MAGNETO CZECH NYMPH FLY TYING TUTORIAL

December 17, 2016

As you might be able to imagine, things have been a bit busy here at TFF with the release of the instructional nymphing video that I've been working on with Gilbert Rowley and Lance Egan. We've got some exciting things associated with it coming up. I'll let you know here when the details are finalized. But lots of you have been asking me to get back to some tutorials so I figured I'd start with one I promised to get to last year but never got around to.

Num Num Num

I took my first steelhead trip back in 2004 on the Deschutes River. On that trip I was swinging flies on an old single hand seven weight and bailed the trip out with back to back small steelhead on the last morning. The McDonalds induced food poisoning and most harrowing snowstorm driving I've ever experienced must have left a negative impression because it took me five years to do another steelhead trip in 2009. I was living in Logan, Utah and going to Utah State at the time and my friend Scott Berrett finally persuaded me to join him on a trip to the Salmon River.

On the second day of the trip Scott caught a few fish on egg patterns. Believe it or not I didn't have any eggs in my box. I might have been a wee bit unprepared in addition to being a bit of an egg snob at the time. As a result I searched around in my boxes for anything that was close to an egg. The best option I was able to find was a pink Czech nymph/scud pattern. I had been fishing some local Utah rivers with it during that winter and the brown trout had been more than happy to scarf them. Maybe the steelhead would oblige too? It turned out to be a lucky find and had immediate success followed by consistent success throughout the rest of the trip with 15 to 20 steelhead a day coming to the net; most of them on the pink creation.

A Salmon River steelhead on the Magneto Czech Nymph from back in 2009

As the years have passed, along with a lot of steelhead trips, the fly I now call the Magneto Czech Nymph has been a consistent staple on my rig. Even when I fish it on the top dropper of a 2 or 3 fly rig, steelhead are willing to come off the bottom and eat it in the column. As you can see, it is a very simple fly by design. Since I often lose a few rigs a day while I'm dredging deep runs and holes for steelhead, I appreciate that I don't have to have a pity party when I lose a Magneto Czech Nymph. I typically tie this fly in sizes 12 to 6 for steelhead with 2.8, 3.3, or 3.8 mm beads and varying amounts and sizes of lead wire. If I'm targeting trout I usually fish sizes 12 to 16. Whip up a few yourself and I'm sure that with a good presentation you'll end up with a few steelhead or trout on the line.

And here is the recipe with product links below the recipe that you can add directly from the blog. Keep scrolling below for the tools used.