As mentioned on Rainbow's bead egg topic, today was my first attempt at taking photos of flies, so please bear with me.

My grub is definitely of the 'imitative' school, and isn't going to win any beauty pageants. It was inspired by John Parsons book Flytiers Art, which referenced the pale grubby brown green of the Tongariro caddis. I then incorporated influences from the likes of US guru Gary Borger, whose ties are based on what the trout sees, not ultra realism. His book Designing Trout Flies was a seminal one for me. A lot of the net-builder patterns on the internet have scud back, tail tufts, and more obvious legs. 

But - as Gary Borger says - in fast water, it seems to be more about the shape, lifelike movement and colour. I've tried the scud back, but it didn't noticeably increase my success on a fry which does the business in the plain version.

Hook is a Black Magic grub. Body is a now discontinued Scintilla dubbing, a pale olive brown which looks lighter when dry than it does when wet. A gold wire rib to suggest segmentation, and brown squirrel fur for the natural's darker head section (a few guard hairs picked out to suggest legs - I tried to show that in the back lit image). That's it. 

One thing you can't see is that I use pale olive thread for the first part of the grub, because if you use dark brown thread to dub the light body it comes through when the body is wet. i swap threads at the start of the thorax section.

When wet, this really glistens, and side by side with the real thing from the gut of a decent Tongariro brownie, it's hard tell the difference. I fish it below a bomb on the Big T.

I've also tied a version of the grub with a bright green body, which imitates the free living caddis. But the pale brown olive is my go to.

TTK Your caddis are looking good and very fishy.

Rainbow

 

I like the look of those twisted wool bodies, and your very buggy ties.

Interesting comment re your green caddis. Many tiers don't consider the wet colour of their materials.  The 'green caddis' dubbings I've seen in shops normally look too bright to my eye.

I'm a bit scared to ask how you got hold of NZ seal fur in case someone from Doc is listening! 

I have no qualms picking up a frozen stiff hare on SH1 when driving through the plateau land between Tokoroa and Wairakei on the way to fish Taupo.

And i love using road kill possum fur for nymph bodies - it really glistens. Ribbed with gold wire, a brownish pelt is a dynamite dubbed body for a Tongariro bomb.

 

Rainbow

TTK

 

Rainbow