The Montana is a medium/big size nymph with excellent “stimulating” qualities, useful during our first attempts to induce an apathetic fish to take our fly. This artificial has a strong alluring power because appears analogous to various aquatic invertebrates: it can be confused by the trout for a young stonefly with dark colours, or for a leech or also for a dragonfly nymph. What I consider of this fly really irresistible for the fish is the particular combination of colours of the materials used for building its body, which helps the nymph to be well visible even in turbid waters and in any light condition, without to be too flashy and frightening also for the shiest trout.

INSTRUCTIONS

I start to build the Montana by inserting the hook into the vice jay and then winding, in narrow coils, a piece of fine lead wire along its shank

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I secure the black thread to the hook and I use it to cover partially the lead turns. Next I bind in two or three tips of black hackles on the hook bend: these hackles represent the fly tails and they have to extend backwards nearly half the length of the hook shank

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On the fixing point of the tails, I add the end of an black chenille length

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Turning the chenille around the two rear thirds of the hook shank, I realise the abdomen. The chenille surplus is not cut, but stopped on the upper part of the hook: in this way it will be used during the next steps to create the elytrums

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On the side of the chenille surplus, I fix two more pieces of chenille, the first black and the second yellow, and the tip of a small black cock hackle

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Wrapping the yellow chenille around the hook section interposed between the abdomen and the eye, I create the thorax, along which I wind, in wide turns, the black hackle

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I cut off the waste end of the hackle, separate the feather fibres at the top and, with the left hand fingers, I pull them down and back. Then I push the two lengths of black chenille forwards, placing them to cover the upper part of the thorax, and I secure them just behind the hook eye

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I realise the fly head with a few turns of the black thread, which is finished with a whip-finish and a drop of clear glue

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My showy nymph can be now introduced in the fly box, ready to be used for tempting a trout sensible to wealthy and stimulant “preys”

MATERIALS LIST

HOOK: long shank size14 to 8
BALLAST (optional): fine lead wire
THREAD: black
TAILS: two or three hackle tips from black cock neck
ABDOMEN AND ELYTRUMS: black chenille
THORAX: yellow chenille
HACKLE: from a black cock neck