Marshmallow Nymph as a tube fly

pittendrigh · Sep 28, 2020

Skewer brown-dyed mattress foam on a horizontal needle.
Slit the top front half of the body, almost down to the needle.
Use a toothpick to apply silicone seal to the slit.
Wax up a plastic tube with purple cross country ski wax.
Put silicone around the waxed plastic tube.
Press the tube into the slot.
Dimple the body blank with flat thread, whip finished at both ends.
Slide the body off the needle and set aside for an hour.

Now pull out the tube, leaving a soft flexible stonefly nymph with a silcone-molded tubular hole down the middle of the fly.

Sew some rubberlegs into the foam with a wide-eyed rubberleg needle.

Thread a snelled hook into the internal tube-shaped opening the nymph body.

Choose what ever bead you want. Knot the snell onto your leader and fish.

The first image is a rubberleg needle made from a 4" inch long "soft sculpture" needle. The second image is a cartoon illustrating the rubberleg stitch used to sew in the rubberlegs.

Marshmallow-Nymph

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camtheflyman · Sep 28, 2020

This is a super interesting idea; how does it fish?

Kfish · Sep 28, 2020

That's pretty cool, would make a good SRC fly for the salt, they'll eat anything

That stinger hook should have good hook up rates.

skyriver · Sep 28, 2020

Cool idea.
In this shade, I would say calling it a Marshmallow Nymph is very kind. Cat Shit nymph would be more honestly descriptive.

pittendrigh · Sep 28, 2020

Or sheep shit perhaps. I first published this fly in Fly Fisherman Magazine in 1992 or so. Here's a link to the original magazine text.