What are the Best Euro Nymphing Flies? Here are Some Proven Winners

Best Euro Nymphing Flies: Tried and Tested Patterns

When you hit the river to fish in a tight-line style, you want your tactics to be backed by the best Euro Nymphing flies available. If you’ve got real confidence in your flies - then you can relax into focusing on your presentation tactics.

With these factors in mind – the rest of this article (below) is a proven utility selection of Euro Nymphing flies to arm you for a wide range of conditions for year-round fishing... ↓↓↓

(PS, you will find a complete presentation tactics system for these patterns in my book “The Fly Fishing Bible of Nymphing”) 

Of course, being our book, we receive a commission from Amazon for any copies bought using this link - which helps to support this site and our YouTube Channel:

The book comes with over 2 hours of free supporting video material also (and our aim was to make the video content alone worth the asking price of the book - to make it a no-brainer for you).

FD’s Best Euro Nymphing Flies Section 1: Little Skinny Options

It seems sensible to group the patterns according to size – since it’s one of the most important factors involved in whether a fish recognises your fly as food (and how far it is willing to move grab it). One area where quite a few tight-line nymphers miss a trick is with little micro midge (and baetis) patterns.

These can be:

Because people often overlook the effectiveness of smaller nymphs when picturing Euro Nymphing in their mind’s eye, let’s start with some micros…

Essential Option 1: Black Micro Midge

Here’s the materials list and then a tying video for one of my all time most successful “cold/clear water” euro nymphing flies.

Black Micro Midge (one of my best Euro Nymphing flies ) Tying Video:

Micro Baetis: My Absolute Confidence Fly for Tiny Olive Nymphs

Another fly that is easy to look past in my box - but which has proven to be devastatingly effective...

This one has tails (to cover the small olive mayfly shape) – though it is also good in a tail-less option for olive midges if chironomids of that color happen to be abundant. The medium density of the dressing means this nymph sinks and drifts a bit more naturally in medium-paced water than heavier options.

Anti Camouflage: Magic ingredient in many of the best Euro Nymphing Flies

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As well as increased density of the (still slim) body, the slight exaggeration of the shiny chartreuse wire may also help fish pick our your imitation from the clouds of naturals. That ability to still look like “food” but stand out from the crowd is the definition of what we call anti camouflage in the book “How to Fool Fish with Simple Flies”.
Again, this is another little fly that can be tied with or without tails.

Best Euro Nymphing Flies: Medium Sized Mouthfuls

When conditions are round about average (normal flow levels, medium clarity, temperatures around the middle of the annual range) then it’s fairly safe to go for medium sized nymphs. You can cover a lot of bases with a small number of patterns that suggest caddis, scud/shrimp or small mayfly nymphs. 

The best Euro nymphing flies tend to be impressionistic – rather than close-copy patterns. It seems likely that there’s two main reasons for this:

Any and all the flies in this selection are basic “template” examples. We’ve shown some color variations – but you should feel free to use your own variations that cover the range from drab to anti-camouflage.

JP’s Easy Bug

Just by varying dubbing, rib or bead color you can create a whole range of caddis and even scud imitations with this template. They are also fast and easy to tie – which makes it a bit easier to try them in some riskier spots. A good option all year round.

PS – try a silver bead and silver rib option (Fire!)

Oh, and if you're keen to supercharge your nymph fishing for free...

Winter Special: Easy Hot Spot Shrimp

This one is a great winter fly - and again very easy to tie. In waters that see a lot of angler traffic, it can pay to make your flies just a little different from what everyone else is fishing. Shifting the bead (whether for the profile – or for the change in centre of balance) can be just enough to show the fish a different look.

Freshwater Shrimp/Scud (shellback version)

Of all patterns in this selection of Euro Nymphing flies, this has the most shared DNA with traditional shell back Czech nymph patterns.

The blunt face profile is the main departure from most of those original Czech-style patterns. However, the dubbing and shellback tying techniques are stuff I directly learned in the Czech Republic from Jiri Klima. The nymph - and other color variants using slightly modified materials, is particularly good in limestone streams (year-round). It's also dynamite in any streams after Autumn/Fall when leaf litter enters the water.

