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Girdle Bug
A nymph, tied #6–12, carried year round. It is tied against 2 named insects in this book, and stands in when nothing is hatching — all year.
A heavy rubber-legged nymph reduced to its essentials: black chenille over lead wire on a 3X long hook in sizes 6–12, black 6/0 thread, and white round rubber legs set at the tail, middle and front. That is the entire recipe, and the plainness is the character of the fly — it is the older, simpler ancestor of the modern rubber-legs patterns. It imitates nothing in particular. Nothing specific is tied against it here; it is carried for stoneflies generally and, more often, as a searching pattern for water where no hatch is showing and something large and buggy needs to be in the drift. The lead wire takes it down, and it is fished dead drift through fast water or worked under a bank where the current runs hard against cover. The legs do the work at rest, breathing on the pause. Trout and smallmouth bass both take it.
- #6–12Hook size
- nymphType
- AllSeason
- 2Hatches 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 5 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.
- Dragonfly Anisoptera · all year · 55–78°F · #4–10
- Hellgrammite Corydalus cornutus · all year · 55–78°F · #2–8
It is also tagged for stoneflies generally, 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 | 3X long nymph hook, sizes 6–12 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Black 6/0 |
| Body | Black chenille |
| Legs | White round rubber, tail, middle and front |
| Weight | Lead wire |
When to fish it
The older, plainer ancestor of the rubber-legs. Dead drift in fast water or under a bank.
Carried all year. The insects it matches are active all year, in water from 55°F to 78°F.
Target species
- Trout
- Smallmouth bass
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
- Catawba River the North Carolina mountains · July mean 76.7°F
- Jackson River the Virginia mountains · July mean 66.3°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
- Smith River the Virginia mountains · July mean 51.9°F
- Tygart Valley River the Virginia mountains · July mean 74.6°F
- Kalamazoo River southern lower Michigan · July mean 71.3°F
- Aaron Creek the North Carolina mountains · July mean 76.7°F
- Aaron Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 77.1°F
- Aarons Run the Virginia mountains · July mean 74.2°F
Related patterns
Same type of fly, or tied for the same insects.
- Pat's Rubber Legs nymph · #4–10 — Ugly, heavy, and the single best searching nymph in high or coloured 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.
- Golden Stone Nymph nymph · #6–12 — A three-year nymph, so it is never out of season. Heavy, and fished on the bottom.
- Dragonfly Nymph nymph · #4–10 — Broad, heavy, olive-brown, fished on the bottom with long slow strips. Weight is the whole pattern.