One of the late autumns highlights is great hatches of needle flies Leuctridae, especially here on the big grayling rivers of mid Norway. Although the hatches begin as early as June and run until November the climax is in august- september. These small stoneflies can be difficult to see on the best of days, especially amongst the autumns fall of floating foliage, and remember they crawl onto land to hatch, so you will always find more on the bank, than on the water. Because they hatch and mate on land its the females that are of the greatest interest, when they return to the water to lay eggs.

Earlier this year in late august we experienced great grayling fishing on the river Glomma here in Norway. Although we quickly realized what was on the graylings menu, the greatest challenge was making a clean drift without any drag through the many differing surface currents between the rod and the feeding fish. Each differing current pulling and holding the line at different speeds This we overcome with, when possible by presenting the fly directly into the feeding window of rising fish, keeping the drift short but effective! The other was to fish directly up-stream while wading and using a parachute cast ( a simple cast that is made by quickly dipping the tip of the rod fast down towards the water at the end of the cast before the line hits the water) this causes the line to fall in a wavy snake like form, making mending the line as it drifts back towards you easier without drag.

I developed this stonefly pattern using a Marc Petitjean technique that he calls twist and wrap. This simple but effective CdC technique can be used for most dry fly bodies, for larger bodies you can use two or more CdC hackles. But care must be taken that only one twist is made for each wrap of hackle, if more twists are made, it over stresses the delicate CdC hackle stem and may cause it to break. Making one twists after each wrap distributes the stress along the whole length of the hackle and not concentrated at the thinest point as when twisted whole. You should also brush the fibers of the hackle down the stem with your finger and thumb with each wrap, so they are caught against the hook shank and give the segmented body volume.

The wing should lie tight to the body and flat, it should also extend a little further than the rear of the body. The wings on the natural are a dark brown but the blue dun wing makes this pattern more visible when fishing. This is important when fishing for grayling as the rises can be extremely difficult to see if at all, especially when fishing a ripple, so keeping your eye on the fly is paramount. You can also tie this pattern spent by adding more wings at 90 degrees to the hook shank. When spinning the CdC for the thorax and legs it should be a light open dubbing brush, too much CdC here will make the fly fish too high. Stoneflies lie much deeper in the surface than may and caddis flies.

Willow fly pattern

• Hook: Mustad R50 # 16
• Thread: Black
• Body: Dark brown or black CdC hackle
• Wing: Blue dun CdC hackle
• Thorax: Dark brown or black CdC hackle

How to tie Willow fly

Step by step willow fly pattern

1
Secure your hook in the vice with the shank horizontal.

2
Lay a foundation of tying thread over the whole hook shank.

3
Select a large CdC hackle and strip off the down fibers at the base of the stem.

4
Attach the hackle stem to the hook shank with two loose turns of tying thread.

5
Pull the hackle through the tying thread loops and tighten the tying thread just as you get to the end to catch and secure the hackle tip.

6
Wind your tying thread forward towards the hook eye and twist the CdC hackle twice so that the fibers twist around the hackle stem. DONT try and twist any more than twice or the hackle will break!

7
With each turn of hackle make one twist to form the segmented body. When the whole hook shank is covered forward to the thorax tie off and remove the excess hackle.

8
With straight scissors trim off all the fibers.

9
Your segmented needle fly body should now look like this.

10
Select a blue dun CdC hackle and trim off the point end of the hackle as shown.

11
Take a 1 cm length of a fine plastic tube-fly, tube and thread it over the end of the hackle. When pulled down over the hackle this will form the wonder wing and hold it in the correct position ready for tying in.

12
Place the wing on top of the hook shank and secure with a few wraps of tying thread close to the tube.

13
Trim off the stripped point of the hackle and remove the tube.

14
Trim off the excess hackle and tie down over the thorax.

15
Load a magic tool with only one side of a CdC hackle. You dont need much CdC for this!

16
Split your tying thread or spin the hackle in a dubbing loop keeping the fibers as long as possible, they can always be trimmed down. Wrap the CdC hackle forward covering the thorax.

17
Holding the fibers back make a few turns of tying thread to form the head.

18
Now pull two long CdC fibers forward and tie down. Whip finish.

19
Remove the tying thread. Spin your fly up side down and trim off the CdC fibers level with the rear body on the underside. Make sure that you keep some of the side fibers for the legs and antennae

20
Your finished CdC needle fly.

21
Underside with the segmented CdC body and the correct profile.