Of course, you can also go full "anti camo" mode and opt for hot orange, sunburst or UV pink or even UV violet/pale purple with the same basic template...

JP Caddis Pupa: One of our best Euro nymphing flies for summer

As well as the version shown in the video, tying this one with a soft game hackle such as grey or brown partridge, also makes a really kick-ass pattern. Fish will move quite a long way off station for this fly when the temperatures are a bit warmer. It is also a nymph that works very well when actively manipulated (as well as drifted naturally).

Juicy Olive Nymph

Tied to similar sizes and proportions/outline to the ever-popular Frenchie nymph (see bonus example below), the body material gives an appealing translucency and overall impression of life. Whenever there is increased activity from medium to larger-sized olive mayfly nymphs, this is a great pattern to include on your cast.

Frenchie Nymph (Bonus fly)

I don’t think I need to include a tying recipe for this one since all you need to do is choose your own color combinations, rib and tail materials and then dub the body shape to the profile shown below. These days, some form(s) of Frenchie nymph would appear in almost everyone’s best Euro Nymphing flies list.

You can very effectively tie a pheasant tail nymph to this profile – with a range of different hot-spot dubbed thorax and tungsten bead color choices. It’s perfectly possible to fill an entire nymphing box with Frenchies – and they do a great job at covering small mayfly and small stonefly nymph impressions.

Black and red is a classic combo (as is pheasant tail body, silver rib, black thorax and pale pink bead head) – though I’ve also seen some great results with a deep blue body and red butt.

JP Tag Nymph

These patterns, probably above all others in this article, run with the idea of taking a simple template and then customising it as you wish. Using a slightly straighter-bodied version of the easy bug leaves room to create controllable anti-camouflage with a tag.

By varying the intensity and contrast of the tag and body colors, you can create dramatic or more subtle ways to stand out from the crowd. For instance, a dark synthetic “peacock” dubbing body, small red tag, red wire rib and purple “shimmer” thorax and picked out dubbing “hackle” makes a crazy mix of shades that fish seem to love (see "Pro Tip" above).

The basic tan body with silver rib and then either orange, pink or green tags (with a silver bead head) gives an effective range of nymphs. Do the same with black body versions and, again, you can quickly fill a leaf in a fly box with proven “confidence” patterns. Again, the power of these flies is in the ability to suggest (impressionistically) a range of prey items on the trout, grayling and char menu throughout the year.

JP’s Skinny Olive

In clear or hard-fished water, going much slimmer with the body can put the odds in your favour. Again, it’s your job to turn up or tone down the bead color to suit the conditions.

Sometimes you need a bit more anti camouflage to draw attention (where the body profile can “close the deal” by matching a particular prey profile). Or, the strong color itself might be enough to trigger a reflexive feeding response.

On the other hand there will definitely be days where a raw tungsten/gun metal grey is needed for spooky fish in spooky water.

Quirky Utility Flies

One of my all time most dependable dry caddis patterns

Easy to tie and extremely effective – kind of the fire and forget missile of dry caddis patterns…

Hi viz Klinkhåmer Special (with a pink wing post this is the Pinkhåmer)

Staying fairly true to the original intent as a “big mouthful to pull fish up from depth”; this is best tied fairly large and sizes 12 to 10 (or even an 8 in a similar hook shape) are absolutely appropriate.

Best Euro Nymphing Flies Round-up

OK, so remember to treat all the flies in this selection as templates and create a range of color combinations that vary from drab to vivid. Again, the full strategy for designing and applying those variations is explained in “How to Fool Fish with Simple Flies” – available on Amazon as well as on the direct link above.

I also think you're missing out if you skip on the Fly Fishing Bible of Nymphing with its supporting video material to - but that's just me!

Signed copies (with instant access to the supporting video material while you await delivery) available direct from us on the link below:

Click Here to Order Direct

Please feel free to add your comments or ask your question below...

Paul

Want More Euro Nymphing Content?
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Czech Nymphing

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