Danica Dun
December 8, 2024
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Tying Guide: How to tie Michael Olesen’s Danica Dun Hook: Maruto d21 size 10 Thread: Classic Waxed 12/0 from Semperfli, primrose for the abdomen and
Fly design and flies of all kinds is “stealing” my time, and I can`t really explain why. Perhaps it is just a need for an occupation? Who knows? All I can say, with reasonable certainty, is that I personally find the buggy looks of my flies very important and apparently worth spending some extra time on. As time has passed by, I have realized that a fly does not catch fish until it has “caught” the fly fisherman, as Torill Kolbu once expressed it in the Runar Varhuus book “Queen of the Flies” (Fluenes Dronning).
Fly design and flies of all kinds is “stealing” my time, and I can`t really explain why. Perhaps it is just a need for an occupation? Who knows? All I can say, with reasonable certainty, is that I personally find the buggy looks of my flies very important and apparently worth spending some extra time on. As time has passed by, I have realized that a fly does not catch fish until it has “caught” the fly fisherman, as Torill Kolbu once expressed it in the Runar Varhuus book “Queen of the Flies” (Fluenes Dronning).
Fly-design and flies in all its aspects, intensly exercises my mind. The classic dryflies are beautiful and elegant. Incredible Majestic with their cocky slightly forward positioned fronthackle, and often with nicely splittet wings. There is something potent about these lovely flies, something appealing, it’s almost like they are looking at me from the flybox, insisting on to get fished with. I don’t quite get the same feeling, when I look at the old nymphs. They are more practical,” down to earth” working horses. Some of them are dead effective of course, but not a joy to look at. I know I am a bit categorical, when I express myself this way, and maybe there was really tied some respectable and elegant Danica nymphs back in the good old days? It is probably a question of personal taste.
Nowadays the internet is exploding with both super realistic nymphs, do-it-yourself-kits with pre-fabricated bodyparts, actually they are only missing the batteries, so they can also swim by themselves. You will also find flytying who is celebrating the good old skill requiering techniques, as well as the totally, cut to the bone, simple and soft fishing flies. You can really get confused as a flytyer, and find it difficult to decide in what direction to go with your tying. But why not take the best of all the different tying directions, and make the best possible fishing-fly, imitating movement, colour and size, and still ad a few nice details, to please the fisherman, when he is looking down in his flybox. I have worked with the “Chenille Danica Nymph” for some time, to keep a quite realistic look, and at the same time only use soft material, to make it come alive in the water. It has been fun for me to develop it, and in the process I found new ways to use well known material.
I know for sure, that I am not the only one, suffering from the well known flytyer disease going by the name “Too fond of finery” (making the flies a bit too fancy), and at the same time I am struggling a bit with my fishing-dependence. I guess that is why I sometimes make my so called fishing flies with a few extra detailes. Often the fish don’t care about the eyes, or extra fine legs on the fly, but in a way it makes sense to increase the number of detailes, the bigger the fly is. It certainly means something to the fisherman, who is choosing the fly, to tie at the end of the leader.
It`s been many years now, since I tied my first nymph, and as time has gone by, they have become more natural soft and practical for fishing, and the “Chenille Danica Nymph” is another example of a very soft nymph. But the small detailes, such as colour, nicely pointed tails and gills, can not be at the expence of good common sense. The most important thing for me is realism, it has to be alive, movable and soft material, for the trout to chew in. I am strongly convinced, that the fish is keeping the nymph a bit longer in the mouth, before it spits out, if it feels natural to them. Doug Swisher and Carl Richards has also made an interesting study, showing that the trout is chewing for a surprisingly long time on the nymph, if it feels soft and natural and vice versa if the nymph is too hard and rigid. In my opinion this only counts for rather big nymphs. The trout can`t tell the difference on smaller sizes like 16 – 20 pheasent tails. Exactly for that reason I have chosen chenille for the abdomen, stripped to the core in one end, inspired by Henrik Juuls nymph legs (HJP tools), I am just using the chenille as abdomen, the other way around tied in at the thin stripped end, where the artificial luv is pulled of with a pair of scissors, as I am explaining in the step by step recipe. The Chenille Danica Nymph is made so that it is possible to fish it in quite calm water, in a slow pace, and still be full of life, due to the lively material such as cdc and marabou.
In general most of my flies are not finished, the first time it hits the water for a trial-swimming. Some flies, like for instance my winter-demoes, get their first experimental swim in the bathtub, for that obvious reason that I don’t fish the rivers during the cold part of the season. It may sound a little crazy, but if I am exited about a fly, that for some reason looks promising, I have to find out right away how it is working in water. The “Chenille Danica Nymph” is an example of a fly, that took its first swim in the bathtop, with 6 foot of 5x fluorocarbon tied on to it. During this process, I found out that the nymph needed a little keel as weight, not to get out of balance, and after that I also changed the thick layer of UV glue on the wing buds, for a 3 mm Ultra thin skin coated with a minimum of UV glue, to minimize the weight on top of the fly.
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In many traditional old English books, the Danica nymph is not mentioned in very nice terms, for that simple reason, that it was considered almost a crime to fish with it. Fly fishermen of that time thought it was too easy to catch fish with it, and there for not good sportsmanship. Today I still meet and hear about people of that opinion, from the old English books, and of course everybody has got a right to their own opinion. My view on nymphs is very relaxed, and I enjoy fishing with it. On my long trips, where I am fishing the whole day, I quite enjoy the morning fishing with the nymph on the good spots, before the hatch is starting later in the day. Some Mayfly seasons are cold and wet, with only limited dryfly activity, and especially at such times, there is a need for a different approach to the fishing.
