The Best Anglers Never Stop Learning

The Best Anglers Never Stop Learning

Nymph

Isonychia Nymph

Insect Species Icon Isonychia, Brown Drake, Salmonfly and 2 others
Difficulty Icon Easy - 3-5 Min
Water Category Icon Coldwater

Tying Video

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Tying Recipe
  • Hook: Long curved, straight eye nymph hook
  • Bead: Cyclops Brass or Tungsten Beadhead
  • Thread: 6/0 Uni Thread or 70 Denier Thread
  • Wire: Gold Brassie Wire
  • Lead: .020 lead free wire
  • Tail:  Pheasant Tail Fibers
  • Dubbing: Hares ear dubbing
  • Wing Casing: Pheasant Tail Fibers & Thick UV Clear Finish
  • Tail:  Partridge or wood duck feather fibers
  • Dubbing: Any coarse hair dubbing (squirrel, hare, SLF blends etc)

It’s a relatively simple pattern to tie and if you make a variation in color, it loses the isonychia imitation property.  That said changing colors to black imitates a stonefly better and a gold as well.  Since it’s a basic pattern, you can choose to add flashback or different colors to achieve a different look and feel as desired, but to keep it looking like an iso nymph, you’ll want to stick pretty close to the recipe.

It’s heavy and gets down at the bottom and allows for you to move it up and down through the water column alot by your retrieve. This fly does have a tendency to get hung up a lot and tying a jig-style variation of this fly is also a good idea as the hook point will float upwards helping it to get hung up less.

Isonychia nymphs move around a lot so moving this fly as well as a dead drift is the best way to fish it.  Getting a good dead drift and then allowing the fly to skate upwards by just holding still while your fly line drags the fly to the surface is a known and useful technique especially during an ISO hatch.

Brown Drake

Regional Hatch Chart Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Region: West
Brown Drake
Sizes: #10 - #14
Region: Northwest
Brown Drake
Sizes: #10 - #14
Region: East
Brown Drake
Sizes: #10 - #14
Region: Midwest
Brown Drake
Sizes: #10 - #14

Isonychia

Regional Hatch Chart Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Region: East
Isonychia
Sizes: #12 - #18
Region: Southeast
Isonychia
Sizes: #12 - #18
Region: Midwest
Isonychia
Sizes: #12 - #18

Little Black Stone

Regional Hatch Chart Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Region: West, Northwest, East
Little Black Stone
Sizes: #14 - #20
Region: Midwest
Little Black Stone
Sizes: #14 - #20

Salmonfly

Regional Hatch Chart Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Region: West, Northwest
Salmonfly
Sizes: #6 - #14

Skwala Stone

Regional Hatch Chart Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Region: West, Northwest
Skwala Stone
Sizes: #12 - #16

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