Nymph Fly Patterns A General
Discussion  
by
Eugene Macri

Nymph fly patterns are in the hundreds of thousands by now and who knowsB how many more will be on the market tomorrow.  Nymph patterns usually fall into three groups:

• Exact Imitation: This as precise as it gets where you try and match everything on the real nymph
• Suggestive Patterns:  This is a reasonable fascimile of what you would find in nature.
• Attractor Patterns: These pattens try to catch by the fish's curiosity or arousal of his evolutionary traits such as greed etc.

Most fly anglers carry all three types of in various configurations or ties. However, there are other ways and methods of catergorizing some of these patterns and they include:

• Deep nymphs: usually weighted
• non weighted nymphs; weight can be added in the form of split shot
• emerger type patterns: bottom, mid water and surface

So there are many ways to organize your fly boxes and tie or buy your patterns.  One thing most fly anglers fail to understand is that you don't need to imitate everything in the stream and you don't need every pattern with you all of the time. The streams you fish will dictate to you exactly what you need and where and how to use as you learn how to be successful with nymphs.  Also, most fly fisherman take for granted that the insect as described in their fancy books is that color in the stream. Nymphs and larvae vary greatly in their appearance depending upon environmental conditions in different streams.

One of the things most fly anglers fail to understand is that it's more than just color and size of your nymph pattern that determines whether the trout will take the pattern. If we temporarily exclude your fishing skill, method, and technique because we assume that they are fine then what are you missing. You are missing two things: 1) material and 2) shape.  Take two fly patterns that are the same imitation and except different body materials and put them in an aquarim.  Do they look different underwater?  What if there is some distoriong such as a riffle or turbidity in the water?  Can the trout pick one of the imitations out better than the the other?

What about the shape how does that look underwater? Does your nymph roll upside down in a current or does it stay hook down?  How does the shape of the nymph cause is it to rise or bounce on the bottom?  If you don't know the answers to these things then you aren't really an accomplished nymph fisherman yet?  You need to understand these things and figure them out.  That's why I put up this website.  By the way trout have the best color vision of a vertebrate animal and contrary to what has been written by so many experts they see very well underwater and better than you think above  the surface!