create.

Too Simple Mayfly Materials:

• Hook: Any standard dry fly hook, even
  cheap ones will do. I’m using a size 16 Mustad
  94840 dry fly hook.

• Tail: Hackle fibers.

• Body: Punch embroidery yarn. I’m using
  light gray.

• Legs: None.

• Thread: 6/0 - Colored to match the body
  or black.

• Wing: Gray CDC feathers.

  Tying steps Too Simple Mayfly:

  
  1. Start the thread and tie in a standard tail.
  
  2. Secure the punch embroidery yarn to the hook
     and start wrapping a body. I don’t get too fussy about
     a perfect body with these flies, just enough to create
     the impression of a body.
  
  3. Finish the body off behind the hook eye as shown.
  
  4. Select several CDC feathers for a wing.
  
  5. Attach them to the body with two or three loose
     thread wraps.
  
  6. By lifting slightly with both hands, you can
     slide the feathers forward and into place for a wing.
  
  7. Once you have the feathers in place secure
     them with several more wraps of thread.
  
  8. Trim the butts of the CDC feathers and build a head.
  
  9. Whip finish and trim your thread.
  
  10. Trim the wing to extend to about the hook bend.
  
  11. Clean up any stray fibers. Does your finished
      fly look like this?

Like I told Militant Tiger; I don’t want my flies to
catch a cold, just fish. I hope yours do too.
~ AC

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Originally published April 19, 2004 on Fly Anglers Online by Al Campbell.