The Miracle Nymph

 The miracle nymph is a midge pattern which Ed Engle describes as "A  famous south Platte midge pattern."  It was created back in the early 70s by Ed Marsh. He also created the buckskin.  The miracle can be fished any way imaginable and is deadly on sipping, midging trout.  In both still and moving water. This pattern works well all over the country. Brooks, Browns, and Rainbows, all fall for the miracle.  I commonly use it as a dropper on my rigs when I fish midge dominated waters such as limestone streams.


The pattern utilizes floss to give depth to the body.  The white floss get wet and the thread under body bleeds through.  Giving the fly a nice translucent body. The floss is protected by a rib of copper or gold wire. The head is just a simple black thread head.  Different color under bodies can be quite effective as well. Red, and yellow for example can extremely effective at times. The head should be black no matter the color of the body. A light wire hook is recommended for this pattern. I prefer emerger hooks, for the light wire and wider gap. Also the shanks are short, so you can tie a size 24 on a size 20

 This is what the miracle nymph looks like wet.

A dry Red miracle nymph

A wet red miracle nymph

The Great A.K. Best, well known for his quill body flies, tied the biot miracle nymph. He subs out the floss and wire for a white goose biot. The fly has great segmentation but the translucently takes longer to  work then with floss.  When the fly is wet like shown in the picture you can see the black under body, giving the fly a secondary rib effect.  Once the fly is thoroughly soaked is does have a really nice translucency.   The biot is strong and durable enough that it does not require a rib.  This fly is a fish catcher 100% wild brown trout approved

Here to left is a the biot miracle nymph wet.

Here is a pink biot miracle. 

And below is me tying the original Miracle nymph enjoy.

Tight Ties everybody.

 

The Floating Nymph

The floating nymph is an essential fly for every fly box. Its possibly the deadliest emerger pattern. These patterns should be in every dry flyers arsenal. There are several species of mayflies which the nymph floats in the film while the dun emerges. So there is a time in there emergence when the nymph is just riding in the film. The trout love emergers, and they will feed on them exclusively. Not only is it a great hatch matcher, Its also a fabulous searching pattern. If trout are rising and I dont have a clue what they are eating. I use either a floating nymph or an ant. I havnt met a stream yet that its not deadly on the trout.

My favorite floating nymph is the floating pheasant tail nymph. Yup even floating the the pheasant tail nymph is still deadly. Other floating nymphs I like to use are thread body ones. They will sit right down in the film and there simple and quick to tie.

As I write this Irene is a blowing away, shaking my house. Hope the old girl holds up. Major amounts of rain have fallen already. The tri-state area is flooded for sure.

Heres a video of how to tie one with a post for a wing. Its a parachute pheasant tail nymph. I will do a video of the other parachute post method. Both are effect ties. Check it out and please subscribe or follow me, I will have many more videos to come.

Improved zug bug video.

  Watch and subscribe or friend me  Enjoy. Thank you.

J.E.U. Trico Emerger video

Here's a video of my trico emerger. Enjoy

The Zug Bug....What a bug!! and the improved zug

The Zug Bug was invented by Cliff Zug as a caddis fly imitation, it can be deadly. While it works very well for that purpose it also works well in any number of fishy situations as a prospector, dropper, and even as a wet fly on the swing. I have enjoyed countless fish on the old zug bug. Hands down its easily one of the top 10 nymph fly patterns of all time. I put it #3 next to the pheasant tail #1 and the hares ear #2.

The zug is an old pattern dating back to the 30s. Its still just as effective today as it was back when the fly was developed. Many people have forgotten about this gem of a pattern, but not me. I will never be without zug bugs.

The original pattern calls for peacock swords for the tail, A body of peacock hurl, a silver tinsel rib, brown hen hackle, and a wood duck flank feather for the wing case. No doubt that the original pattern is extremely effective. I have fished this recipe for many years and so have many others with great success.

If you don't have zug bugs in your vest or box, then get tying or buying. Your missing a guaranteed fish catcher. Tie some up and next time you go out, go zuggin'

Now that the history and selling of the zug is over. I will tell about my improved zug bug. The improved zug bug looks almost identical to the original, except it is sparser, more durable, and has better action. Here is the recipe and a tutorial.


THE IMPROVED ZUG BUG
Hook- My favorite zug hook is the mustad 3906/S80. I have been using this hook for years with no complaints to date.

Thread-Black 8/0, but fire orange, purple, and yellow add to the attraction of the pattern, other colors such as brown, and olive, can be used for more natural looks.

Tail- Peacock swords, they bunch up under water and give the fly a great taper.

