The fly box · No. 08 of 36
Griffith’s Gnat
A cluster of midges, or a single midge struggling in the film.
- Kind
- Dry
- Hook sizes
- 18–22
- Season
- Spring, autumn, winter
- For
- Trout and grayling
- At the vice
- An easy tie
The dressing
| Hook | Fine-wire dry fly, barbless or barb flattened, sizes 18–22 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Black, 8/0 (70 denier) or finer |
| Tail | None |
| Body | One or two strands of peacock herl |
| Rib | None in the standard dressing; fine gold wire counter-wound over the hackle if you want it tougher |
| Hackle | Grizzly cock, palmered along the whole body in open turns |
| Wing | None |
Tying it
- Lay a thread base to the bend.
- Tie in a small grizzly hackle by its tip, then the peacock herl.
- Twist the herl around the thread and wind it forward to form the body.
- Palmer the hackle forward over the herl in four or five open turns.
- Tie off, form a tiny head and whip finish.
- If you like, trim the fibres flat underneath so the fly sits lower.
Fishing it
Look for it to work on calm, mild days from late autumn to early spring, when fish sip in the slack water beside a current and nothing visible is on the surface. Use 7X (0.10 mm) and a long leader, and cast to one fish at a time. The fly is hard to see; watch the area where it landed and tighten gently to any rise there. No movement, and be patient between casts.
Where it comes from
The fly carries the name of George Griffith, the Michigan angler at whose home on the Au Sable Trout Unlimited was founded in 1959. Whether he devised it himself is less certain than the name suggests. It is only peacock herl and a grizzly hackle, yet the tangle of fibres reads to a fish as several tiny midges knotted together.