This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Prime Gnat, another fly from the Ray Bergman collection.
I’ve featured flies that Dan Bailey tied the last few weeks for my Throw Back Thursday Flies and I thought it was time to return to a Ray Bergman fly.
For some reason, I just like the elegance and simplicity of a Bergman wet fly. You can find the Prime Gnat wet fly on Plate No. 7, page 169 of Bergman’s book entitled Trout (1940 – fourth printing).
If you are a regular at RiverKeeper Flies, you recall Bergman’s book includes colored plates to illustrate the dry and wet flies with a description of each fly in the back. It was the first book to provide color fly illustrations.
Here are a few other Ray Bergman flies I’ve included as Throw Back Thursday Flies: the Arthur Hoyt, the Babcock, the Blue Bottle, the Bostwick, the Bouncer, the Brown Turkey, the Chantry, the Darling, the Mark Lain, the Mrs. Haase, the Rio Grande King, the Loyal Sock, the Silver Stork, the Walla-Walla, the Whirling Dun, and the Wilson Ant. (An easy method of finding all of them is to click on the words “Ray Bergman Flies” under CATEGORIES in the right-hand column on this page.)
The Prime Gnat
| Tail: | Black |
| Tip: | Orange Floss or Wool |
| Body: | Black Ostrich Herl |
| Hackle: | Black |
| Wing: | Black |
Fly pattern as listed in Trout (1940 – fourth printing). This fly was tied on an older Mustad 3906 hook, size 10.
Enjoy…go fish!
