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Perdigon
A nymph, tied #14–20, carried year round. It is tied against 2 named insects in this book, and stands in when nothing is hatching — March–June and September–November.
A nymph built to sink and nothing else: no dubbing, no legs, no water resistance anywhere on it. The hook is a jig nymph in sizes 14–20, the thread black or olive 14/0, the tail Coq de Leon fibres, the body thread or tinsel tapered slim, the wingcase a dark spot of UV resin or lacquer, and the whole body coated in UV resin over a slotted tungsten bead at the head. That construction makes it the point fly on a Euro rig in heavy water, where getting down fast is the entire job. It is tied against the Blue-Winged Olive, Baetis spp., which hatches March through May and again September through November in water between 38 and 58 degrees, and it stands in for mayflies generally and for no hatch at all. Carried all season, for trout.
- #14–20Hook 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.
- Blue-Winged Olive Baetis spp. · March–May and September–November · 38–58°F · #16–22
- Green Rock Worm / Green Weenie Rhyacophila spp. · April–June and September–October · 45–68°F · #10–14
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 | Jig nymph hook, sizes 14–20 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Black or olive 14/0 |
| Tail | Coq de Leon fibres |
| Body | Thread or tinsel, tapered |
| Wingcase | A dark spot of UV resin or lacquer |
| Coating | UV resin over the whole body |
| Head | Slotted tungsten bead |
When to fish it
Built to sink and nothing else — no dubbing, no legs, no water resistance. The point fly on a Euro rig in heavy water.
Carried all year. The insects it matches are active march–june and september–november, in water from 38°F to 68°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.
- Higa's SOS nymph · #16–20 — Small, slim, and deadly in clear low water.
- Pheasant Tail Nymph nymph · #12–22 — The mayfly nymph. Beadhead or not, size 16, and half the trout in the world have eaten one.
- 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.
- Green Caddis Larva nymph · #12–16 — Bright green free-living larva. In the drift twelve months a year.