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In entomological terms a 'Bibio' is a March fly or St. Mark's fly both of which are true flies of the order Diptera. True Bibio larvae grow up in grassy areas and are herbivores and scavengers feeding on dead vegetation or living plant roots. They do not spend any part of their life cycle in the water. Whilst the Bibio fly may have been originally designed as a blow fly representation it has found its place as a great top dropper fly in lakes where there are large populations of midge. That of course begs the question do fish take them as midges, or do they take them as some other insect more like a fly, but which spends part of its life cycle in the water, that just happens to hatch as the same time as a midge, or alternatively do trout take them as one of the many carnivorous nymphs that predate on the midge? Any way when midge are around it's always worth trying a Bibio on your top dropper. A bead head version is not a bad idea either. Swap over to a slightly longer hook such as a Tiemco 3769, start with a small black tungsten bead and continue with the recipe below.

My version below varies from the original tie in that it doesn't include a body hackle. Instead the body is dubbed with seal fur dubbing which has been teased out in step 'D' with a Velcro rub.

Materials

Process

A	Wind the thread in touching turns to the bend of the hook. I like to use Knapek Lure hooks, Hanak Grub hooks for this fly but other short open gape wet or grub hook will do. Understanding hooks If the hook is made with fine wire you should add 2 or 3 wraps of fine lead wire to the front half of the hook shank. Adding weight to a fly Tie in the ribbing material.

B	Think about the body being 3 equal sections the sum of which cover the area from where you tied the wire in and the 95% position. Dub black seals fur on the rear third. Single strand dubbing

C	Dub red seals fur on the middle section.

D	Dub red seals fur on the front section. On small hooks it may be best to divide the body into just two sections with the rear being black and the front section being red. Wind the wire forward creating 4 or 5 equal segments. Body segments Using Velcro pull some of the seals fur fibres out. If you were not using seals fur fuzzeled out you could add a hackle palmered along the body instead. Tie the wire off behind the eye of the hook and worry off the excess wire.

E	Tie a crow feather in by the tip.

F	Cut the tip off the feather and take just one or two turns of the feather. Legs on flies Tie the feather off and with a blade trim the butt end. Build up a neat thread head. Whip finish and varnish the head.

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