Body- 2 peacock hurl taken from close to the center of peacock eye. You want the shorts hurl fibers. 2 hurls for size #14 & #16, 3 hurls for 10s and 12s. 1 hurl for 18s on down.

Rib- Fine Holographic silver tinsel and fine or xsmall silver wire.

Wing case- Natural mallard.

Hackle- Died brown Hungarian partridge very sparse and clipped on top.


start near the eye and wrap back to the barb.


Tie in about 3-4 peacock swords, let the tips extend past the bend by about 2/3 the shank length. tie down to the front stop and trim excess at about 2 hooks eye from the eye.


Tie in your silver holographic tinsel. Tie it down wrapping back to the barb. Bring thread forward.


Tie in your wire, wrapping back to the barb. Leave thread here.


Tie in your peacock hurl by the tips. Tie in the tips while wrapping to the eye. Bring thread back to the two hook eyes point.


counter wrap your peacock(wrap it the opposite way you wrap your thread), do not over lap. wrap your peacock til you reach your thread. Tie down and trim your excess.


Now bring your silver holographic tinsel up through. Wrap the same way you wrap your thread. Nice open spaced turns. Tie it down and trim the excess.


Now rib the wire, Wrap it exactly on top of the tinsel. You can do this just by wrapping the same way. Tie it down and bend and break off the wire


Now select a brown partridge hackle from the shoulder of the bird. Strip off the fluff at the bottom of the bottom of the feather. Hold just the tip of the feather, and stroke the remaining fibers back. Tie the feather in by the tip.


Take one complete turn of hackle, as you turn push the hackles back. tie it down and trim the excess. Now push the side hackle down and trim off the top hackles.


Select a nice mallard flank feather. Strip off the fluff and run your finger nail up the convex side of the feather. This will make tying it in a lot easier.


Tie in your feather. You want the thread to lay right against stem where the mallard flank fibers and stem meet. Wrap forward tying it down. stop two turns from the eye. Trim the excess. And wrap back to the tie in point of the feather.


Whip finish. Be sure on the last two steps your and the entire fly and what ever fly you tie that your wrapping tightly. You dont want that mallard feather coming out.


trim your feather. Keep your scissor square across the back and snip. Snip the feather at about the middle of the shank. Take some sallys and coat the head and run a small bit up the quill of the mallard feather. This will make the feather near indestructible.


Top view of the completed fly.


Your completed improved zug bug.



A wood duck flank feather.


The zug bug.

Tight Ties
Johnny U.




This brown liked the improved zug bug.

U.V. Resins Review. Clear cure goo, bug-bond and clear cure fly finish.

U.V cure resins.

 The introduction of these product to the world of fly tying has made a major impact. They hold 1 great advantage over epoxy and that is the cure time. Each one cures in a matter of seconds. Other advantages are no mixing. No in between time to get the resin on and cure it. Because you use uv light to cure the product, you have limitless time to shape, spread and coat your creations.
I use these products for making cases on nymph backs, doing "epoxy back flies", and for coating fly heads.

 One of my patterns in particular uses the resin over the entire back of the fly. I used this pattern to test out each of the resins. I fished the pattern with each product on them for 4 weeks straight,(total 12 weeks) and got results that I want to share with everyone who cares to read my blog. I will cover price to product quantity, performance, ease of use Ie containers and applicators, and availability.

 There are 3 competitors in this market of new interest to fly tiers. They are loon uv clear fly finish, bug-bond multipurpose uv cure resin, and clear cure goo aka c.c.g. I think everyone knows of the company loon. Loon as you already know or may not know is an excellent company. There products are well researched and come at good prices. Bug-bond is a relatively new company. Based over seas in the U.K., from what I can tell they are only in the u.v. game. Clear Cure Goo, is also a relatively new company. They popped up in recent years and are being pushed hard as a U.S. based company. They push there product mainly as a salt water fly product. But they also promote fresh water applications.

 Here are the numbers for cost and quantity. All prices are full retail price. And I listed them in order for most product for the best price.

 Loon- 59.15 ml for $22.88- Loon does not have a kit available. There light retails for $34.95 but you can find it cheaper. So your looking at a possible kit of $57.83.

 Bug-bond- 20ml for $25.50 at white water flies. There kit goes for $47.95. The kit comes with a 20ml bottle and a u.v. light. Bug bond also makes a power light. It is much more powerful than the light which comes with the kit. They call it there uv torch. It retails for $57.73 and I believe is only available in the U.K.**** update, white water flies now carries the torch light, you can even get it in a kit.****

 C.C.G.- 10cc/10ml syringe for $13.50. They have a 15ml bottle for $17.00. There kit retails for 49.99 and it comes with two syringes so you get 20mls and you get there light. There light retails separately for $30.00.

