Purple Bodies.

[piscatus absentis]

Has anyone ever tried a Klinkhamer or F-fly with a purple body?  I'm thinking of the Snipe and Purple - what colour is it when it emerges?

[.D.]

I quite like an F-Fly with a purple body lightly dubbed with mole on a 16 or an 18 sometimes.

Not tried it with a Klink - didn't someone do an article on such a fly in FF& FT last year or at the end of the year before. Something to do with Scandinavian grayling. Perhaps it was pink, I can't remember. I remember it mentioned a downstream presentation though. 


.D.

[Highlander]

I'm thinking of the Snipe and Purple - what colour is it when it emerges?

The Snipe & Purple is a suggestive spider pattern that bears a passing resemblance to & Iron Blue nymph when wet. Certainly will take Trout that are accustomed to these flies. I believe the nymph to be a very dark olive. The needle fly is a type of Stonefly & the nymph is yellowish in colour. Like the Iron Blue an early springtime river fly though one species of needle fly is around from August- October onwards.
Tight lines

[Magnus]

.D

didn't someone do an article on such a fly in FF& FT last year or

Yes, me. 
Swedish Lapland, place called Raajama, fishing for grayling on the Muonio. We used a purple Klink with a large fluo pink wing with great success. Dunno why purple but it worked - the wing meant we could see them at distance. We fished them as searching flies, cast to a seam and then feed out line, letting them run off downstream for anything up to 30 yards.

That fly was BIG - in the way original Klinkhamers were big flies. IMHO thats why fish took them. We used a number of other equally large flies which also took fish but were nowhere near as easy to see. So the conversion rate, from takes to fish brought to hand, was far higher using the Purple Ugly - plenty takes with Superpupa and assorted other Caddis but easy to react too late.