Simon’s Staple Perdigon: Hot Fly this fall

The Perdigon once started as a pattern, not serves as an entire family or style of fly patterns. Perdigon, which translates in French to “shot or pellet” presumably for its streamlined heavy nature. Perdigons are the topic of debate from time to time, being soulless slim bodied flies, whether you like them or not, they work extremely well.

The draw of a Perdigon is that is small and maintains a slim, tapered body, while being capable of hosting a large bead. many small flies have trouble getting deep, but Perdigons are almost always tied with large tungsten beads. This comes from their emergence from tight line or euro nymphing folks overseas.

Many Perdigons have a hot collar, but this particular pattern has a hot rear too, and a flash ribbed body. Orange is a very important color in the fall and hot tags or collars of orange seem to work great to capture attention every year in the fall. Many nymphs fill with buoyant gasses prior to rising to the surface for their emergence. Palmered flash does a great job of mimicking this. This Perdigon also features a dark wing case which is also suggestive for an emerging insect.

With our low water right now, and our smaller fall hatches, this pattern has been a staple in my box. I typically fish it in a 14-18, with 16 being my most used. It is a great size for the Mahogany Dun hatch as well as the leftover PMDS. The 18s work great for the fall Baetis emergence as well. I’ve found it more important this year than ever to size down tippet as well. With our especially low water, typically I am fishing this off of 5x Absolute Fluorocarbon from SA and it is making a huge difference sizing down. Tie some up and you’ll find a big rainbow on the end of your line shortly.

-Simon