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Copper John Nymph

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My attempt at tying a Copper John. I had to make a few substitutions as I did not have everything called for in the original recipe. For example, I used a few strands of Crystal Flash bunched together for the thorax. Instead of epoxy for the head and thorax coating I used a drop of Hard As Nails. It seemed to work fine. I hope to tie some improved versions in the near future. I think the copper wire could have been a little tighter, etc. But, I did catch a trout with it yesterday n(that's why it is kind of ragged) so it works as is.

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My attempt at tying a Copper John. I had to make a few substitutions as I did not have everything called for in the original recipe. For example, I used a few strands of Crystal Flash bunched together for the thorax. Instead of epoxy for the head and thorax coating I used a drop of Hard As Nails. It seemed to work fine. I hope to tie some improved versions in the near future. I think the copper wire could have been a little tighter, etc. But, I did catch a trout with it yesterday n(that's why it is kind of ragged) so it works as is.

And that is what counts, it catches fish.

 

There are some that will say it's not a Copper John, didn't use the proper materials. Maybe so, but it catches fish.

 

Yes, the copper could be wrapped tighter, but it catches fish.

 

I think you see where I'm going.

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One of my favorite flies. I tie them with all kinds of different material and different colors. They are proven performers that will catch everything that swims. I dont carry many flies while fishing but copper johns I will always have on hand. To get a nice tight wrap on the wire you have to make sure the underbody is smoothly tapered.

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My attempt at tying a Copper John. I had to make a few substitutions as I did not have everything called for in the original recipe. For example, I used a few strands of Crystal Flash bunched together for the thorax. Instead of epoxy for the head and thorax coating I used a drop of Hard As Nails. It seemed to work fine. I hope to tie some improved versions in the near future. I think the copper wire could have been a little tighter, etc. But, I did catch a trout with it yesterday n(that's why it is kind of ragged) so it works as is.

And that is what counts, it catches fish.

 

There are some that will say it's not a Copper John, didn't use the proper materials. Maybe so, but it catches fish.

 

Yes, the copper could be wrapped tighter, but it catches fish.

 

I think you see where I'm going.

 

Yeah, I see where you are going. I think I will stick to this method I have come up with as it is a proven fish catcher. I am going to try tying it with some other colors of wire to see how they work. I know of one elderly fly fisherman here in the Smokeys (of some renown) who will drop his fly on the ground and and then grind it into the dirt with his boot before he fishes it. He claims a chewed up fly works better than a pristine one.

Joe

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I notice that on the video above, the tyer strips the partridge feather barbs from the rest of the quill after the has prepped the tip. This is wasteful. There is no need to do this since a bare stem is not needed for tying in. Only the prepped soft hackle is tied in (4:54 on video).

 

If he had not stripped the soft hackle (4:40 on the video), there would have been enough soft hackle left on the feather for another set of legs.

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we all have our ways at achieving a goal. none of them are wrong

 

make a tying video to show us how its actually done

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