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Egg Fly
A nymph, tied #10–16, a fall pattern. It is tied against 1 named insect in this book, and stands in when nothing is hatching — October–January and April.
The simplest thing in the box: egg yarn or McFly Foam tied in a ball on an egg or scud hook in sizes 10–16, trimmed round, in orange, peach or chartreuse, with fluorescent orange 6/0 thread. There is nothing else to the recipe, and nothing else is needed. It is not a hatch imitation — it matches no insect at all — but a food source, drifted behind spawning salmon and steelhead in autumn and spring, where loose eggs wash downstream and fish hold below to take them. On Great Lakes tributaries that is the whole game for weeks at a time. It is carried for fall, fished dead drift near the bottom in the water immediately behind spawning fish, and it takes trout and steelhead. Because it stands for no particular insect, it also serves as a searching pattern when there is no hatch on the water.
- #10–16Hook size
- nymphType
- FallSeason
- 1Hatch matched
What it looks like
A drawing, not a photograph, and not traced from one. Its proportions were read off 5 independent reference photographs of the pattern and written down as 4 measured characteristics — wing angle, tail length against the shank, how far a hackle fibre reaches — every one of which had to hold across more than one of them before it could be drawn. What survives across many photographs of a fly is the fly.
What it imitates
Each of these is the same hatch record the app's own panel reads, so a pattern recommended on a river card in the app is recommended for one of the insects below.
It is also tagged for no hatch at all — a searching pattern.
Tying recipe
In tying order. This dressing is the standard one — these patterns have been in the publicrecord for decades — and materials substitute freely: the proportions and the silhouette are the pattern, not the brand of dubbing.
| Hook | Egg or scud hook, sizes 10–16 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Fluorescent orange 6/0 |
| Body | Egg yarn or McFly Foam, tied in a ball and trimmed round — orange, peach or chartreuse |
When to fish it
Autumn and spring, behind spawning fish. On Great Lakes tributaries it is the whole game for weeks at a time.
A fall pattern. The insects it matches are active october–january and april, in water from 33°F to 60°F.
Target species
- Trout
- Steelhead
Rivers it fishes well
Rivers with a page here that sit in the regions where the insects this pattern imitates are recorded. It is a claim about coverage, not a report of a fish caught.
- Au Sable River northern lower Michigan · July mean 72.1°F
- Muskegon River northern lower Michigan · July mean 71.0°F
- Escanaba River the Upper Peninsula · July mean 68.3°F
- Saint Croix River northern Wisconsin · July mean 77.2°F
- Kalamazoo River southern lower Michigan · July mean 71.3°F
- Abitosse Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 72.0°F
- Acme Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Adams Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 67.1°F
- Adams Creek northern Wisconsin · July mean 66.2°F
- Addis Creek northern lower Michigan · July mean 61.9°F
- Adventure Creek the Upper Peninsula
- Aho Creek the Upper Peninsula · July mean 70.7°F
Related patterns
Same type of fly, or tied for the same insects.
- Squirmy Wormy nymph · #8–14 — The San Juan with movement. For coloured, pushy water.
- Black Stonefly Nymph nymph · #12–18 — Dead-drifted along the bottom. Stonefly nymphs are always present in rocky water.
- Copper John nymph · #12–20 — Heavy enough to be the anchor fly. Gets the whole rig down in one cast.
- Frenchie nymph · #12–18 — A Pheasant Tail with a hot spot. The most-fished competition nymph there is.
- Girdle Bug nymph · #6–12 — Rubber legs on a chenille body. The cheap ancestor of Pat's Rubber Legs.