General forum Question

[fflutterffly]

I've been off fishing in Montana for a while successfully I might add with flymphs. During this time I tied a fly with the following materials. My question: Is this still considered a flymph?
Hook: Size 14 94833
wire: xs gold
body: 1/16 strip of black foam
Wing: natural Partridge

Black thread applied to shank to bend.
Wire attached.
foam tied in beginning from rear to front with segmentation. Foam extends over eye hook, cut to look like a top hat.
Wire wound twice over segmentations to eye.
natural partridge wound one time at eye.
whip finish.

At this moment I don't have a camera.

This fly worked wonders in a double rigging.

[narcodog]

IMO, no. No true flymph is tied with foam. Flymph= fly and nymph, on top of he water and under the water. Foam does not usually sink. I have a friend that ties what he calls a flymph and it works very well, except it is tied with tung bead, what he has is a bead soft hackle.

[Old Hat]

I agree, no flymph, you could probably get away with calling it a soft hackle, but with the foam that would even be a stretch and would depend, IMO, on how it rides. Glad you had a good time with the pattern though. It does sound effective, neverless.

I also think that if you add a bead to a soft hackled fly, then you have a nymph.

[Soft-hackle]

Hi,
I'd have to agree with narco and Carl. If you read Hidy's descriptions from various resources, then the "flymph" is half fly half nymph. It should be fish-able from bottom to top, as Hidy intended. Being foam that might not work.

As humans, we like to categorize, narrow things down, pigeon-hole as much as possible. We like to think this makes things easier. Sometime, it does not. It makes it harder. So, from your description, a foam soft-hackle sounds about right, if the partridge was wrapped as a hackle. Initially, you listed the partridge as a "wing".

Mark

[willowhead]

Gee soft hackle.....you don't have much of an opinion of "humans." .............j/k. i agree though that a Flymph should be unweighted.......and NO Foam...........PAlease.

[redietz]

I don't know how I missed this thread earlier.

I once watched someone very successfully fish a foam beetle as a nymph. I spoke with him a while and told me he almost never fishes anything other than a foam beetle or a foam ant, and usually on bottom. Since I watched him take several fish as I spoke to him, I have to believe it works, although neither fly would be something that came to mind when I heard the word "nymph". This took place on the Little Lehigh, so there's even a Leisenring connection here.

I'm sure that the original poster implied that the fly floated. Not all foam floats especially well, and compressing it with a lot of segmentation makes it even denser. Let's assume that it doesn't float -- is it still not a flymph?