The Joy of Fly Tying: Rubber Leg Prince Nymph

Up until now, all of the flies I have taught in my Joy of Fly Tying classes have been old standards. Or if not old standards, at least flies that other people invented. The 6th fly in the series, while based on an old standard, is so different from that old standard that I don't feel bad saying that I invented it. While taking an old standard fly and changing it to meet my own requirements might make it seem less like inventing and more like plagiarizing, just know that things like this happen all the time in the world of fly designing, and I have no qualms about saying I invented it. Especially since I have no idea what a qualm is...

This is a CDC version, which is also a killer, but I teach my students the version with brown hackle.

The 6th fly in the series is my Beadhead Rubber Leg Prince Nymph. Regular old Prince Nymphs are awesome, except for two things: peacock herl has a tendency to break, either while wrapping them on the hook or after a fish tears it up with its teeth; and goose biots are the worst! Biots have a mind of their own, they almost never stay where I want them to, they are too short to hold on to, and I just generally hate them. So, on my Prince Nymphs, I don't use them. Ha! I have found that fish like rubber legs a thousand times more than they like goose biots (this claim has not been substantiated), so I started to use black rubber legs where the black biots normally go, and white rubber legs where the white biots normally go. Oh, and to take care of the fragile peacock herl problem, I started to use peacock colored dubbing instead of herl. Once I made those two switches, I started to enjoy tying Prince Nymphs, and my life got exponentially better. Woohoo!

The most apparent new technique that students learn with this fly is how to use beads. Actually, a substantial number of students learn how to drop their bead, never to see it again. If you are going to teach how to tie a beadhead nymph to beginning fly tyers, make sure you bring plenty of beads!

This is an awesome fly for trout. I think they like it because it's big and meaty, and it has those tantalizing rubber legs, which no fish can resist. It's also a great panfish fly. And I used it to hook two gigantic carp last summer, both of which instantly bolted and broke me off. My corpuscles are still pumping from those carp! I vow to land one of them this year...

Let's watch how to tie my Beadhead Rubber Leg Prince Nymph!

Beadhead Rubber Leg Prince Nymph Pattern Recipe

Hook: 1X-long nymph hook, size 8-12
Bead: Gold bead, sized for the hook
Weight: 4-8 wraps of lead wire. Shove it up into the back of the bead.
Thread: 8/0 black
Tail: 2 black rubber legs, tied splayed
Rib: Medium gold oval tinsel
Body: Peacock colored dubbing. I like Arizona Synthetic Peacock or Ice Dub
Hackle: Brown hen, 2-3 wraps
Wing: 2 white rubber legs, splayed