If you want to tie a very basic Hare’s Ear Nymph, follow the directions here. If I had to label it, it’s kind of a dressed-up Walt’s Worm. If you tie one up you will get something that looks like this: And you will, no doubt, find some fish for whom that’s good enough.

But if the fish aren’t satisfied or if you are tired of tying the basic pattern what else can you do without buying more materials?

Color

The easiest change to make is color. Tie them up in dark, mid and light.

Natural, olive and black.

Tails

There are a couple three materials you can use to put tails on your nymphs.

From left to right- hen hackle, indicator material or pheasant tail.

Rib

Small ultra wire works as well as krystal flash.

Black and gold wire on the left, krystal flash on the right.

Thorax

Add a thorax detail by using peacock herl, a contrasting color of dubbing or use pheasant tail to add a wing case.

Dub, herl and wing case respectively. What a crap photo

Hackle

Level up by using hen hackle to give it an even buggier look.

Mit and mit-out

My statistics are a little rusty, but my HP 12C tells me there’s about 800 combinations you can tie here just with the material you’ve got. Go nuts (yarrr).