Klinkhammer

What it is

Hans van Klinken's emerger, tied for grayling on Norwegian rivers and adopted by trout anglers everywhere. Its idea is simple: an insect leaving its shuck is the easiest meal a trout gets, so put the body of the fly where the emerging insect is, under the surface, and keep only the post and hackle on top. It fishes anywhere fish are sipping rather than splashing: the slow glides of a tableland river, a Tasmanian lake edge on a still evening, a Victorian stream in the evening rise, a shaded tailwater pool.

Anatomy

The hook does half the work: a curved, light-wire emerger hook whose bend drops the rear of the fly through the surface. From the bend forward: a slim abdomen of dubbing or stripped quill along the curve, sometimes ribbed. A thorax of peacock herl or dark dubbing at the top of the curve, the only part that sits in the film. An upright post of white or bright polypropylene yarn, and a parachute hackle wound horizontally around the base of the post so the barbs lie flat on the water. A small thread head in front of the post.

Key features

• The body hangs. The curved hook puts the abdomen an inch under the surface, which is the posture of a real emerger and the thing a fully dressed dry cannot do.
• The parachute hackle. Wound flat, it supports the fly on the film like a floating platform rather than propping it up on points, so the fly sits low and moves with the water.
• The post is the indicator. A white or orange post shows the angler where a nearly submerged fly is; the fish, looking up from beneath, sees only the hackle footprint and the body.
• It lands soft. Light wire and little material make it the dry to show a trout that has refused everything with a splash.

Typical materials

Fishing it

Treat the post as the indicator and the body as the fly. Grease the post and the hackle only; the abdomen should hang under the surface, which is the entire point. If the whole fly is riding high it is just an odd-looking dry, and the fish that refused your Adams will refuse it too.

Cast it to a rising fish, not to empty water. Put it a metre above the rise and let it drift through without a twitch. A fish taking emergers is taking them because they cannot get away, and any movement breaks that. Size it to the naturals and err small: a 14 covers most Australian stream hatches, a 16 or 18 when the fish are on midge or small caddis.

In slow, shaded pools a small Klinkhammer over a bead-head Pheasant Tail is the gentlest dry-dropper there is. This guide's own experience is that it fools wary browns sitting low in the film once they are looking up but will not commit to a fully dressed dry.