Black Copper John

These are the only patterns on my site that I haven’t designed (although I am tying them myself). These patterns of John Barr design are a great attractor nymph to use with my other patterns in a 2-fly nymphing system. Use these as an attractor in conjunction with any of my Lunar or Mayfly nymph series patterns, particularly on freestone streams. In spring-creek type tailwaters, use my Scud or Worm as the attractor and try the Copper John as the trailing fly in smaller sizes.

Remember that these sink quickly with the brass beadhead and the weighted underbody. Note too that I�ve gone back to John’s original peacock thorax because I can maintain durability with the thread intertwined throughout the peacock (most patterns you see today have replaced the fish-catching peacock with a dubbed material).

Note on Hook sizing: For the Coppers, I use a Tiemco 1x long, heavy wire nymph hook (#3761). This produces a fly roughly equivalent in overall size to a std dry fly hook.