Love them or hate them squirmy wormys get the job done! They are controversial however they are hugely successful when fishing for trout, on both river and still waters, brown trout, grayling and are also great for tempting chub and barbel!

You might be thinking, when would I fish this fly? It’s a terrific patten to fish when the rivers are falling from a recent flood. Especially so because the river may be full of dredged up worms. I tend to fish mine the same I do when using a euro style set up. If you’re fishing after a flood look for places such as behind structures in the river like behind rocks/fallen trees etc… You’ll also need to get your squirmy wormy down fast so for the weight of the fly look to use the bigger and heavier tungsten beads such as 3.6 to 4.5!

A couple of tips for tying this pattern.

• don’t use a thread that’s too thin, it will just rip right through the squirmy material, I opt to use the Glo Brite range of threads for theses flies.

• when finishing the fly steer clear of regular varnish and glue. These will react to the squirmy material and un do your work on the fly. If your going to use anything you’ll need to use a good uv resin to finish the fly off!

Materials

Hook – Fulling Mill Jig Force size 14

Thread – Glo Brite #5

Tail – Fulling Mill original squirmy material

Body – Fulling Mill squirmy material

Bead – slotted tungsten 3.6 silver

Thorax – (optional) black uv dubbing

Step 1

Place the bead on the hook and pop in your vice

Step 2

Start the thread and secure the bead on the hook, trim away the waste piece.

Step 3

Take the thread down to the bend of the hook.

Step 4

Take the thread back to the bead, this is to create a nice bed of thread for the squirmy material to lay over so it doesn’t slip around the hook! Trim a piece of the squirmy material and catch it in.

Step 5

By stretching the squirmy material, not too hard though and keeping tension on the thread, gently wind down towards the bend of the hook keeping the material on top of the hook shank.

Step 6

Take your thread back to the bead and repeat step 5 to tie in another piece of squirmy for the body!

Step 7

Tie in and take your thread down to the bend of the hook and then with your thread make a nice tapered body finishing with your thread behind the eye.

Step 8

Wind the body material up. You’ll find that it can be a tricky material to work with. Aim to put a little tension on the squirmy material and as you wind up on each turn take some tension off to create a nice tapered body. Take tight secure turns to tie secure the material in place.

Step 9

Trim off the waste piece of material. At this point I like to make 5-6 more turns just to make sure nothing is going to come undone

Step 10

This is an optional addition to the fly, I like to sometimes add a little bit of sparkle dubbing before finishing the fly.

Step 11

Whip finish and the fly is done! Remember don’t go in with regular varnish you’ll need uv resin to finish this fly!

Thanks for reading this weeks step by step! Next week is the final week in my little feature on here before Christmas! In the new year im looking forward to bringing you some exciting content reviewing some top fly tying materials from Semperfli!

Also next week as it will be the final fly. Keep a look out on my Facebook page phillippa hake fly tying as I’ll be giving away all 10 flies that I’ve tied in the step by steps! Watch this space!