Back in August, when Stan first told me these were called Bip-Bop Nymphs, I assumed he’d been on the Calvados.
He hadn’t.
Stan Freyheit is a friend and tyer I trust completely, and this is his latest fly design - specifically for Grayling (but unexpectedly works really well for Stillwater Rainbows).
The name's daft. The flies are not.
I'll get straight to it, as we only have a few of these selections available - 30 to be precise - I've kept a few back for myself, they're that good:
Every one has a shimmering pink opalescent body topped off with an ultra-durable 2.4 mm premium glass bead.
They’re tied on Size 16 Dohiku HDG645 barbless hooks with a carefully selected dubbing mix.
What you’re getting for your £36 - Our French Grayling / Bip-Bop Nymph Selection contains 18 nymphs, two each of nine different colours.
Why This Pattern, And Why Now?
Late autumn and winter are when Grayling go on the feed, and this style of nymph does well then. Rig one up with a length of Indicator Tippet, trundle one along the riverbed and hang on.
How To Fish Them
Rivers: Fish one as a dropper in any nymphing setup. They’re also great for sight nymphing in slower flows.
Stillwaters: Don’t overlook them for rainbows. A figure-of-eight retrieve on a floating line keeps them moving naturally.
One honest caveat. They’re flashy, and they’re made for Grayling (and stillwater rainbows). On spooky wild brown trout they may be a bit too bold, so I’d keep them for the Grayling and not be disappointed when a wary brownie sulks.
They're brilliant as a dropper in any nymph setup, the coloured beads make it easy for sight nymphing when the flow's slowed down enough to see what's happening, and on stillwaters a slow figure-of-eight retrieve on a floating line brings them to life.
Our Stan's French Bip-Bop Grayling Nymph Selection gives you two of each of nine colours (18 Bip-Bop's in total), so you're covered for whatever the water's throwing at you on the day. The colour combinations included in our selection are (images of each are shown throughout this email):
- Blush Pink
- Copper
- Kumquat Orange
- Mint Green
- Pearl White
- Proper Pink
- Pure Gold* (*it's not real gold!)
- Simply Black
- Sterling Silver
Stan’s flies are tied to a standard most of us can only dream about, and these are no different. They’re consistent, durable and clean in profile. The photos show each fly in a group of three, but they’re only available in a selection which contains 2 of each bead colour, what you see is a guide, not a count!
Click on any image or button to view these French Grayling / Bip-Bop Nymphs.
Each of our Stan's Bip-Bop Grsyling Nymph Selection contains 2 each of Stan's 9 different Bip-Bop's (18 in total), all tied on a size 16 Dohiku barbless hooks. We are supplying these selections in 2 different formats - either 'flies only' or a Boxed Selection (in one of our specialist slimline silicone nymph boxes) for an additional £10.
Or
*** Go on, you know you want to ***
Thanks for all of your positive comments about our new Flyfish Intel site, it seems like I wasn't wasting my time developing it!
For those of you who missed the launch over the weekend, it's free and you can put it through its paces here:
I've taken all of the feedback on board and made some slight tweaks, to make it much more accessible from a mobile device. If you do get the chance to use it this week, I'd still love your feedback.
For those of you who want to know a little more about how to use it, please click here.
If you’ve got a Grayling river on your doorstep, this is the time to be on it. With nine colours, you can work through the box until the fish tell you which one they want.
TIght lines.
P.S. Pure Gold, I should say again, is not real gold. I checked, and so should you before you start budgeting for them!
