King Wedgewing

It’s amazing that after centuries of creative fly tying, most mayfly dun imitations look nothing like the natural. Mayflies have skinny, tapered bodies and a sailboat wing that angles back, in line with the body, like a wedge. It took Jonny King two decades a fiddling, fussing and frustration to figure out how to create that exact wedgewing profile using staple tying materials, like hackle, synthetic yarn and CDC, in a unique construction. The Wedgewing is so close to the natural that you may have trouble distinguishing your fly from the real BWOs and PMDs that float alongside it, but the trout consistently pick it out. Recent conquests include some outsized bankfeeders on the Delaware that refused dozens of other patterns, and sneaky sippers that ignored other mayfly imitations on western tailwaters.