Fly Tying Instructions: CK Nymph

Chuck Kraft, the Charlottesville local who invented my personal favorite fly, the Kreelex, has also made a very successful nymph pattern, the C.K. nymph. This fly is extremely easy to make. I t can be made in several ways and with different materials. It seems to imitate multiple types of insect life (and perhaps even some minnows). I haven't found many good explanations for how to tie this fly online, so I thought I'd help everyone out and make a tutorial for it.

Materials

Thread: I usually use just a black 70 denier thread, but feel free to mix it up

Tail: Any kind of feather. I tend to use whatever left over feathers I have laying around

Body: Whatever you choose. Microchenille, heavy dubbing, and my favorite, several strands of peacock herl will work just fine

Hackle: The is the only part of the fly that I don't think should change very much. I use grizzly saddle or cape hackle, but it doesn't matter how big the gauge is on them as you can trim them down to size afterwards

Instructions

I recommend using streamer hooks in sizes 8-12.

Add some weight to the hook. I prefer to use 0.025 round lead wire.

Start your thread and tied the lead wire securely down. Be sure to cover the lead wire with thread well so that the color of the fly won't be changed by any oxidation of the lead. Bring the thread to the back of the hook.

Collect a bunch of barbs from the sides of a feather such as this one. I prefer to use the sides of the feather.

Tie in the feather. It doesn't have to have too much length to it. Try and get it to be a little shorter than the hook shank.

Attach the grizzly hackle to the rear of the fly

Tie in the body material and then bring the thread to the eye of the hook. Here i'm adding black microchenille. I'll show farther down examples of putting in dubbed bodies and peacock herl bodies.

Wrap the body material forward creating a fairly even body. Tie off with the thread and remove any excess material.

Wrap the grizzly hackle forward. Don't make it too tight together. Tie off the grizzly hackle and then trim the hackles so that they are about even with the width of the hook bend.

Form a fairly large head with the thread and then wrap finish to tie off.

Alternate Versions

Peacock CK nymph

Everything is the same for this version of the CK nymph except that instead of microchenille, you can add about 10 strands of peacock herl. When wrapping the body, be sure to twist the herls to keep them together.

Here's the finished fly. It's hard to tell the difference, but with the peacock herl, you can definitely tell there is more of a iridescent shine to the fly.

Dubbed CK nymph

For this version, I add a lot of dubbing to the fly instead of chenille. I prefer to dub my thread by make a dubbing loop and then moving my thread to the eye of the hook.

Here is the finished dubbed version. I prefer dubbing with yellow or red.

Information About Kreelex Flies

Rich knows that I talk a lot about Kreelex flies.  Personally, I love fishing any of the flies invented by one of our very own Charlottesville locals, Chuck Kraft.  

If you try to find any information about Chuck online, you'll only come up with a few articles about him getting in some legal trouble because of some selfish landowners were trying to use obsolete British crown grants to prevent people from fishing on "their land" without paying fees.  But you'll also come up with several articles attesting to the fish-catching abilities of his flies (such as this one about his C.K. nymph).  Obviously, the man knows how to tie a mean fly.

I have yet to get my hands on a C.K. nymph or a C.K. baitfish.  But I have definitely seen the ability of his Kreelex flies and Claw-dads to catch fish.  In my opinion, the Kreelex and the Claw-dad are great for catching monster trout and bass.  When all else fails, a Kreelex will catch 'em.  Locally, the stores sell out of Kreelexs extremely quickly.  So if you head to the Albemarle Angler or Mossy Creek and they're available, load up on 'em while you can.  Or you can go ahead and hit up his website and purchase them online.  

If however, you are into fly tying like myself, you may want to try and throw together a Kreelex on your own.  The Trow brothers were kind enough to put together a Youtube video with great instructions... (just be sure to use Kreinex flash and not your typical flashabou... the Kreinex seems to have much better strength and looks a lot more lively in the water.)

As for how to fish a Kreelex, you can practically use any kind of streamer retrieve with them.  Personally, I'll fish it downstream and across with either a slow retrieve or a fast jerky retrieve to mimic a minnow trying to evade a predator.  Just from this past weekend, I was having more luck with the 'bows at the Moorman with a slow retrieve until I was able to catch a fish's attention, at which point I started to speed up my retrieve to entice them to bite.  It really is amazing to watch a predatory trout just go nuts over an escaping streamer.