For hundreds of years, fly tiers have spent their creative juices attempting to invent fly patterns that will consistently catch trout. Many of these creations were complicated to tie and no more effective than the flies which preceded them. But occasionally a pattern evolves that is both easy to tie and a great trout catching tool. And that is an appropriate description of the Walt’s Worm.

I must confess to being a little biased towards this fly. The Walt’s Worm was invented by my good friend, and editor of Pennsylvania Outdoor Times Magazine, Walt Young. Walt is one of the best nymph fishermen and fly tiers I know. He perfected his craft along the fertile Central Pa limestoners—the waters of Wetzel, Bashline, Harvey, and Meck. These chalky streams continue to be famous for their great trout fishing today. And though Walt doesn’t trout fish as much as he used to—an addiction to bass fishing from his kayak on the Juniata River has deeply infected him—his simple fly pattern can be found in nearly every fly box in the region. If it isn’t in yours, it should be.

The Walt’s worm is a basic, nondescript fly pattern (like the pheasant tail and Hare’s Ear) that doesn’t really imitate anything exactly. But it looks close enough to several important trout foods for fish to regularly eat it. The flies are traditionally tied cigar-shaped with tan or grey dubbing (olive and green work well too), creating an excellent crane fly larva imitation. But if you taper the pattern from the hook-bend to the eye, it looks like a caddis larva. Or tie one on a scud hook and brush-out some of the fibers on the fly’s underside to form a great sow bug imitation. If you’re fishing high, off-colored water and want the fly to have some fish-attracting flash, put a bead on it. But during bright, sunny days, or during low water periods, use a little lead wired as an underbody to help the fly sink.

The dubbing used to tie a Walt’s Worm is very important. Some anglers use whatever dubbing they have lying on top of their desk to tie the flies. But a Walt’s Worm works best if Hare’s Ear Plus dubbing is used (a Hareline product) for its body. Hare’s Ear Plus dubbing is simply a mixture of dyed rabbit fur and ground Antron. The Antron gives some subtle flash to the fly and makes it come alive in the water.

Walt originally tied the flies by using two courses of dubbing, one going from the hook-eye to the bend and another from the bend back to the hook-eye. But most tiers today simply dub the body from the bend to the eye, just like any other dubbed body.
One of nymph fishing’s greatest tenants is that you must fish your flies on the stream bottom if you want to consistently catch fish. And if you heed that rule, you’re going to lose a lot of flies to subsurface rocks and debris. So why not use a fly that is quick, easy, and cheap to tie, and one that the fish love? Tie and fish some Walt’s Worms and you’ll quickly learn to love them too.