Start out with an idea for a new fly pattern and you never know where you'll end up; or, for that matter, how you'll get there. That's how it was with the Skip Nymph, my all-around mayfly nymph imitation. I began with a simple idea. Combine my favorite features from the popular Gold-ribbed Hare's Ear and the American version (Al Troth's) of the Pheasant-tail Nymph with a few ideas of my own. But when the pattern was finally more or less established, several years later, it retained only a modicum of the Pheasant Tail's or Hare's Ear's looks and differed from them even more in how it was tied.

Skip Nymphs

The first Skip Nymph has produced a few offspring over the years: the Lead Belly Skip Nymph (a fast-sinker with a heavy, dark-metal bead filling out its thorax), the Sparkle Skip Nymph (a bright version to suggest the shiny, loosened shuck and shiny, clinging bubbles of the ripe-to-hatch nymph, or just to catch the trout's eye), the Ultimate Skip Nymph (bead thorax and sparkle combined), and the Hackled Skip Nymph (supple feather legs for realism and movement in large hook sizes).

Standard Skip Nymphs.

Each of these variations of the original pattern has by now been tested for at least a few years under a variety of conditions, and each has proved a solid producer of brown, brook, rainbow, and cutthroat trout, with the Hackled Skip Nymph showing good early promise with bluegills, rock bass, crappie, green sunfish, and smallmouth bass.