Jigged Low Tide Pheasant Tail: A Great Nymph for the Dog Days of Summer

The dog days of summer can be a difficult time to fish. Despite the favorable weather for us, trout start to get a bit unhappy during the peak of summer. Their feeding can be sporadic, isolated to the cooler, shadier times during the day. There sometimes is also no rhyme or reason as to whether they’re eating or not. Anglers in the summer know about the heat induced mid-day lull. While dry fly eats can indeed happen during the brightest portion of the day, fish are far more likely to take a nymph than a dry during the most unfavorable hours of their day. Despite their tendency to turn their nose up for dry fly eats mid day when it’s hot, we still search with a dry dropper rig. Sizing down tippet and flies can help with this finicky-ness subsurface as well. During the summer I like to fish lighter tippet like 5x Scientific Anglers Absolute Fluorocarbon locally with smaller flies in the 16 range.

I developed this fly to ride the line between imitative and attractive, which are two things that finicky trout demand. Its two toned ribbed body is anatomically accurate of most nymphs having a lighter underside. The lighter underside utilizes purple flash which is definitely not natural, but serves as an attractor attribute capturing lethargic trouts’ attention. It is sized down to be less intrusive than a 12 or 14 with a very large bead. This way it blends in closer to the pmd nymphs that trout have been feeding on. The Cinnamon Tip turkey wing case looks like many of the pmd nymphs they’ve been feeding on ready to burst out of their shuck while they ascend. The CDC collar allows this fly to be swung, and when it is wet and the CDC collapses on the body, the fly is reminiscent of many of the summer caddis pupa that are emerging. Feel free to swap out the flash color, or experiment with swapping cdc colors. You may be able to make it much more “caddisy”choosing a combination of green and or tan. Regardless, this is a fantastic nymph to have in your summer box and it can be a day saver when things are slow.

-Simon

Hook- Ahrex CZ Mini Jig Barbless FW555: Size 14, 16*, 18

Bead- Fulling Mill Copper Slotted Tungsten Bead: 1/8 or 3.2mm

Thread- Fulling Mill Black Pro Flat Thread: 70 Denier

Tail- Hareline Pheasant Tail

Abdomen- Hareline Pheasant Tail, Hareline/ Hedron Flashabou: Purple, Uni Small Soft Wire: Copper

Thorax- Fulling Mill Tactical Microflash: UV Olive

Wing Case- Hareline Cinnamon Tip Turkey

Collar- Fulling Mill CDC: Black

UV Resin- Solarez Bone Dry

UV Torch- Loon Plasma Light

Bobbin- Stonfo Steeltech Bobbin