I was attracted to this fly because it is made of two of my favourite fly tying materials UV Ice dubbing and CDC. It has looked like a winner since I first saw this fly and it has not let me down. Designed by, as I understand it, Craig McDonald it is a very popular fly in Europe and fast developing a following in Australia and New Zealand.

Caddis are are common throughout the year but with the greater concentrations occurring from September through to March. They inhabit both running and still water and are a significant food source for most trout often reputed to represent up to 30% of a trout’s diet.

A very effective fly yet perhaps the simplest of bead heads to tie. With elements of the hare and copper and an Adams fly in the dressing its logical that its default name became “hare and adams”.

In 2018 I was introduced a fly called a Droz nymph that had skipped my attention even though it has been used for several seasons with great success in Tasmania, Victoria and even NSW. It’s now one of the first river flies that I tie on.

Jeremy Lucas was our river coach leading up to the 2012 World Fly Fishing Championships and was very keen on thinner flies for this early season competition. I think its a great interpretation of a classic fly and commend it for your consideration.

If you were to suggest to a North Country (UK) fly fisher that there is such a thing as a tungsten bead head spider they would think your a rod section short of a fly rod.

Bead head spiders fish very well in conjunction with traditional spider flies and give you the opportunity of adding a bit of flash to your team and more importantly get your team down a little. The benefit of that of course is that the added depth gives a little more vertical travel to your team of flies as they swing round at the end of the drift and start to lift, which as we all know is when the majority of hits occur when swinging spiders.

I nearly always fish my bead head spiders on the point in a team of two flies and with a relatively heavily weighted nymph such as a TBH duracell jig nymph, TBH collared hare and copper or TBH chocolate caddis nymph on the top dropper on the dropper 60 or 70 centimetres up the leader.

The uncased caddis have quite a few similarities. They often adopt a curved fetal position and when they are free swimming they are more elongated still with a curved back but with a lifted head. The have short tail like filaments, have bodies of around seven or eight segments that may have abdominal gills at each segment, have darker heads with two or three segments and have 3 or more sets of legs below the head or toward the front of the grub.

This is probably up there in the top 3 or 4 best known nymph patterns. It’s a pattern that has stood the test of time and is suggestive of a wide range of caddis and mayfly nymphs and is best fished close to the bottom. It doesn’t matter if your in Argentina or Australia or any where between, past, above or below this is a true universal fly pattern.

This fly whilst being very different to a sparsely dressed north country spider has proven itself as a prolific fish catcher and has earned a place in my nymph fly box. I have no hesitation in tying it on either in combination with a traditional spider, a bead head nymph or heaven forbid a bead head version of a north country spider.

This is really good representation of a woolly bugger for river fishing. It sinks well and the jig hook encourages the fly to bounce along the bottom hook point up which of course mitigates snags. Whilst I have set the recipe out below for the brown, black and olive jig buggers I also tie my sparkle bugger and skirted buggers in the form of a jig bugger as shown in the photos below.

This one of the 4 colours of TBH jig buggers that I carry in my river fly box. It’s a great buggy looking fly that sink well and swims hook point up so less likely to get hooked up on the bottom othan flies that swim hook point down.

MKII woolly buggers without any weight are amongst my favourite top dropper flies when loch style fly fishing in lakes and these smaller versions with a silver tungsten bead are up there amongst my favourite river flies.

In rivers they lend themselves to being swung down and across shallow water or to being swum down where the fish are holding in deeper pools. They also work well in a two fly Euro Nymph style team. In still water they are a great option fished alone at any depth to nervous fish and are an ideal middle dropper or point fly in a team of two or three buggers.