Making use of that Old Tippet MaterialA slightly unusual soft hackle wet fly this one, at least as far as soft hackle wet flies go. This fly was intended to imitate a small olive Chironomid pupa after seeing a recently hatched dun land on the back of my hand while out fishing. So what makes this soft hackle wet fly a bit different? Rather than having a dubbed or feather fibre body, like most soft hackle wet flies, this soft hackle wet fly has a thread body and a floss thorax cover but with a clear nylon overbody. The overbody makes good use of old tippet material and is an excellent way to recycle your old copolymer or flurocarbon!

The fly seems to work best dressed on a #16 light wire hook (like the Blushing Spider) and this would be about the size of the adult fly that I saw. The adult Chironomid had a brownish abdomen graduating to an olive green nearer the the thorax and dark, almost black legs. I incorporated some furnace cockerel feather fibres as a ‘tail’ hopefully to suggest a trailing shuck. I also added some hot orange floss as a thorax cover under the clear mono. The best mono I found for forming the body was clear mono, about 0.17mm diameter for a #16 hook. Of course you could tie some using different diameter and alternatively coloured mono, and see how the resultant soft hackle wet fly pattern work for you.

Given that the Mono Nymph is a Chironomid pupa pattern, I fish it slowly using just the wind and wave action to impart movement. I take up the slack using a very slow figure of eight retrieve: just enough to keep in contact with the flies!

 

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