tying

Motion Flies

By Jeff Morgan

In fly patterns as in politics, illusion can trump reality.

ly anglers have long suspected that ultra-imitative flies look "dead" in the water, which is why they usually fall short of expectations. That's probably accurate. The same stiff materials that contribute to beautiful patterns in the vise create rigid, lifeless patterns in the water.

At the other end of the spectrum are suggestive flies, such as Soft Hackles, that resemble nothing in particular and many things in general.

Between these two extremes are flies that incorporate a realistic profile while simultaneously obscuring that profile. A traditional pattern in this vein is the Griffiths Gnat. This simple fly has a peacock body and a palmered grizzly hackle (occasionally with a CDC wing) that superbly matches the light, active imprint an adult midge leaves on the surface. This style of fly is what I like to call a "motion fly."

Distortion and Illusion

The key to motion flies is to suspend the image of the body or appendage-usually wings, legs or tails-within a distorting framework. In the case of dry flies, this is relatively simple: A predominant body or wing image is obscured by palmered hackle, which dimples the surface and distorts the trout's view. The effect is an illusion of movement.

This differs in important ways from traditional hackled flies, where the wing is present but not prominent. Also, the hackle on traditional flies is comparatively dense, which hides rather than distorts the wing or body image from the trout's perspective. This results in a less suggestive pattern.

Creating the Illusion of Motion

My first experiments with this tying style arose from the Shadow Mayfly, a British pattern. According to its proponents, this fly looks like a buzzing, emergent mayfly. However, I always thought of it as a skittering adult caddis. The fly is best classified as a high-floating attractor for small streams and riffles. It doubles as a superb strike indicator, due to its visibility and the buoyancy of the full-palmered grizzly hackle.

Taking my cue from the Shadow Fly, I applied "motion" principles to my favorite group of insects: terrestrials. The most effective of these patterns is the Motion Ant. This fly is a variation on a simple fur ant. Instead of limiting hackle to the area between the abdomen and thorax, the hackle is wrapped up the entire body. This creates a pattern that looked like a buzzing flying ant, with neither the tell-tale imprints of mid-fly hackles or static wings. While I intended the fly to be an attractor pattern for small streams, it proved superb for flat-water trout that should have known better. They were receptive to its unique surface imprint as well as its suggestion of motion.

Another effective pattern is the Motion Stonefly. It uses a CDC hackle combined with goose biots (the leftover stubs from the antennae) to imitate the active legs of a drifting stonefly, such as a salmonfly nymph. While motion not as obvious in the swift riffles, the profile of this nymph with legs tucked under the body can be a useful alternative to imitations with gaudy, wiggling legs, ala the Rubber Legs.

Patterns

Shadow Mayfly
Motion Ant
Motion Stonefly

Jeff Morgan has written many articles for Westfly, mostly on entomology and fly tying. He is the author of An Angler's Guide to the Oregon Cascades and Small Stream Fly Fishing. Jeff is currently a graduate student at Stanford University, where he is finishing his PhD in History.

Uploaded 04/10/2004.

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Shadow Mayfly

Motion Ant

Motion Stonefly