Overview

The Guide's Choice Hare's Ear is what happens when a guide takes the most trusted nymph in fly fishing and stops being precious about it. The base is the pattern every angler already knows, then it picks up a bead for weight, a flashback for a hint of shine, a soft hackle collar for movement, and a few turns of lustrous peacock for good measure. On paper that is a lot of bells and whistles on an old standby. On the water it is the fly you hand a client when the day needs to start well.

Each addition earns its place. The bead gets the fly down without a shot on the leader, the flashback catches light the way a nymph's wingcase does as it swells before emergence, and the soft hackle pulses on every change of current speed, which is the trigger a plain dubbed body cannot offer. Underneath it all the hare's mask dubbing is still doing the work it has always done, reading as mayfly, caddis and stonefly nymphs by turn. Fish it dead drift, or let it swing up at the end of the run. Tied here in size 16.Read More +