Blood Worm

The Blood Worm is a great little pattern for reservoirs or stillwaters, as it mimics midge pupae which is often found in such places, and is a staple foodstuff for the brown and rainbow trout.

This little tutorial video below will show you how to tie the blood worm.

You’ll need a hook with a curved shank for this pattern, which should be tied on a fairly small hook (think size 14-16) to best reflect the size of these beasties in the water.

This is a good pattern in the early season when there isn’t much surface activity – the video below is from Canada, so the blood worm pattern here is a little different from some you will see tied in the UK. It still proves effective. As ever, modify this pattern to suit your local water!

Black Buzzer

This is a great little lesson for the total novice fly-tyer as Buzzers make a great start due to the lack of complexity in many designs: most successful buzzer patterns owe much to the sparseness of their design, making them great little confidence builders!

A ‘buzzer’ is the pupal stage of aquatic insects – most often midge pupae – which trout feed on often during most of the season. A small team of buzzers fished on the dead drift is probably my most effective technique on many reservoirs in Northern England when all around me are throwing out lures. If there is no surface activity, letting a couple of buzzers sink down while you slowly figure of eight a floating line with a giant leader will so often pay dividends – I’ll get a tutorial up about this method for those of you who are interested in finding out how I fish it!

Follow the tutorial lesson below from start to finish and, in 15 minutes or so, you should be able to have something resembling a buzzer by the end of it. Remember that your hook is the most important part of a buzzer, however, so make sure you have the right one before you start!

This tutorial is really for almost absolute beginners, so any advanced tyers may want to skip the first section and get onto the fly itself.

Thanks must go out to Dave Cammiss who made this excellent instructional video lesson – you can find more like it on his website.

Buzzer / Emerger Hooks online

You’ll need a hook with a curved bend to tie a buzzer pattern – you can order the following online:

• Orvis ‘Caddis Emerger’ hooks £3.75 for 25
• TackleShop “grub” hooks for £3.25 for 25