Pink Nymph

Materials required (supplier in brackets)

• Hook: #16 or #18 Barbless jig hook (Hends, Dohiku, JMC, Partridge or similar)
• Fluorescent pink, slotted, tungsten bead (Tungsten beads plus, Funky Flytying, Harvey Angling and others)
• Rib: Small diameter red copper wire (UTC Ultra Wire or similar)
• Tail: Antron fluorescent pink wool (Sportfish or any Veniard’s supplier)
• Body Dubbing: Hares’s ear (Sportfish, Veniard’s and others)
• Thorax: Pink Glister dubbing or similar (Sportfish or any Veniards or Hends supplier)

Instructions

1. Thread slotted bead onto the hook (non-slotted end first) and push it up the hook shank until front of the bead butts up against the eye of the hook.
2. Put on a generous number of thread wraps to secure bead firmly in place.
3. Tie in a generous length of copper wire for the ribbing.
4. Tie in a length of Antron onto the hook to make a tail the same length as the hook shank.
5. Dub hare’s ear onto the tying thread and wrap it all the way up the hook shank.
6. Take the copper wire and rib the body, in the counter direction to the body turns, all the way up to the beads.
7. Tie in the copper and “worry” it to break off the tag end.
8. Dub a small amount of glister onto the tying thread and form a “buggy” thorax.
9. Finish off with a whip finish.
10. Use a strip of Velcro to roughen up the body fur and give it a buggy appearance.

Fishing the fly

The fly can be fished as the first dropper fly on a team of nymphs, or suspended from a dry fly, such as a klinkhamer, New Zealand style. The latter is very effective for catching grayling in the winter.

Proof positive

The day after tying this fly at the club meeting on 22nd  January 2015, it accounted for several grayling, some of them large (2lbs approximately), at the Rabber farm  on the river Ithon.

Peter Wyles with a 2lb Ithon Grayling

John Symonds with a 2lb Ithon Grayling

In addition to this, the pink nymph has been successful from the end of 2014 through to 2015 on the rivers Ithon and Onny.