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A bright sun shone through leaves on the trees, shafts of light made the dancing riffle sparkle in the warm evening. Brown trout made splashy rises to fluttering sedges as they rode the riffle. They were rolling everywhere, but refused all my dry offerings. Swallows screamed with the joy of the impending feast and swooped along the course of the pool, feeding avidly on the fluttering newly hatched insects with the aerobatic skills of Battle of Britain Spitfire aces. My dry Sedge drifted through the feeding trout, unmolested. The fish were expending the kind of energy usually associated with dries, but on closer examination I noticed none of the sedges - except for a few - were taken from the surface.

"They're nymphing", I whispered. The browns were intercepting the pupae as they rose to the surface.

My fly tin contained nothing that looked like an emerging sedge pupa other than generic emerger patterns. On went the reliable old Klinkhammer, and although it took a brace of browns, I felt that I'd missed out. Netting a couple of samples of the sedges from the riffle, I placed them in my little glass sample bottle, intending to take them home for further reference at the vice, but I couldn't do it, they reminded me of the doleful look my springer spaniel gives me, so I had to let them go.

That was in the late summer of '98, and the winter months saw my scapel blade cut through many unsuccessful attempts at creating anything like what I saw in my sample bottle. What I wanted was a buoyant pattern giving the correct silhouette, texture and translucency. I tried to keep away from something that had to have a hackle or foam to hold it up, because I wanted to work it within the top twelve inches of the surface. It also had to hang the right way up and cling under the surface film if I wanted it to.

It was while I was working on another pattern that I found the material I'd been longing for, Nymph Skin. I could wrap this on and the abdomen shape was created by altering the tension when winding it on. It gripped the previous wrap so well that the material only touched the hook shank at the tie-in and tie-off points, forming a hollow air pocket. I'd found a buoyant, simple to tie, soft but strong abdomen with the best segmentation I have ever seen. I could have made ten a minute if all I wanted was to finish them with a simple dubbed thorax, but I like to do things the hard way, therefore heat-kinked legs, head, eyes and antennae, mixed with the right materials to make it move how I want it to, had to be added. You don't have to do this, can easily create the body and finish it off as you wish. I've since made other patterns from Nymph Skin, such as Stoneflies, Baetis Nymphs, translucent Midge Pupa, Heptagenid, and different shaped emerging Sedge Pupa.

Late this spring, I was back at the same riffling beat on the Wharfe, with a set of my new Emerging Sedge Pupae. Again, the riffle was sparkling with leaf-dappled light as the browns porpoised and splashed. Fluttering sedges left the river as my new pattern drifted inches under the surface. The line stopped with a positive take and after a good tussle I released a ten-inch butter-gold brown. An hour later when the hatch was over, I had released 14 beautiful browns back into the dancing riffle. This pattern now has a permanent place in my fly tin. Give it a try this coming season.

Emerging Sedge Pupa
Hook: TMC 947BL or TMC 206BL, size 10 to 16.
Tying thread: Power Silk or Dynacord Superfine Midge.
Abdomen: Nymph Skin, translucent or natural.
Thorax cover: Flexibody, any colour.
Wings: Scintilla or raffia.
Thorax: Natural brown cul de canard.
Legs: Two pairs of Lady Amhurst pheasant centre tail fibres glued together.
Antennae: Lady Amhurst pheasant centre tail, one fibre each.
Head:Davy Wotton MC 13 or Kapok fine dub.
Marker pen: Edding permanent marker, dark brown, chisel tip.
Glue: Any flexible glue.

Nymph Skin is available through:
Angling Pursuits (0141 944 7658)
Virtual Nymph (01472 340266)
Jan Siman (Europe) (tel: +420 19 72 42207, web site: www.siman.cz/main.html)
Whitetail Fly-tying supplies (USA) tel: 001 419 843 2106
Edding Marker pens are available from Lathkill Tackle (01629 735101)