Pattern Database

The North Country dressing for the March Brown: hare's fur on orange silk, ribbed gold, with a speckled brown partridge hackle. Swung through the riffles on a spring afternoon it takes fish during the hatch and between hatches alike — spiders don't need permission.

A large pupa imitating the autumn Dicosmoecus October caddis as it drifts and struggles toward the surface. The rusty orange body and rust thorax match one of the biggest, most protein-rich caddis of the year, and the sparse starling collar suggests emerging legs and antennae. Fish it deep and on the swing once the big orange bugs start moving.

A North Country spider fished on Yorkshire's rivers for the better part of two centuries, and brought to American attention by Sylvester Nemes's soft-hackle revival. Nothing but a slim orange silk body and a turn of speckled partridge — the sparse collar pulses in the current suggesting legs, gills, or a drowned emerger.

The third of the great North Country spiders. Yellow silk and gray speckled partridge cover the pale mayflies — sulphurs, cahills, pale wateries — anywhere they hatch. Fish it upstream dead-drift like a nymph, then let it swing up at the hang.

Waterhen Bloa's dark companion: purple silk and a snipe hackle, nothing more. The North Country's Iron Blue pattern — when the little dark olives with the slate wings are on the water in cold, blustery weather, this spider swung across the current is deadly.

A cross between the Gold-Ribbed Hare's Ear nymph and the soft hackle wet fly, this pattern excels swung on the downstream pass. The partridge collar pulses in the current, imitating a struggling emerger.

Peacock herl and a tiny iridescent starling hackle — the small dark soft-hackle for smutting fish. When trout are on little black stuff and refusing everything, a size 18 Starling & Herl swung or dead-drifted in the film is the old, quiet answer.

The most famous of the North Country spiders, fished on Yorkshire rivers for two centuries and still the best Large Dark Olive pattern going. Yellow silk barely shaded with blue-gray fur, and a turn of soft waterhen hackle that breathes in the current like a drowning dun's wings.