Now, if you follow me on social media you’ll know that I love a fly that is tied with stripped quill. There’s just something I love about the stuff, the way it has that segmented look when the fly is finished and it’s an easy material to work with and I use them on both nymphs and dries. They come in all different colours so what’s not to love?

On this particular occasion I’m going to show you how I use the quills to tie a simple yet very, very effective river nymph pattern. So here’s how I tie it.

You’ll need the following;
Hook – Partridge Standard Dry size 12/14/16/18/20
Thread – preferred tying thread – brown/tan
Bead – silver/copper to fit hook
Tail – coq de Leon fibres
Body – polish quills preferred colour
Thorax – hares ear
U.V resin – Deer Creek Diamond Hard

Step 1 –  

Put the hook in the vice with the bead at the eye of the hook ready to start your tying thread. Secure the bead with the thread. 

Step 2 – 

Run the thread down the hook to the bend and tie in some Coq De Leon fibres. 

Step 3 – 

At this point I like to spin the tying thread so it lays flat when tying materials in. Especially quills as you need a nice flat tapered under body of thread for the quill to lie on.

Take your stripped quill and as your looking at it the black strip on the quill should be on the bottom of the quill and the colour of the quill on the top, in order to achieve the segmented look to the fly. Tie in the quill and proceed to build up a tapered body. 

Step 4 – 

Take your hackle pliers and grab the quill and wind up the hook shank towards the bead making sure you don’t overlap the turns. 

 
Step 5 – lock in the quill with a couple of turns and make a half hitch so you can varnish and cure the fly with UV resin. 

Step 6 – 

Once you have cured the fly take your hares ear and dub on your thorax, I don’t like to over do it with the dubbing as I like my nymphs quite sparse. 

Step 7 –

Whip finish your fly and pick out the dubbing to make it look scruffy. 

And that’s it! A simple fly but very effective. The beauty of it is you can vary the look of it by changing the colour of the quills and bead. I always make sure I have plenty of these flies when I’m on the river. 

I like to fish it with two methods, it’s a good fly to use when fishing the duo method for searching out fish in pocket water. I also use it when fishing the French leader as a lighter fly above the point fly. 
I hope you enjoyed this blog! And I hope to be out fishing soon so I can share my adventures! 

Tight lines 🙂