I've been doing a fair bit of winter fishing at a set of spring fed ponds here in Idaho which has been great as normally, I shut down during the coldest months. IN the afternoon, we are first presenting #22 midge pupae or a bare red #22 hook and doing quite well. We are also finding that right during the peak warm times in mid afternoon, the fish feeding back and forth between midges and larger patterns which I am amusing are taken for caddis larvae, fresh water scuds and perhaps small leeches. As it is cold and we are getting tired of switching flies back and forth, we are beginning to use dropper systems and two flies. I have used a variety of dropper systems over the years and for the most part, I see flaws in all of them...but get along with them anyway. I was reading a local paper with a fly tying column in it and he showed tying in a built in dropper loop where you can tie a perfection loop in the tippet and go loop to loop right behind the fly. I have yet to try it but I have been tying up a bunch of patterns, from dry caddis, to leeches to various stimulator patterns, ready for summer small stream fishing where I like to put say a dry on top and soft hackle or small beadhead below. But I made sure I put some winter systems together too for my spring waters, a soft hackle or flymph with a loop so I can run a trailing midge pupae or bare red hook.....photos are not the best.
You can use whatever pattern you want but orange can be a fish catcher at times and it has this winter so I here is some steps:
Hook: #14 Wet Fly (trying to use up the bunch I have)
Using 8/0 thread (Camel color in this case)m wrap a base on the hook and put a loop of 4lb mono out the rear and tie off firmly.
Next, tie the ends back over the hook and secure with thread....and cut off the shortest end. The longest end will be used as as rib.
Here I am using light dun ostrich herl and pumpkin colored Uni Stretch for the body.
The key to a smooth body with Uni Stretch is a smooth under body
Wrap the herl forward and secure with mono tag rib. Some people wrap ribbing in opposite directions but I don't like that and don't trust the tightness of it. So I wrap in the same direction as the material I am securing but do it at a steep angle so it crosses the material.
On this fly I put a small collar of rusty colored ice dub and prepare a Hen Pheasant feather for a soft hackle by trimming off one side of the feather and tie in at the tip. Some soft hackles I like just one wrap, but this one I put on heavier.
The loop of 4lb mono is adequate for most fine tippets. On my leech patterns and stimulator patterns I went with 6lb Maxima