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.