Overview

The Royal Coachman has been catching trout in America since 1878 and has never imitated anything. It came out of a New York fly shop as a reinforced version of the English Coachman, and the addition that made it famous was purely structural: a band of red floss between two segments of peacock herl, added to stop the body unravelling. It happened to look extraordinary in the water. The white wings and brown hackle finished a fly that looks like nothing that has ever hatched and gets eaten anyway.

That is the point of an attractor. On freestone water where fish feed opportunistically and rarely get long looks, a bold, high-contrast fly out-produces a careful imitation, because the decision has to be made in the moment. The white wing also makes this one of the easiest dries to track through riffles and pocket water, which matters when you are covering ground quickly. Fish it as a searching pattern, on small streams where fish are willing, or as a visible float above a small nymph. Tied here in size 12.Read More +