All though it is many years ago, that we acknowledged the importance of nymphs, at least in the literature, as basic food for fish, and also a very effective fishing-method, this method is not very common in the Danica season. My guess is that 9 out of 10 Danica/mayfly articles in fishing-magazines, has been about dry flies, and to a certain degree I understand that. Big fish in the surface is both appealing and fascinating at the same time. To this dilemma I want to add, that I know quite a few skilled nymph-fishermen, who is catching a good deal of extraordinary big fish on the Danica nymph, which I feel sure about they would never have caught on dry fly.
Nymph fishing in the Danica season for me, is about having a good supplement under special circumstances. The nymph is a stage in the life of a fly, a part of the whole fishing package, and all the stages have my interest. A big part of the fun in flyfishing, as imitation and sight fisherman, is to a high degree to understand what is insect-vise going on in the river, and thereby have the possibility to make a qualified choice of fly.
In the later years, the attitude towards taking home browntrout has changed, and therefore it is no longer common practice to investigate the contend of a trouts stomach, which under other circumstances is a very good indicator of fish-behavior. It is actually quite logical:,,what you find in the fish stomach, must have been on the menu”. I don`t investigate trout-stomach myself, because I release all my fish, but from what I have heared and read in the old, and much too dusty books, and good friends stories, they all confirm, if you take a look at a trout stomach contents, from a fish which was clearly taking duns, you will find a lot more nymphs than duns. What you make out of this information is up to you, but one thing is clear, trout is eating a lot of nymphs, and sometimes they also take nymph and emergers during a hatch at dun time. Sometimes you get confused as a simple and logical thinking fly fisherman. It`s not always so obvious what is going on, and that is flyfishing at its best. Keep those days coming, if fishing is too easy we get bored I am sure. There has to be something to think about, some mysterious fish impossible to catch. That’s what keeps me going anyway.
Most fishermen who is fishing the Danica season, is only paying attention to the hatches and spinnerfall, but as I said earlier, the nymph and emergers are super effective, and these stages is making your fishingday a lot longer, as the morning fishing is perfect for nymphs. Another fact is, that the Danica nymph has a special effectiveness in the beginning of the Danica season, before the spinnerfall gets too powerfull.
The Chenille Danica Nymph is, like other mayfly nymphs, really good for a downstream technique, as it is possible, and rather natural, to add some movement to these big creatures. Normally I fish upstream dead drift, but with big nymphs it is another story, you can actually fish them quite aggressive with a jerky movement, to get the attention from the fish. Remember: Danica nymphs are quite good swimmers.
Materials List
I take a piece of chenille, 2.5 cm long, and remove the fibers from one end. I do this by slightly opening a pair of scissors, clamping the chenille in the scissors, and pulling off 2 mm of fibers at a time, until I’ve removed about 1 cm of fibers from the chenille. The remaining fluffy part of the chenille forms the nymph’s abdomen and should be approximately 13 mm long.
I now place the chenille in the fly vise, leaving about 1 mm of space to secure the thin tying thread. I wrap the thread 5-6 times in the same spot.
Tie all three tail fibers in at the same time. They don’t need to be perfectly aligned when tied in. Splay the tail fibers and adjust them until you are satisfied with the result, then secure with varnish or UV glue. A small trick: I hold the tail fibers in place with my thumbnail on my right hand and wrap the thread with my left hand.
Cut off the excess material.
I prepare the eyes by cutting 8 mm (0.60 mm in diameter) of monofilament fishing line, holding it in the middle with narrow tweezers.
The fishing line is melted on both sides of the tweezers using a lighter.
The eyes are tied onto the hook just behind the hook eye and colored black with a waterproof marker. It’s also a good idea to coat the eyes with UV glue or varnish to ensure the color lasts.
I add weight to the hook with one or two layers of lead-free wire and possibly a small tungsten keel to balance the nymph. The weight is placed on the front two-thirds of the hook shank, leaving the remaining third free for tying in additional materials later.
The chenille is now tied to the rear end of the hook shank, leaving about 2 mm of the chenille core exposed to make the abdomen more lifelike.
Tie in the marabou at the rear of the hook shank to form gills. I use fine marabou from the base of my dry fly saddles.
I take a piece of Ultra Thin Skin, brown (3 mm), and cut the corners off one end, making the Ultra Thin Skin 50% narrower at the tying point.
I create a dubbing loop at the same tying point as the Ultra Thin Skin and marabou gills.
It’s now time to cover the hook shank with a thin and airy layer of dubbing. I then leave the tying thread just behind the nymph’s eyes.
A light yellow CDC feather is held in a clamp, and the feather stem is cut away.
I twist the CDC feather fibers into the dubbing loop and wrap them in open turns over the dubbed body.
A partridge feather is tied in by the tip, about 1 mm behind the nymph’s eyes. I make only one turn. There may be room for a little extra dubbing between the partridge feather and the eyes.
I now pull the Ultra Thin Skin forward over the thorax area with my right hand while stroking the dubbing and feather fibers backward with my left hand. I tie down the Ultra Thin Skin just behind the nymph’s eyes with 3-4 wraps of tying thread.
Next, I bring the tying thread forward, in front of the nymph’s eyes, just behind the hook eye. I then pull the Ultra Thin Skin forward between the nymph’s eyes and tie it down with the thread just behind the hook eye. To finish the nymph, I bring the tying thread back to the point behind the nymph’s eyes. The Ultra Thin Skin is also pulled back. The Ultra Thin Skin is tightened and secured with 4-5 wraps of thread just behind the nymph’s eyes. I finish with a whip finish at the hook eye.
I add some additional brown and black marker color to the wing cases and coat them with a small drop of UV glue. I also brush up the dubbing a bit to make the fly look more lively when fished.
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