This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Rosborough Dark Stone Nymph.
I found the fly on display at the International Federation of Fly Fishers Museum in Livingston, MT and took this picture of the Rosborough Dark Stone Nymph through the glass display in a dark room. I think it turned out quite well. It was one of several flies in the collection of Polly Rosborugh. It’s is one of several flies in a display entitled Polly’s Proven Killers.
Polly lived in Chiloquin, Oregon and his home river was the Williamson River.
Ernest H. “Polly” Rosborough (1902 – 1997) tied a large variety of flies but is probably best known as an author of Tying and Fishing the Fuzzy Nymph (1965).
Here are a few more TBT Rosborough flies – the Dark Caddis, a Grasshopper, Spruce Peacock and the Casual Dress.
| Materials | |
| Hook: | Eagle Claw 1206 (3X long), Nos. 2-6 |
| Thread: | Tan |
| Tail: | Two fibers of dyed dark brown ringneck pheasant quill. |
| Body: | Dubbed cream badger fur; paint the back of body with a dark brown enamel; apply color down to the middle of the sides; work the enamel well into the fur so the fuzzy effect is not destroyed. |
| Legs: | Dyed dark brown ringneck pheasant quill fibers tied in at throat. |
| Wingcase: | Pheasant church window feather dyed dark brown |
Fly pattern page 122 of The Complete Book of Western Hatches, by Rick Hafele and Dave Hughes
Here is additional information from the authors:
“This pattern is very similar in style of Rosborough’s Golden Stone. It is shaped by the same rivers. Polly mentions adding weight to the fly only to keep it from breaking the surface at the end of a drift, not to sink to the bottom. Like the Golden Stone pattern, he fishes it on a cross-stream swing after letting it sink a few inches.”
Enjoy…go fish!
