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Walk into any country store in Virginia and ask any of the patrons “what's the best piece of meat you can get to eat”? You will get answers ranging from country ham to venison tenderloin, fried dove breasts to crappie, grilled wild turkey breast to black bear steaks. Of course if there are any out of towners there you may hear filet mignon or rack of lamb, but notice nobody says anything about finger sandwiches or mini crepes or any other of the cocktail party foods that you have to eat a ton of to get filled up. The same thing holds true with large trout and smallmouth bass. They don't get large by only eating “fin” foods or just baby bugs….it takes MEAT to really make a fish happy.

One of the most widely distributed sources of real MEAT for fish are hellgrammites. You can find them in the smallest mountain stream or in the large smallmouth rivers. Hellgrammites are the nymphal stage of the Dobson fly and they get quite large. If you're ever near a stream or river in later June or July at night in a place that has an outdoor light you may see these huge insects gathering on the walls after hatching from the water and you may mistake them for bats! Hellgrammites can grow to incredible sizes of up to four inches and their mandibles can give a nasty bite. Many a young boy has spent countless hours seining these creatures in streams before a fishing excursion. They are found mostly under rocks and in submerged woody debris.

They are quite pollution sensitive so finding them in a particular body of water indicates that the health of the water is decent.

I started out about 6 years ago trying to come up with a fly pattern to represent this nymph. The early prototypes all somewhat worked but still changes were made till I finally came up with the Hellgradorf. What I did was take bits and pieces from other patterns that I had found to be effective and kinda rolled them all up into one fly. The results were awesome! I've taken large trout on the West Branch of the Ausable River in Upstate NY, on the Salmon River in Franklin County NY (my home river), the Linville River in North Carolina, and in Virginia in the Jackson River, Smith River, White Top Laurel Creek, North Creek, and North Fork of the Buffalo, Steelhead on the Salmon River in Oswego Country NY, and large smallmouth bass in the Oswegatchie River in upstate NY and here in Virginia in the James River. After that extensive R&D period I decided to name the fly after me!

MATERIALS:

• Hook: Mustad 9671 Nymph hook size #2 to #6
• Thread: Brown 6/0 Unithread
• Weight: Heavy lead wire twisted together and laid on the sides of the hook shank
• Tail: Mottled brown hen back feather tied down past the bend of the hook
• Rib: Black Ostrich herl
• Body: Brown Haretron dubbing rough loop dubbed using the Reisdorf dubbing system
• Wing case: Brown Swiss straw
• Legs: Mottled brown hen back feather laid over the thorax.
• Mandibles: Brown Goose biots with the points facing backwards and the butts protruding foreword.

NOTES: "This fly is best fished dead drift but don't stop there, fish it slowly back to you. Most fish seem to be taken right when the fly starts it's swing so keep your rod tip up because most of the strikes are quite violent! Like any other fly you tie remember to pinch down the barb BEFORE you tie it. By the way…the Reisdorf dubbing system is not quite ready for production yet but watch for it in the near future in this publication. Enjoy!"