DARK DRIES FOR LOW HIGHS

Have you ever struggled to spot your dry fly in low-light? That surface glare can be a real pain in the eyes when you are fishing your regular parachute dry, but here is the answer: Black posts or dark wings.

Flies tied with dark, neutral colours, like dark grey or black CDC and/or poly-yarn, really stand out in poor light (typically in the early morning and evening, or on cloudy days) and can turn fishing frustration into a high. I experienced the efficacy of this handy trick (showed to me by Jack Kos) in New Zealand a decade ago, in which case we frequently fished in overcast conditions for large brown trout that required accurate placements and perfect, dead drifts. A smallish, pitch black parachute ‘Adams’ worked really well for us and not only was it highly visible in the surface glare, but the trout also seemed to like the little black fly.

Black dry flies are easy to spot during the late afternoon surface frenzy.

I’ve been playing with smallish, dark or black dries on our waters with surprisingly good results. While browns and rainbows are a given on these flies, I’ve also managed to catch a good number of surface-cruising witvis on them. The dark flies were easy to spot in poor light and the witvis also seemed to be attracted to the small, dark/black dry flies, more so than other colours we tried.

Parachute Black & Peacock

Recipe:

Thread – Semperfli Nano Silk 20D Professional Black 24/0 (I purchased this from the StreamX fly shop)

Hook – Mouche #16 nymph/heavy dry 8428

Tail: Black Coq de Leon

Body: Blue peacock eye feather fibre

Parachute: Veniard polypropylene floating yarn, black

Hackle: Whiting black dry fly hackle