The Wonder Bug, the Anytime-Anywhere Nymph and the C.K. Nymph

After posting an image and tying sequence for the Wonder Bug sample (go to http://www.fishingwithflies.com/WonderBug.htm)  sent to me by Fred Bridge of Pennsylvannia, another friend of mine from Pennsylvannia, Bill Long, wrote (see comments on my previous blog post) that it reminded him of a similarly tied "clipped hackle" fly called the Anytime, Anywhere Nymph.  It too, he wrote, was an old pattern.

Perhaps these two patterns are related, and perhaps they are not.  The patterns are simple enough to have been "invented" by many tiers.  After all, they are both essentially woolly worms with clipped hackle. 

I thought I would investigate further.

Referring to my copy of Gary Soucie's Woolly Wisdom (copyrighted 2005), I found a section on Clipped Hackle Woolly Worms (pp. 51-61).  The Anytime, Anywhere Nymph is included.  It is tied essentially like the Wonder Bug, except that instead of a herl body it has a black chenille body.

Using Google I found two other descriptions of the Anytime-Anywhere Nymph; one with a body of black wool and the other with a body of black dubbing.  So, a black body is a key feature.

Interestingly one site indicated that the Anytime-Anywhere nymph was originated by Charles Knight.  The sample shown was labeled the "C.K. Nymph". (http://retiredguysworld.com/Flies.aspx)

This is where I become confused.  Gary's book also has a "C.K. Nymph".  The C.K. Nymph is on the opposing page (p. 57) to the "Anytime, Anywhere Nymph" (p. 56).  Gary suggests that perhaps the later is a variation of the former. 

At this point in my research I assumed that C.K. stood for Charles Knight. However, Gary's interview with a couple of flyfishers, who remember the C.K. Nymph from their early days, place its introduction in the late 1940s or early 1950s, along the "C.K. Williams stretch" of the Bushkill Creek in Pennsylvannia. C.K. Williams was the name of an old pigment production plant situated near the creek.

Do any of my Pennsylvania friends have any additional insights or information about the origins of this simple fly?  Of course, you don't have to be from Pennsylvania to post a comment *grin*.

Just Posted: The Wonder Bug as tied by Fred Bridge

In my previous blog post I mentioned a few flies I'd received from my friend from Pennsylvannia, Fred Bridge.  I've posted a closeup photo and the tying sequence for one of these flies, the Wonder Bug. 

If I could pick only two materials with which to tie nymphs, I would pick (1) lead and (2) peacock herl.  Add some hackle and you've got the Wonderbug.

Check it out here: http://www.fishingwithflies.com/WonderBug.htm

I received a nice package in the mail from Fred Bridge last week

Fred has been a friend for years and sent me some of the first flies that I featured in the Flies With a Story page on fishingwithflies.com some 10 years ago.  [The 80+ stories I've collected over the years are listed here.]

So Fred emailed me a couple of weeks ago and asked if I might be interested in a couple of nice nymphs he'd been enjoying.  (Just to make it clear, the nymphs I'm talking about here are fishing flies *grin*.)  I've fished with Fred and he's one fantastic trout fisherman... so when he says a fly is good, I listen.  He sent them along and they look great and, importantly to me, easy to tie. 

I will take a few closeup pictures of them and get the images and directions onto the Web site soon. 

He also threw in a nice Hornberg.  Fred ties his Hornbergs complete with jungle cock eyes and he lacquers (head cement or "hard as nails") the wings.  I plan to use this sample for another project of mine, which will be a topic for a future post.



Fishingwithflies.com is 10 years old (nearly) !

Last week my electronic scheduler signaled that it was time to log into my account at Godaddy (which has hosted fishingwithflies.com since the beginning) to renew my domain name.  When I clicked on "my account" I saw that the domain was up for renewal in July.  But I always like to renew a few months early...just in case. Incidentally, Website domain names aren't particularly expensive, at about $10-$15 per year.

What surprised me, and I don't think I'd noticed this before, is that Godaddy maintains a complete record of all my transactions, in chronological order.  I went right to the first page and found my very first Godaddy order.  It was nearly 10 years ago, in July of 2001, that I registered my domain name.  Times flies!!



I recall being very pleased that it was available because I thought it was such a good name for the Web site that I was planning.  I saw, too, that I had ordered Godaddy's inhouse Web site software, Website Complete, in 2001.  It got things up and operating quickly, but they soon stopped supporting it and I found myself switching to Microsoft's Frontpage 2000 and then Frontpage 2003. 

Now, Frontpage is no longer supported by Microsoft, though I can still create Web pages and upload them to the servers at Godaddy.  I dread the day that I might have to switch to something else.

I also saw in my Godaddy account that I had signed up for "statistics" beginning in 2009 though I don't recall ever looking at the data.  But I did today.  I was pleased to see that I am getting about 4,000 unique visitors per week.  That's pretty cool.

I should point out that you are reading this post on my blog, which is a google blog.  This is located on google's servers and not on Godaddy. (You can learn more about blogs at http://www.blogger.com/.)  My blog has it's own separate domain name, fishingwithfliesblog.com, but I have connected my two domains with links and made the green background color as identical as possible, so that it appears that I have just one Web site.  Blogs have some advantages.  They are very easy to update, from anywhere and from any computer, because you don't need any software.  A disadvantage might be that they are not as customizable as having your own Web site software.  Though there are many templates for blogs, and you can change colors and fonts, etc., they all have a basic and recognizable format.