 Summary- Its quite simple to tell that Loon crushes the competition with 59.15ml@ $22.88. compared to bug-bond at 20ml@ $25.50 and c.c.g. at 15ml@ $17.00.
Loon- $0.39 a ml
Bug-bond- $0.79 a ml
Clear Cure Goo- $0.88 a ml

Here I will cover ease of use and availability

 Loon- The resin is very easy to work with. The bottle is large and is easy to handle. It sits perfectly up right and is easy to have on your bench. A brush of okay quality is included as well as a cap to make the bottle a squeeze bottle. The brush works well for large jobs, and the squeeze bottle adapter is very convenient for the small jobs. Both the brush and the squeeze bottle applicator screw on to the bottle. Loon can easily be found on-line and in many fly shops across the country.

 Bug-bond- Bug bond resin itself is very easy to work with. The bottle is a small to medium size bottle that is easy to work with and easy to keep upright on your tying bench. The bottle itself is a squeeze bottle applicator. You simple snip the tip and your ready to start. The brush is a screw on cap for the bottle, and the squeeze bottle tip is apart of the bottle and the cap screws on securely to cover. They also make a brush applicator that is an okay brush. And it is the same as the loon. Bug-bond is a product of the U.K. so its availability in the U.S.A. is very limited. Although a quick search on line and you can find it, with free shipping to boot. I am unaware of any actual store front fly shops that carry bug-bond here in the U.S.A.

 Clear Cure Goo- Clear cure makes several different consistence of resin. Each one is easy to use and work with. The syringe are very uncomfortable to use and next to impossible to store or keep on your bench. There bottles are small. They are easy to use, store and keep on your bench. They have several different application bottles, there is one with no applicator, the method would be to use your bodkin. They make a squeeze bottle applicator, which is nice and easy to use. They also make a brush applicator bottle. The brush is the same story as the loon and bug bond. The syringe and the squeeze bottle have a little rubber cap to cover the application tip, it does not screw on. C.c.g. is taking the country by storm. You can find the product very easily on-line and and many fly shops are starting to carry the product.

 Summery- Loon's bottle has it all in one, and is easily found. Bug-bond's bottles either come with a squeeze (very nice) or brush, and is not so easily found here in the U.S.A. C.c.g. syringes are very inconvenient. There bottles are nice and you either get a squeeze bottle(nice) or the brush bottle or no applicator bottle. The rubber caps to cover the tips are easily knocked off and do little to keep excess goo form oozing out.

 Here I will cover the performance of each product. I cured each product with there own light and fished the pattern fly for 3 weeks straight. Bouncing bottom the whole way in the rocky streams of eastern pa and western N.J. (yes, it got snagged and yes I went swimming. Brr was that cold in the winter)

 Loon- Loon cures is fully cured in under 8 seconds with there power light. It adheres to nearly anything. Goes on clear, cures clear with no residues. In my fly testing loon performed flawlessly.

 Bug-bond- bug-bond cures fully in less than 5 seconds with there torch. 10 seconds with the standard light that is included in the kit. It will adhere to almost anything. Bug-bond when cured has a slight residue left behind. It is not sticky and will evaporate in a short time. About the time it takes you tie another fly. In my fly testing bug-bond performed flawlessly.

 Clear Cure Goo- C.c.g. cures in less than 10 seconds with there light. It will adhere to almost anything. C.c.g. when fully cured does leave a residue behind. It's slightly tacky, so dubbin particle will adhere. It doesn't seem to dissipate in any quick fashion. This is true for both the thin and thick. The flex cured with a slightly oily residue, not sticky at all, very similar to bug-bond residue. In my fly testing c.c.g. had problems. The flex came clean off the nymph. Both the thin and the thick turned white after only a 2 days.

Summary- Loon performed great, as well as Bug-bond. C.C.G. didn't do so hot.


 I hope this helps anyone who is interested in purchasing u.v. cures. My results say much about the companies and there product. While I do like bug-bond a lot, I will be sticking with loon clear fly finish. That is if I ever finish the bottle. 59.15 ml has lasted me many dozens of flies and I think I may have finally put a dent in the bottle. As for c.c.g. I say buyer beware.

Tight Ties
Johnny Utah.

Additional info- I have continued use of the u.v. resins. Still working on finishing that loon bottle! I recommend with all the resins you give them more cure time. The times i listed above are all manufacture cure times.  I have found that each one does take additional u.v exposure to fully cure. 

 1/18/12  I have a bottle of bug bond thin on the way, and will be purchasing the c.c.g. hydros to test out through the next couple of months. I will report back the details.