PETE BRIGG’S TOP SIX SMALL STREAM FLY PATTERNS

Photos and text by Pete Brigg

The author on Balloch stream, Eastern Cape Highlands

 I now know what it feels like to be a judge in a TV reality talent competition when you are left with 12 contestants – all exceptional and each one in their own right a worthy winner. But, the rules require you to eliminate 6 of them – how do you choose? In the case of my six pack of flies I decided to name those that I probably turn to just a little more frequently than the Zak, RAB, Klinkhammer variation, CdC and Elk, beetle and ant.

Typical stream in the Drakensberg foothills

Here they are in no particular order –

Red Neck Nymph – a fly of my own design and a nymph that has served me particularly well over many years and intended to imitate a mayfly nymph. I think the red neck hot spot has had a lot to do with its pulling powers. I tie them from size 14 down to 18, some without the bead or weight to swim in the upper and middle layers.

Micro Baetis Nymph – another of my own design. A small, mostly size 18 and 20, micro nymph to represent, as the name suggests, the most prolific of the nymphs found in almost all of our streams. I also tie this little fly without the tungsten bead and instead add a clear glass bead and then use it behind a weighted point fly NZ style.

Mayfly Spinner – my all time favorite dry fly on small streams. I tie these in sizes 14 down to 20’s. As opposed the standard hour-glass wings patterns, I have recently been using the Ellis Triple Wing style on a Partridge Klinkhammer extreme hook so that the abdomen sinks below the surface while the wings lie flat in the surface film – deadly, often even when there are no signs of fish feeding near the surface.

Leonard Flemming's Wolf Spider

Pete Brigg's variation on Flemming's Wolf Spider

Wolf Spider – Leonard Flemming introduced me to this fly a few years ago. It has shot up the charts into the top 10 - a fly I would never leave home without. I have adjusted his original recipe to make it an easier fly to tie not the least of which because of my number of thumbs. I tie it mainly in sizes 14 and 16.  I rate this as an exceptional fly on our mountain streams.

Soft Hackle – I tie these in all shapes and sizes, material combinations and colours, but always close to the original English North Country Spiders style. Their effectiveness and application as a single fly, in teams, emerging, skating and sunken can never be underestimated. Perhaps my flavour of the month is the glass beaded soft hackle tied in sizes 14 down to 18.

Ed’s Hopper – Ed Herbst quite a few years ago now, was responsible for getting me hooked on fishing hoppers and applying the theories of induced movement. I have tried many hoppers patterns and they all work in varying degrees of success, but it has always been Ed’s Hopper that has produced the best results for me – another pattern mostly in size 14’s that has a permanent spot in my small stream fly box.

Peter Brigg

( Peter is author of the acclaimed book Call of the Stream (http://www.tomsutcliffe.co.za/index.php/my-friends-pages/peter-brigg-call-of-the-stream ) and does most of his fishing in the Drakensberg area of KZN.)

December 2011