Tying Tutorial: March Brown Jig

The March Brown Jig is a good imitation of a March Brown mayfly nymph as the name suggests, but we fish this fly year round for heavily pressured fish that have seen hundreds of traditional Hare’s Ears and Pheasant Tails. It’s essentially a simplified Hare’s Ear color variant that you can crank out by the dozen in a half hour. We didn’t invent this fly – Fulling Mill mass produces this pattern in size 12 and 14, and we sell it here in the shop for those of you that don’t tie.

The advantage of tying this fly over buying it, as with any fly, is that you can fine tune weight, hook size, and coloration. I’ll tie these as small as a 16 and as large as a 12 and will do silver or red beads instead of the standard copper sometimes. A thread hot spot behind the bead is also a great modification to the original pattern.

Materials:

• Hook: Hanak Jig Superb size 14
• Bead: Hanak Slotted Tungsten Bead 3.0mm Copper
• Tail: Mallard Flank Feather, but Partridge will also work.
• Body: Any Dark Hare’s Ear colored Hare’s Ear dub, I prefer the kinds blended with antron like Hare’s Ear Plus from Hareline. You can also spin the dubbing in a loop instead of using a dubbing noodle for a buggier effect on the pattern.
• Soft Hackle: Partridge – ideally the darker of the variegated feathers from a full cape.
• Thread: Your choice, I prefer Ultra Thread 70 denier or Veevus 8/0 in tan, burnt orange, or brown.