La Fontaine's Emerging Sparkle Pupa

Hook:    Tiemco TMC 100 # 14-16 

Thread:   Brown 8/0 

Body: Green Antron Dubbing 

Bubble: Antron Yarn Green

Wing: Deer Hair Natural

Head: BuggyDub Dark Brown

1/ First off wrap a nice even base of thread starting from near the front of the hook and extending to your first tie in point just above the hook barb. You can see the hanging thread is level with this point in the photo. When you have done this move on to Step 2.
2/ Take your Antron yarn and cut a small section from the roll. Don't cut too much as we want to not over do the bulkiness of the pattern and we want the profile of the body to be obvious through the Antron Bubble/Halo. Cut away any excess fibres and go to the next step.
3/ Dub some Antron dubbing to your thread. I use a green-yellow to suggest a variety of caddis although you can use any colour to match your local bugs. Once you have done this wind a nice even body out of the dubbing rope. Stop at a point about a quarter the length of the hook shank behind the eye to allow the wing and head to be tied in. Remove any excess dubbing and go to Step 4.
4/ Now pull your bubble/halo material (Antron Yarn) forward and over the body you have just dubbed trying to get roughly an equal amount of fibres spread around the hook. Tie this in with 2-3 reasonably tight turns but not yet locking it in place for good. Hopefully you have left enough excess bubble material to play with so that you can get the same effect as the photo on the right.
5/ Select some deer hair fibres and stack them by holding loosely between your thumb and forefingers, and letting them gently fall until the tips evenly settle on your tying bench. Tie this in so that the deer hair extends out over and level with the rear of the fly as shown. Pinch hard when you tie it in so as to not let it spin. The nearest wrap to the body of the fly should be loosest getting tighter as you move forward.
6/ Now for the final part of the fly, the head. Select a small amount of Dark Brown BuggyDub and apply this to the thread. This should be loosely done as we want to roughly imitate the emerging pupa and as anyone who has seen them knows they are all appendages and antennas and we seek to suggest this with the bubble and teased out head.
7/ Wind a nice bulky head. This dubbing is quite shaggy and it is very easy to get that slightly rough look as shown. The head should be slightly bigger towards the body end and tapering a bit as you move forward. When you have done this remove any excess dubbing and add a couple of half hitches to finish it off.

The Pattern

We have already featured a version of this fly previously (Fly 27 Emerging Sparkle Pupa) and thought we had better do the original as well as it is a terrific fly. The material used in this pattern has been widely used in the USA when tying caddis and midge patterns and its sparkle and sheen is quite unique. The main difference to the version we personally tie is that we use a curved hook, darker deer hair for the wing and slightly different material for the halo/bubble. However this is the original tie. Popular right across the world you just have to type in sparkle pupa in your favourite search engine to see for yourself. 

Fishing it!

Simply put, when caddis are hatching in the Goulburn this fly takes some very large bags of fish (of course all are released and we recommend removing the barb too!). Some the of the better afternoons saw up to 25 fish caught with some being very large. However the real highlights were in the evenings when some other local fishers were managing 1-2 fish a night and we were getting upwards on 10. While it isn't about numbers it is about matching the hatch and this fly really does that well.

It can be fished on it's own or with perhaps an elk hair caddis above it. The most important thing is that it is fished dead drift to working fish. Rises can be rather subtle with a small push the only evidence that the thing has been taken. Extensive fishing over the previous seasons with this fly and it's prototypes really have proven that this is one of the deadly dozen that all fly fishers should carry in a couple of sizes at all times.

So take a moment to tie a few and be ready for those times when the fish just won't touch your emerging mayfly patterns. While we all look forward to fishing those much heralded dun hatches as much as anyone it is more often the case that fish in the cold water of the Goulburn are gorging on these helpless 'bugs' trapped just below the surface. Let us know how you go!

Tight Threads

Antony, David and Geoff