The Original Recipe
When it comes to all-purpose nymphs, the fly to be found in more fly boxes around the world than any other (with the possible exception of the Pheasant-Tail Nymph) is the Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear Nymph, or GRHE. It owes its universality to a generalized nymph shape and the special qualities of hare’s ear dubbing, a mixture of soft fur and stiff guard hairs that together create a fly that doesn’t look exactly like anything but that gives an impression of a great many things, and that’s a good enough reason always to carry several.
WET FLY ORIGINS
The material—originally taken from just the ear of the hare but later from other parts of the face or “mask”—was used from the mid-1800s onwards to form the body of a fly that was mentioned by Francis Francis, by James Ogden (who is sometimes credited as the creator of the GRHE) and by Frederic Halford, but in all these cases they were referring to a winged blue dun. The wings were slips from a starling’s wing feather; Ogden gave the fly a tail of three strands of a red cock’s hackle and Halford gave it a red cock’s beard hackle. Ogden, writing in 1879, recommended adding a tinge of olive color to the hare’s fur by using onion juice or by “mixing with it a little olive fur from a monkey’s neck,” but that’s no longer advisable! He also instructed the flytier to pick out the dubbing to form the legs and to rib the hare’s ear body “with fine gold tinsel or twist” for variety, advice that has been heeded by generations since.
This was clearly a wet fly, and Ogden tells us, “When the season is mild this fly will be on the water by the end of February, and is most killing on cold days. When using them, allow your flies to sink a little, letting the water do the work; by no means hurrying or dragging them against the stream.”
According to Halford, writing in 1886, “This is probably the most killing pattern of the present day in the Test and other chalk-streams; in fact, one of the most skilful and successful anglers in the county of Hants [Hampshire] scarcely ever uses any other dun, from the opening of the season in March until the closing of the river. It is equally efficacious for trout and grayling.”
“One of the best flies for bulging fish is the gold-ribbed hare’s ear, and the reason is not far to seek. Put side by side…a nymph of one of the Ephemeridae and an artificial of the above pattern. It will at once be noted that there are arranged in pairs on the foremost segments of the abdomen of the nymph a number of fin-like appendages.… The short hairs of the fur picked out in the body of the artificial bear a strong resemblance to these branchiae.” Frederic M. Halford, Dry-fly Fishing in Theory and Practice (1889)
The combination of soft fur and stiff bristles make the hair of the hare’s ears and mask ideal for dubbing nymph bodies that remain slightly spiky in the water.
A wonderful combination of entomology and fly tying instruction, Alfred Ronalds’ The Fly-Fisher’s Entomology, first published in 1836, included a Few Observations and Instructions Relative to Trout-and-Grayling Fishing, as the frontispiece suggests. He also gives tying instructions for a Hare’s Ear Blue Dun.
REVERSING THE LIFE CYCLE
When exactly the winged dun became a wingless nymph is unclear. G.E.M. Skues, a dedicated nymph fisher, is said to have fished the winged hare’s ear, but at a certain point a more “buggy” and nymph-like wingless version made its debut. It has remained an essential in the fly box of every wet fly angler ever since.
Traditionally the tail of the nymph was made of long guard hairs from the hare’s ear, but hen hackle and saddle feather fibers are now equally common. Gold wire for the rib is tied in, a tapered body of dubbed hare’s fur is wrapped to just forward of the midpoint and the gold rib is counter wound and tied off. A bunch of pheasant or turkey tail fibers is tied in and a tight but spiky thorax of the same dubbing (often with additional guard hairs from the ears) is then wrapped. The tail fibers are pulled over the thorax to form the wing case, tied off behind the hook eye and whip finished. The crucial final step, as Ogden so rightly pointed out, is to pick out the fur of the thorax with a needle or dubbing brush to give the fly a shaggy and unruly appearance and create the nymph-like legs and branchiae that give it life in the water.
Tied using the natural hare’s ear fur, this nymph represents many of the paler species of caddis and mayfly, but by using dyed and/or mixed furs and by varying the color of the tail and wingcase and the size of the hook, the flytier can simulate an enormous range of nymphs covering not only many species of caddis and mayfly but also stoneflies, damselflies, and dragonflies.
The caddis larva is just one of the many aquatic invertebrates that the Hare’s Ear Nymph, tied in various colors and sizes, represents so well.
VARIATIONS ON THE HAIR’S EAR THEME
The Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear Nymph can be, and is, fished anywhere in the water column, wrapping the hook with wire for a slow sink or, more commonly, adding a gold bead head to get down fast. At the other end of the spectrum, as an emerger pattern, there is a floating version with a tail and underbody of elk hair tied humpy style on a dry fly hook, and there is also a parachute hare’s ear with a polypropylene yarn post and a pale hackle wound horizontally.
For added sparkle, Flashabou can be added to the tail or used as a first rib under the gold wire, ice wing fiber can be mixed into the dubbing or laid over the wing case, which is then lacquered or coated with UV-setting clear finish, or flashback can be used in place of feather fibers to form the wing case. The Soft Hackle Hare’s Ear Nymph, created by John Gierach, has a mottled hen or partridge hackle to add further movement in the water, and it works well during a caddis hatch.
And if that range of possibilities isn’t enough, you can always go full circle and return to the original, the Gold-Ribbed Hare’s Ear winged wet fly, which remains as popular and effective as it was in its heyday.
