Murray’s Strymphs – The crossbreed of Nymph and Streamer | Murray’s Fly Shop

Murray’s Strymph and how it came to be. Hitting the stream shortly after daylight, I decided to fish a heavy riffle that I knew held lots of sculpin minnows. Casting across and downstream, I took a fair number of fish with conventional streamer tactics.

After covering the riffle, I had only about a half an hour left before I had to get to work. This wasn’t enough time to go anywhere else, so I decided to fish the lower part of the pool running into the riffle. This was not one of those shallow, fast tails. The water ran from waist- to chest-deep and was fairly slow—typical dragonfly nymph water. Using the same fly, I fished this water up and across stream, working the fly along the bottom with a darting action much the way real dragonflies move. This water also yielded some nice smallmouth.

The fly? A Murray’s Black Strymph. How could the same fly pass for a sculpin in the riffle and a dragonfly nymph in the slow water? Because it has the suggestive look of, and can be made to fish like, both of these food forms.

The Murray’s Strymphs were the outcome of several years of trial-and-error fishing. I wanted a fly which would pass for both the streamer and the nymph, and would cover a variety of needs.

Developing the Strymph Pattern

To arrive at a workable fly pattern I adapted a system from Vince Marinaro, who had recently developed his “game of nods” for devising flies for the fussy brown trout on the Letort. In his attempt to develop flies when existing patterns were inadequate, Vince would fish several slightly different flies over fish he could see. The selective fish would come up to investigate the flies but refuse to take them. The number of “look-rises” each pattern received were counted as positive nods. In order to develop a workable pattern Vince would take parts from the flies receiving the greatest number of nods and incorporate them into one fly.

I did somewhat the same thing. I selected about a dozen of our best streamers and a dozen of our best nymphs and started interchanging various parts as I tied them. Since I was unable to watch the smallmouth’s reactions to the various test flies, I decided to fish each one an equal amount of time on water of equal quality. I kept records of the number of fish caught on each test fly.

For several seasons I continued to cross streamers and nymphs. Some of the flies were very unusual in appearance but caught a fair number of fish. Others looked great but caught nothing. This testing was a lot of fun and a real eye-opener on the preferences of smallmouth.

Strymph
The bass voted for the components used in constructing this unusual fly. It is very effective when fished as either a streamer or a nymph.

The winner, by a considerable margin, was a pattern utilizing the body style of Shenk’s Streamers and the tail of Murray’s Hellgrammite.

The chewy fur body of Shenk’s Streamers proved every bit as productive from a nymph point of view as it had always been on his Shenk’s White Streamer and Shenk’s Black Sculpin. The ostrich herl, when used as a streamer wing or tail, did the job as well here as it had on my Hellgrammite for the past fifteen years.

The Black Strymph

The Murray’s Black Strymph was the original pattern. When fished as a nymph, it took bass in waters which contained natural hellgrammites, dark stonefly nymphs, and dragonfly nymphs. When fished as a streamer in waters where mad toms, sculpins, and tadpoles lived, it was outstanding—being on par with the best of these patterns.

Admittedly, the Black Strymph is only mildly suggestive in appearance of these specific food forms, but it can be fished like them convincingly.

The Cream Strymph

Since I was striving to imitate a broad variety of minnows and nymphs, I decided to try the same style of tie in a cream color and thus our Murray’s Cream Strymph came into being. This proved very effective in and below riffles where chub minnows were located. Fishing it down and across stream, it was about equal with Shenk’s White Streamer. This was predictable since the body and overall shape are so similar. However, one feature enabled it to become one of the best flies of all times for fishing it as a minnow imitation upstream with the bounce retrieve.

When ostrich herl gets wet, the strong stem fibers have a great affinity for each other. This enables the tail of this fly to wiggle as one solid unit if the current above it suddenly pushes it faster than the retrieve. For this reason, I use it more and more when I want to fish upstream in the fast water from just below a riffle on up into the riffle itself.

In addition to mistaking it for a chub in these fast-water areas, the smallmouth may think it is a cranefly or caddis larva or a large mayfly nymph, which also make their homes here.

The Olive Strymph

This pattern is also outstanding in trout spring creeks where these two nymphs are found—but that’s another story. I’ll only mention that, several weeks after teaching the tying of this fly in one of my classes, one of the students landed two rainbows over five pounds in one day on a spring creek.

The Olive Murray’s Strymph was added to further broaden the potential areas in which this pattern could be used. This is one of the most productive flies in areas where damselflies and dragonflies are found. Its capacity for being fished either upstream or down with equal efficiency simplifies the decision on the best way to approach areas holding these nymphs—you can suit yourself.

This olive pattern works well as a streamer where shiner minnows are found. Normally we tie this fly weighted, so naturally it would not work well in the shallows when the bass are chasing minnows. However, it does a good job when fished right where these shallow sections of the river meet deeper water.

Bass are accustomed to feeding on shiners here as they stray too far from home. Stay out in the river and fish the Olive Strymph across a gravel bar out into the deeper water with a medium stripping action.

Some sculpin minnows have a definite olive color, so we are not out of line when using this fly in faster water areas where they make their homes. For whatever reason, the Olive Strymph has become one of the most popular patterns I sell.

Fishing the Strymph

Many years ago after doing a slide show on smallmouth for the Federation of Fly Fishers National Conclave, I heard lots of good stories about the Strymphs. Anglers from all across the country came up to tell me of the outstanding success they had had with these flies in various conditions.

Still, I do not see this as a fly to replace all other smallmouth flies. There never will be such a fly. Even if there were, it would take a lot of the fun out of this game.

The most productive sizes for the Strymph are 4 through 8 in all three colors. When tying your own Strymphs, you can expand their versatility by varying the amount of lead placed under the body. Tie some without added weight for fishing the shallows, or add extra lead when you want the fly to get down and fish along the bottom. We have also provided tying instructions for the Murray’s Strymph so you can tie this versatile fly yourself.

Strymph and Food Matching Chart

Read our part one of our three part article – Fly Fishing with Nymphs for Smallmouth Bass Part I

Want to brush broaden your knowledge of Fly Fishing for Smallmouth Bass in Virginia? Check out our article “Smallmouth Bass Fly Fishing in May: Virginia & Mid-Atlantic Rivers” and “Hellgrammites for Smallmouth Bass in the Mid-Atlantic“