Olive Perdigon 11/08/2025 Photo Album

The olive perdigon is a relatively new addition to my fly box, but what a weapon it has become! Two years ago I possessed none, and I just finished building my supply from thirteen to thirty for the 2026 season. How did this happen?

On 10/03/2023 my friend, Dave G., invited me to join him on a private stretch of the Eagle River. Within the first hour, Dave G. was landing nice fish after nice fish, and I managed a couple dinks. I asked to borrow one of his productive flies, and it happened to be an olive perdigon with a tungsten copper-colored bead. My fortunes reversed, and I experienced a twelve fish day that included some very respectable fish.

Fast forward to the spring of 2025, and for some reason I began to experiment with the olive perdigon. I tied around ten of them over the winter of 2024-2025, and I was amazed with their productivity in the early season. They produced quantities of fish on all the Colorado rivers that I visited prior to run off. Their fish catching ability faded a bit in the post run off time frame, but when I returned to the large river valleys in the fall, their effectiveness resumed.

Side View

I attribute much of their success to the tungsten bead, I theorize that the very dense bead sinks the fly rapidly to the bottom of the river and provides a longer drift within the feeding range of the trout. When I combine it with another nymph in a three fly dry/dropper, it also sinks the paired nymph to the eye level of the trout. Although the density of the nymph is a positive for achieving long deep drifts, it also offers the disadvantage of snagging more frequently, and consequently I lost quite a few flies. The beads are quite a bit more expensive than the typical brass bead, so each lost fly is mourned by this frugal angler. The loss of flies forced me to approach my vise to tie additional perdigons during the fishing season; a task I normally try to avoid.

Opposite Side

The olive perdigon has climbed from absent to a top five mainstay in my fly box. I tie an olive perdigon to my line more frequently than my revered hares ear nymphs and salvation nymphs, so that is saying something. Given this new status as the top dog of my fly inventory, I kicked off my fly tying season yesterday by augmenting my olive perdigon supply. I counted thirteen among my fly boxes, and I decided to target a starting inventory of thirty. I can report that seventeen flies were added to my count.

Although more expensive than most nymphs due to the cost of the tungsten bead, these flies are relatively straightforward to tie. All that is required is a copper colored slotted tungsten bead, a jig hook, medium olive thread, spade hackles from a rooster neck, a black permanent marker, and UV resin and lamp.

Thread, Feather and Finished Product

Place the bead on the hook with the slot facing upward and toward the rear. Start your thread behind the bead and make tight wraps to lock the bead in place on the angled portion of the jig hook. Wrap the thread to the rear and then wrap forward to one hook eye behind the bead. Tie in six barbules from the grizzly feather to form a tail approximately three-fourths of the length of the hook shank and then wrap the thread to the bend. Wrap the thread forward to the bead and snip off the ends of the hackle. Now repeatedly wrap the thread to the rear and back to the bead to form a nice tapered body. Once you create the taper that flows nicely into the bead without leaving a gap, whip finish and cut off the thread. Grab your permanent black marker and carefully place a black spot on top of the body, where it meets the bead and then on the top of the bead. Get out your UV resin and apply a coat to the point where the bead meets the body of the fly and then coat and cover the entire thread body. Try to make the UV resin at the junction a bit thicker than the body coat. Fire up your lamp and cure the resin. You now have a new sleek olive perdigon.

Hopefully thirty will suffice for the 2026 season. If not, it probably means that the olive perdigon demanded a lot of time on my line, and running out and having to tie more in season is a good problem to have.