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Hare's Ear Nymph
A nymph, tied #10–18, carried year round. It is tied against 15 named insects in this book, and stands in when nothing is hatching — all year.
A rough, mottled nymph that is not any one nymph and is therefore all of them. It is tied on a 2X heavy hook in sizes 10–18 with brown 8/0 thread: hare's mask guard hairs for the tail, a hare's ear dubbed body ribbed with fine gold oval, a mottled turkey quill wingcase, a thorax of hare's ear picked out rough, and an optional bead or lead. The picked-out fur is the point — it breaks up the outline into something suggestive rather than exact. It is fished dead drift, under an indicator or on a tight line, twelve months a year, and often as the second fly of a two-nymph rig. It is tied against black ants, Grannom, Green Drake, Hendrickson, March Brown, scuds, sowbugs, spotted and tan caddis, and White Fly, across temperatures running from the low thirties to eighty degrees. It also covers mayflies generally and serves as a searching pattern when nothing is hatching.
- #10–18Hook size
- nymphType
- AllSeason
- 15Hatches matched
What it looks like
A drawing, not a photograph, and not traced from one. Its proportions were read off 4 independent reference photographs of the pattern and written down as 6 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.
- Alderfly Sialis spp. · May–June · 52–66°F · #10–14
- Black Ant Formicidae · June–September · 55–80°F · #14–20
- Cream Cahill Maccaffertium modestum · July–August · 62–74°F · #14–16
- Golden Drake Anthopotamus distinctus · July–August · 60–72°F · #10–12
- Grannom Brachycentrus spp. · April–May · 48–58°F · #14–16
- Green Drake Ephemera guttulata · May–June · 52–64°F · #8–12
- Hendrickson Ephemerella subvaria · April–May · 45–58°F · #12–14
- Large Blue-Winged Olive Drunella cornuta · May–June · 50–64°F · #14–16
- Light Cahill Maccaffertium ithaca · May–July · 55–68°F · #12–16
- March Brown Maccaffertium vicarium · May–June · 50–62°F · #10–12
- Quill Gordon Epeorus pleuralis · March–April · 42–52°F · #12–14
- Scud Gammarus spp. · all year · 33–70°F · #12–18
- Sowbug Asellus spp. · all year · 33–70°F · #14–18
- Spotted / Tan Caddis Hydropsyche spp. · May–August · 55–70°F · #14–18
- White Fly Ephoron leukon · August–September · 62–74°F · #12–14
It is also tagged for mayflies 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 | 2X heavy nymph hook, sizes 10–18 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Brown 8/0 |
| Tail | Hare's mask guard hairs |
| Body | Hare's ear dubbing, ribbed fine gold oval |
| Wingcase | Mottled turkey quill |
| Thorax | Hare's ear, picked out rough |
| Weight | Optional bead or lead |
When to fish it
The nymph that is not any nymph and therefore is all of them. Dead drift, under an indicator or on a tight line, twelve months a year.
Carried all year. The insects it matches are active all year, in water from 33°F to 80°F.
Target species
- Trout
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.
- Pheasant Tail Nymph nymph · #12–22 — The mayfly nymph. Beadhead or not, size 16, and half the trout in the world have eaten one.
- Walt's Worm nymph · #12–18 — Dubbing on a hook. Suggests cranefly larvae, sowbugs and everything else pale and wriggling.
- 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.