Carrot Nymph

It's orange, so it's a carrot nymph. That's the whole story behind the name, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

Where mine goes its own way is the build.

Most carrots are a soft hackle fly with an orange body, but I tie the front end with deer hair for the legs and peacock herl doing double duty as the wingcase and thorax.

The deer hair gets tied in tips forward and broken off, which gives it a scruffy leggy look at the front, and the herl gets palmered through the pulled-back fibers so you get a bit of movement and a lot of buggyness up top.

Copper wire ribs the body and adds a touch of flash.

The body is UV Ice Dub in hot orange under the herl, tail is burnt orange Antron, and the whole thing rides on a black nickel tungsten bead.

It's a beaded nymph, so you fish it like any other beaded nymph.

The tungsten gets it down fast, which makes it a good anchor fly on a euro rig or the point fly under an indicator.

Fish it upstream or up and across, follow it down with your rod tip, and stay in contact so you feel the take rather than wait to see it.

Most of the takes come as it drifts near the bottom or right as it starts to lift at the end of the swing, so be ready on the lift.

It works for trout, sea trout, and it'll do the job on panfish too.