Fountains of Youth – Classic trout flies that have withstood the test of time … flies that remain “forever young”

by Rusty Dunn

Tie an Iron Blue Nymph on a #16 hook, and you’ve recreated the most famous fly of perhaps the most famous angler to ever cast a wet fly before trout. Walk into a fly shop and ask for an Iron Blue Nymph, and the clerk will probably look at you funny. “A what?” he might ask, to which you should reply, “Young fellow, per­haps you know it instead as a Dark Watchet, Dark Whirling Dun, Little Blue Dun, Iron Blue Drake, Little Purple, Little Dark Blue, or Iron Blue Quill. Got any?” You won’t get the flies you’re looking for, but at least you will have made the point that nymph fishing was refined long before the Pink Squir­rel reigned su­preme.

An Iron Blue Nymph and its dry fly counterpart, the Iron Blue Dun, are fly patterns nearly lost in antiquity. “Muddled by antiquity” might be a better description, because almost every author who wrote a fly-fishing book prior to about 1900 included a favorite recipe, often several recipes. The names varied widely, as did the materials. You’ll find Iron Blue recipes with condor quill, Tomtit tail, horsehair, mouse fur, swift feathers, cormorant, and rat whiskers. Not exactly everyday fly-tying supplies. The first unambiguous pattern for an Iron Blue appeared in 1681 in James Cheth­am’s book The Angler’s Vade Mecum, but the most famous pattern of all is undoubtedly the 1921 fly of G.E.M. Skues published in The Way of a Trout With a Fly.

Skues (1858-1949) is rightfully credited as being the father of modern nymph fishing. Generic subsurface wet flies had been around for centuries, but Skues pioneered hatch-matching patterns and methods of presentation that mimic natural behaviors of nymphs during progression of a hatch. Skues was keenly observant of both mayfly and trout behavior, and his writings educated turn-of-the-century anglers on things we take for granted today. For example, trout feed on nymphs underwater long before they look to the sur­face. Bulging rises identify fish taking nymphs just under the surface. Fish take duns on top of the surface only late in a hatch. And wet flies are deadly when fished upstream and manipulated to mimic a nymph’s natural behavior. Skues drew great satisfaction from the challenges of subsurface fishing:

“In the effort to divine the indications which call for striking with the wet fly, I confess I find a subtle fascination and charm and, when suc­cess attends me, a satisfaction beside which the successful hooking of a fish which rises to my floating fly seems second-rate in its same­ness and compara­tive obviousness and monot­ony of achievement.”

Skues’ writings were very popular, and he introduced soft-hackled flies, which developed in the English North Country and Scotland a century or more earlier, to a much wider audience. His Iron Blue Nymph is an excellent pattern for dark blue-winged olives. BWOs are mayflies of leaden skies, blustery winds, drizzling rain, and cold fingers. Fish an Iron Blue as a swimming nymph early in a hatch, allowing it to swing deeply and then rise to the surface as would a hatching nymph. Fish it in or just under the surface when trout are bulging. Skues called the Iron Blue Nymph “good medicine for bulgers”, and indeed it is. When casting to sighted fish in clear water, watch closely for a sideways glance, a flick of the tail, and a quick little nip — Skues’ “cunning brown wink”: Then, lift your rod tip, draw in the steel, and quietly say thanks for Skues and his insights. Historic flies yield memorable fish, and Skues’ Iron Blue Nymph one of history’s finest.

Copyright 2025, Rusty Dunn

Iron Blue Nymph

Hackle collars of many North Country flies are quite long and intended to imitate both legs and wings. The hackle of Skues’ Iron Blue, however, is tied intention­ally short, imitating only the legs.