I’ve been tying and fishing a black hopper for years and it has been a good fly for me on still water. A basic pattern, just a silver ribbed black body, some legs and a black hackle. I guess many of you have the same fly in your own box and like me find it good when duckfly or hawthorns are about. While not really unhappy with the basic pattern I decided to jazz it up a bit.
The first thing I changed was the hook. Normally I use a standard shank wet fly hook such as the Kamasan B170 or B175. For this pattern though I opted for the curved B110 (you could use the lighter B100 if desired). 8/0 black tying silk is fine and you start the silk behind the eye and run down the shank in the usual manner to create a bed of silk. Catch in a length of fine holographic silver tinsel and some black floss silk which will be used for the body. Take the tying silk far round the bend so the body will have a nice curved shape to it, then run the silk back to within a couple of millimetres of the eye. Create a body by winding the floss up the shank in touching turns then rib it with the tinsel.
For the legs I use double knotted cock pheasant tail fibres which have been dyed black. Tie in three on the far side of the hook then another three on the side facing you. The legs should be positioned so they are slightly below the shank and I tie them fairly long. Next, catch in two strands of pearl krinkle flash on top of the hook, trimming them short. Now for the wing and this can be either grey polyester or natural CDC. Again, I like to keep the wing short, it just looks more natural to me that way. I finish off the fly with three turns of a soft black cock hackle in front of the wing and a whip finish before varnishing the head.
What I particularly like about this fly is its versatility. It fishes in any position on the leader and is really good in tricky conditions when there is not much wind. Colours can of course be varied as required while retaining the basic method of construction.
Claretbumbler 