Simple Deer-hair Emerger
Bob Wyatt's simple Emerger for rivers and stillwaters



When something like Hans Van Klinken’s Klinkhåmer Special appears on the scene, it is something like a gun going off, somewhere off-stage. You hear it, know it’s probably important to the plot, but have to wait for developments. The Klinkhåmer is one fly I have sort of ignored for too long. I say sort of, because, theoretically, I recognised its significance immediately. It’s just because I hate tying parachute hackles that this fly has not become a first-line fly for me. As much as I enjoy fly tying, life is way too short to spend twenty minutes of it tying a parachute hackled trout fly.

OK, I know, with practice one should probably turn out a good parachute in under ten minutes, but there are other considerations - like my blood pressure. I, for one, am not counting on an afterlife, in which to recoup the time spent winding a hackle down a wing-post. You know, this makes me think that if I was Oliver Edwards - that master of the super-realistic nymph - just on the chance that I might hang one of those incredible flies on the bottom, I’d carry a mask and snorkle.

Hook:	Kamasan B100, or similar curved emerger style.
Wing:	Medium to fine deer hair, tied in first, tips forward, butts clipped and wrapped down to the rear. Leave enough bare hook shank between wing base and eye for the thorax. *Wind thread back, beyond bend in hook shank, wrapping down hair butts, and leaving a long tag of thread for use as a rib.
Body:	Dubbed SLF and hare’s ear mix – or stripped peacock quill. Tie in, well down on hook bend, and wrap toward wing, covering hair butts. *Wind tag-end of tying thread forward as rib, counter-wise to the dubbing, tying it in ahead of wing. Omit if using quill body, but varnish quill for strength.
Thorax:	Dubbed hare’s mask, spiky fur from front of face. Tie in at eye and wind back to wing base, forcing the hair wing into a vertical position. Wind thread forward, through dubbing to eye, and whip finish. Pick out guard hair fibres.

The old Halford style dry fly, standing proud, maybe even a little arrogantly, on its tiptoes, is beginning to seem more than a little quaint, along with the full dress, parade-ground ostentation of the Victorian salmon fly, and the Bohemian expressiveness of the traditional wet fly. We all understand now that a trout is maybe a little hesitant about expending all that energy on a surface-bound lunge, in pursuit of a creature which looks like it is about to take off like a Harrier jump-jet. Even deliberate feeders, with all the time in the world, often give a high-riding hackled fly no more than a dirty look.
Looking at three of the most reliable trout and grayling dry flies on the planet - the Comparadun, the Deer-hair Sedge and the Klinkhåmer Special - what is the salient characteristic, shared by all three? Yup, it’s obvious, they are all designed to sit in the surface. The Klinkhåmer goes that little bit further in design, and in this case, a quarter inch is as good as a mile. The Klinker sticks its little arse right through the surface, and proffers it suggestively below the surface film, something a trout just cannot resist. Any trout that has grown up outside a stew-pond recognises this signal immediately - a struggling insect, at its most vulnerable, trying to escape its pupal shuck . Chow down.

The number of winged adult olives and caddis that I have found in the stomachs of trout is barely significant. As predators, trout - especially big trout - are pragmatists and have learned that, during a hatch, the insects which are struggling with their tights are the ones to go for. In other words: as long as I’m mixing metaphors to this extent, to a feeding trout the emerger represents a sitting duck. To the trout, a fly which meets the criteria of size, shape and colour, even ‘exact’ imitation, but fails to present the correct phase of the hatch, is not so much a sitting duck as it is, say, a rubber duck.

I have been testing out a prototype emerger pattern, with immediate success on our Scottish rivers and lochs. It also seduced some educated rainbows, browns, and cutthroats in western Canada. It is a curved abdomen pattern, with an upright deer-hair wing, and a hare’s mask thorax. No tail, shuck, or hackle. A quill body, size 14, for the early olive hatches proved itself a winner here in Scotland. I took it to the South Island of New Zealand in April, and it gave me one of the best day’s dry fly fishing I’ve had - on dead low, crystal clear water, in blazing sunshine, and with spooky brown trout. As far as I am concerned, this fly has been road tested.

For the annual Sutherland campaign last summer, I made up a dozen or so, in larger sizes and with dubbed bodies. These flies had the Comparadun-style deer-hair wing, and hare’s mask thorax, tied on a Kamasan B100, sizes 10 and 12. I made up some with a dirty hare’s ear/golden olive SLF body, and some with a dark hare’s ear body. I filled the rest of my boxes with the usual Deer-hair Sedges, my sheet anchor for the Northern lochs.

Well, I am here to tell you the new fly works. I didn’t bother with it until we hit a tough patch, with no wind and unusually selective trout. Stuart Mackenzie, during a period of urgent fly changing, knotted on one of my prototype Deer-hair Emergers, in the point position. Normally, the point fly has been regarded - by us at least - to be more of an anchor than anything else. The Deer-hair Sedge on the bob does all the work. Fishing this new Deer-hair Emerger static, on a mirror surface, Stuart began to nail fish one after the other. Upon hearing his report, and having the same sort of trouble, I tied one on myself. The effect was immediate. Six cracking brownies, one after the other. The eye-opener was the fact that the fish were ignoring the old killer, the Deer-hair Sedge, in favour of this new emerger with its Klinkhåmer-style body poking under the surface.

The test was repeated next day, on another loch. Ken Currie and Stuart made one of the best catches in years. In fact, one old boy, who has fished the loch for 50 years, said it was the best catch he had ever seen from that water. Another boat, on the same day, presumably fishing traditional wet fly, got exactly zip. Now, that was a hard situation for those boys in the other boat, but they can console themselves in that they furthered the cause of science by acting as our control group.

By the way, tying a mess of Zulus, Invictas and other traditional loch flies for their trip north should take note. Stuart said the trout were taking that new fly like they were taking bait - with absolute confidence. Ken and Stuart were both using the claret Deer-hair Sedge on the bob, but, between the two of them, 90% of the takes were to the point fly. This was significant - unheard of, in fact. Back at the lodge, the rest of the gang considered this catch with wild surmise, the very foundations of our belief system had been sundered.

I had a chance to try out the new pattern, in its quill-bodied version, on river trout over the summer. In even the toughest, low-water conditions, it out-fished anything else, hands down. On evenings when the fish were doing that - rise once, that’s all folks - thing, I managed to score repeatedly with this fly. I took some large and very selective grayling from glassy glides, after they had refused my usual Spinner patterns. There is no doubt that it’s the sunken body that does it. Tie a slim abdomen for Ephemerids, and a thick one for Caddis.

I’m not making any claims for originality or authorship here. My Deer-hair Emerger is just a variation on a Comparadun with a curved body; a fly that will, from all indications, do everything that the Klinkhåmer Special will do - and that’s a lot. In any case, it’s way easier and faster to tie than a Klinker and, with no hackles or peacock herl to unravel, it’s practically indestructible. With a dab of Gink on the wing and thorax, it will float all day. It has proved itself on the toughest river brown trout and grayling here at home, did the business in New Zealand, Alberta, and British Columbia, and has opened up a whole new chapter in the evolution of the Great Northern Trout Fly. Don’t leave home without it.

This article originally appeared in May 2001 issue of Flyfishing and Flytying