The Sudden Take Nymph is inspired by the Guide’s Choice hare’s ear nymph.
Rather than pimping out the hare’s ear, this pattern does it to the pheasant tail.
As most fly anglers will attest, the pheasant tail is an effective nymph when fishing for any freshwater fish and the Sudden Take is no exception.
I usually tie the ST on a size 12 caddis hook (but also keep 14s, 16s and even 18s and 20s in my box – they are harder to tie, but sometimes useful) and like to add a bit of weight in the form of a brass bead and lead wire.
As anybody who has been here before will have noticed, I’m a big fan of a hotspot on a wet fly or nymph. For this pattern I use red pheasant tail for the hotspot and continue the abdomen with natural PT.
Further up we have peacock herl for the thorax, a soft cock hackle swept back and held down with some chinese bling.
The tail is natural PT. The ribbing is a gold thread available on Temu for the crazy price of a couple of pounds or dolars for 3000 metres – intended for sweat shop clothing factories, I assume.
The Best Chub Fly
It’s a great fly for my main target, Chub, but also attracts anything in the stream.
It’s my number one Chub fly.