Nymphs That Fish
Lesson: The Hare's Ear — Scruffy Fishes Better
okay. we did the woolly bugger, which is the fly i probably fish most on freestone water. the hare's ear is the other one. if i had to fish one nymph the rest of my life this is probably it. it looks like nothing in particular and every trout thinks it's something.
that's actually the whole point of the fly, so let's get into it.
what you need
- hook, standard nymph, size 12-16 (start at 14, it's a good middle size for local water)
- thread, tan or brown, 6/0
- tail: a few fibers of hare's mask guard hair, or brown partridge if you've got it
- rib: fine gold wire or oval tinsel
- body: hare's ear dubbing (actual hare's mask fur if you can get it, blended dubbing if not)
- thorax: same dubbing, picked out messy
- wingcase: a section of turkey tail or just a pinch more dubbing folded over — we'll do turkey tail today
- weight: lead or lead-free wire, wraps under the thorax, optional depending on where you fish it
Nothing exotic here. This is a fly built from scrap-bin materials, which is part of why I like it.
the actual tying
1. Weight it first, if you're weighting it. Lay wraps of wire around the hook shank where the thorax will go, about a third of the shank length back from the eye. Tie it down with thread same as we practiced. If you're not weighting it — say you're fishing it under an indicator with split shot already on the leader — skip this.
2. Tail. Small pinch of hare's mask guard hairs, tied in at the bend, length about a hook gap or a little more. Don't overthink this part. It's a nymph tail, not a dry fly tail, nobody's judging the taper.
3. Rib. Tie in your gold wire at the bend, right where the tail comes off. Let it hang, you'll use it in a minute.
4. Body dubbing. Here's where the fly starts to matter. Dub a thin-ish rope of hare's ear onto your thread and wrap forward to about two-thirds up the shank. This is body, not thorax — keep it a little less bushy than what's coming next.
5. Rib it. Wind the gold wire forward through the body in even open turns, opposite direction from your thread wraps so it doesn't just unwind everything, and tie it off. This adds durability and a little flash. Both good.
6. Wingcase. Tie in your turkey tail section by the tip, dull side down, right at the thorax point. Let it lie back over the body, out of the way, while you do the thorax.
7. Thorax. Dub a noticeably thicker rope this time — more dubbing loaded onto the thread than you used for the body. Wrap it forward, leave a little room behind the eye.
8. Pull the wingcase over and tie down. Fold the turkey section forward over the thorax, tie it off just behind the eye, trim the excess.
9. Whip finish. Head small. You know this part now.
10. Pick it out. This is the step nobody tells you about and it's the one that actually matters most, so let's talk about it.
the opinion part
Take a dubbing needle or the tip of your bodkin and rough up that thorax. Pick fibers out sideways, pull a little guard hair loose, mess with it until it looks less like a fly and more like something that crawled out from under a rock, which is basically what it's imitating.
Most people tie this fly too clean. I'll say that flat out. A neat, tight, church-photo hare's ear looks nice in the box and doesn't move any water when it drifts. The scruffy fibers trap air, kick light around, and give the fly movement in the current even though it's not doing anything — you're not stripping it, it's just tumbling down a riffle. Buggy beats neat. This is the fly where that's most obviously true.
a story on this one
Jordan — my nephew, I've mentioned him before — sat down at my vise once at fifteen. Never tied before. I gave him a hare's ear kit because it's forgiving, showed him the steps once, and he had a genuinely fishable fly in about ten minutes. No fussing, no re-picking the dubbing, no worrying if it was neat enough. He just built it and moved on.
It took me a week to get my first one right. I've told that story to more people than Jordan probably wants me to at this point, but I bring it up here because he never messed with proportions or worried about the wingcase folding evenly, and the fly still worked. He didn't overthink the scruffy part, he just didn't fuss it into being tidy. Sometimes the not-overthinking is the lesson.
a caution
Turkey tail is brittle when it's dry. If you're pulling it over the thorax and it splits down the fiber lines, that's not you doing it wrong, that's the material — soften it in your fingers for a second first, or use a slightly wider section than you think you need so a split doesn't leave you short.
before next time
Tie three or four of these in different sizes, 12 through 16, and don't clean any of them up after you pick out the thorax. Leave them scruffy. We'll fish that idea more directly next lesson.