MIKE SPRYS BROWN NYMPH.

Hook: TMC3761 size #10 to #16
Thread: 8/0 unithread brown or black
Tail: Bunch of brown hackle fibres.
Ribbing: Medium gold mylar tinsel.
Body: Blend of wallaby fur dyed brown, brown wool and brown Antron. Any wet fly blend will do so long as it has plenty of long fibres in it.
Brass bead: Optional.
Tip: If you weight your nymphs with a few turns of lead, use red thread. You will then know which nymphs are weighted when they get mixed up in your fly box as mine innevitably do! The ones with a red head are the weighted ones!

1. Put the optional bead onto the hook, smaller hole first.
2. Tie in the thread behind the bead or behind the eye of the hook and lay a base of thread back to the bend of the hook.
3. Take a large bunch of fibres from a brown cock hackle and tie them in at the bend of the hook. The tail should be about half the length of the shank of the hook.
4. Tie in the gold, medium mylar tinsel in front of the tail.
5. Dub the brown fur blend onto the hook very loosly and wind in to form a tapered body to about two thirds up the hook shank.
6. Rib the body with the tinsel. Three to four turns of the fairly wide tinsel will do. The tinsel will be largely obscured when we tease out the dubbing.Tie off the tinsel.
7. Loosley dub on some more fur blend to form the thorax. If using a beadhead, pile up the dubbing behind the bead to hold the bead firmly in place.
8. Whip finish behind the bead, or form a head with the thread and whip finish.
9. Now the important part! Take your dubbing needle and tease out those long fibres so that the gold tinsel is almost obscured. I use a paddle pop stick with a piece of velco glued to it for this operation. Remember, the shagger the better!
10. Add a drop of Flexament or varnish to the whip finish.
11. Go Fishing.

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