Double trigger

JOHN GODDARD's new style of emerger has already achieved a success rate beyond the author's wildest dreams

At the beginning of last season I was fishing on the upper Test on a day when the trout were being a little difficult, so I decided to try a pattern called a Klinkhamer - an excellent pattern which has earned a reputation for catching trout worldwide.

On this particular day, whilst it provided me with a few nice fish, I found in practice that several trout rose and looked at it, but refused to take it. This set me thinking, and the following weekend found me at the fly-tying bench, looking at possible alternatives.

Over the next few weeks, I evolved a pattern that looked promising and, although it was based on the aforementioned pattern - which, in effect is meant to represent the various species of upwinged flies emerging at the surface, it was, in fact, very different.

I am a great believer in incorporating trigger-points when designing artificials, so concentrated on this aspect. As my pattern was meant to imitate olive duns emerging at the surface, I felt that an important trigger could be the addition of material at the tail to represent part of the empty shuck from which the insect was emerging. The other trigger I fancied was the way the natural's spread their wings when trying to emerge from the shuck. One of the most popular and effective patterns in recent years has been that great fly, the Grey Wulff, designed by the late Lee Wulff. This incorporated split or vee-shaped hair-wings, tied facing forwards over the eye, a feature or trigger which must account for its great success. It is a feature that I included in one of my earlier flies, the Poly May Dun, which has also proved to be a killing pattern.
I therefore decided that vee-shaped hair-wings must be included in my new pattern. This, however, created a major problem, because I found that as soon as I tied the parachute hackle around these it closed them into a single posted wing. To the best of my knowledge no one has tried to tie a parachute hackle around a split wing so I had nothing to guide me. Eventually, with the help of my friend John Smith, one of the top fly dressers in the UK, we overcame the problem by forming a short post at the base of these wings to take the hackle and then splitting the wings into a vee shape with a figure-of-eight tying at the top of the post. In addition to this, I decided upon a much slimmer ribbed body in olive green, which was closer to the appearance of the naturals. The shuck at the tail I formed from 'Blond Fly Fur' which is wonderfully translucent and is now freely available, as it is the same material used to form the wing in the famous saltwater bonefish fly called the "Gotcha". This, tied in sparsely, makes a very lifelike looking shuck. I decided to use light grey calf tail for the wings, which is closer to the colour of the wings of the naturals, and to finish the pattern with a grizzle hackle tied in parachute style around the wing root.

During the latter half of last season I fished this new pattern extensively and it proved to be highly killing indeed - but I found that it was still rejected by the odd trout that inspected it carefully. Early this season I noticed that the grizzle hackle and light grey wings made the fly look a little conspicuous on the surface, so I dressed some with a dark grey hackle and dark grey wings and the fly has now exceeded my wildest dreams.

The first time I used this pattern in its new dressing style was on the little river Dever, on an outing with Bernard Cribbins - he was fishing while I was taking photographs. This was towards the end of the Mayfly (Greendrake) fortnight when the trout, as often happens, were sated on this big Ephemerid. The river was completely dead, with not a rise in sight. I gave him one of the new patterns to try and suggested we look for trout hopefully on the fin, rather than look for any rises. Before lunch Bernard hooked and released seven lovely brown trout that we had spotted, all over three pounds apiece. The interesting aspect of this was that none of these trout were really 'on the fin'; all of them were lying close to the bottom and did not appear to be feeding. Yet, in nearly every case, the fish rose to take the new fly with confidence.

Although I developed this pattern ostensibly for trout, we have now discovered it is also very effective indeed for big grayling. After lunch on that same day, we found a few fish rising and - although we were fishing for trout - we accidently hooked and released several very big grayling, one of which was close to two pounds.

Since then on many occasions I have found that this new pattern seems to have an astonishing ability to bring fish up when the river appears to be absolutely dead . In June this season I was fishing the river Anton and after lunch there was neither a rise nor even a trout to be seen. Finally, in desperation, late in the afternoon I decided to blind-cast along a short stretch of the river that I knew held a few good trout; within the next hour I had risen, landed and released five super trout. In each case the fly had been taken readily, and with such positive risese that the trout had almost hooked themselves. In fact, I must admit the final fish I caught was by accident: the fly had just drifted past me and I was looking down to wind the line onto the reel when I heard a fish rise almost opposite me. I thought this was strange, as I had not seen a single rise all afternoon. I started to retrieve the line and fly in order to cover the rise, when I realised the rise must have been to my fly as the trout had hooked himself on the slack line and was charging off down the river.

Another facet of this new pattern which I also find astonishing is the complete confidence the trout show when taking it. Over the last 40 years or so I have on many, many occasions watched a trout rise to a fly and then drift downstream with it balanced on the end of its nose obviously examining it closely before deciding whether or not to accept. When this happens it has been my experience that at least 70 per cent of these trout refuse to take. So far this season I have had upwards of a couple of a dozen trout do this yet, in nearly every case, they have accepted my fly and been hooked.

In late June this season I was fishing on the Upper Test with my fishing friend Max King both using the new Dun when between us we caught and released several big browns and also over 60 grayling, most of which were large - between a pound and a quarter and a pound and a half. Again, in my experience big grayling are not normally tempted by dry flies until late in the season so I was really impressed bythe fly's latest performance.

Finally, I feel I should also point out that - again much to my surprise - the fly has proved to be incredibly effective during the evening rise. These days I seldom stop to fish an evening rise except on one stretch of river which I am priviledged to be invited to fish two or three times each season. This stretch holds some big trout, but has a reputation for difficult fish, particularly during the evening rise. Over many years I have failed to catch more than one or two trout during an evening here, and I have also had many blanks. The first evening I fished there this season I tried all the normal patterns - small Duns, Spinners and Sedges - all to no avail. Halfway through the rise, in desperation, I decided to try the new pattern dressed on the smaller hook. Bingo! Before the rise was over I had taken five magnificent brown trout, all between three and seven pounds. Even more astonishing was the fact that two of these fish took on the second or third cast. My guest who accompanied me - an excellent dry fly fisher - unfortunately had a blank. At the time I did wonder if it may have been luck, but on my second visit to the water, which occurred recently, I experienced almost a repeat performance, taking four lovely browns while, again, my guest blanked.

Note: I have now discovered that dressed with an orange body it is equally effective to represent blue-winged olive duns when they are hatching.

This fly is featured in John Goddard's new book on fly patterns, The Trout-Fly Patterns of John Goddard, which is to be launched on October 30 by Creel Press.

A pictorial tying sequence, tying instructions, and the essentials of presentation of the JG Emerger appear in the full article featured in the November 2003 issue of FF&FT.

A shuck and a split-wing are the essential triggers of the JG Emerger.


A nice brownie which fell for the new pattern.