Prince Nymph

 ~By: Lance Dean | May 5th, 2024

Prince Nymph

M

y first Pyramid Lake Lahontan Cutthroat Trout was caught on a Price Nymph. It was a fly that I didn’t tie but received as some sort of promotional offer from one of the big fly-fishing magazine during the late 1990s. I can’t even remember which magazine it came from; I just remember sending the mail-in card and then receiving a wallet of popular Nymphs from whatever magazine it was. 

During early to mid 2000s my dad moved to Reno, NV and I traveled from the other side of the state to go fishing with him for my birthday. During the weekend we fished the Truckee River and couldn't even catch a weed. It was pretty discouraging. After getting skunked, we looked for any other place to fish and then came across a large lake where you fished from ladders or milk crates. At the time it was still legal to fish from milk crates at Pyramid Lake – this has since changed. We discovered through our quick research that the lake belonged to a reservation, and it supposedly housed some massive trout. So, we did what any straight-thinking Fisherman would do and gathered a ladder and a milk crate, bought the correct fishing permits and headed out to the Lake. It was mine and my dad’s first introduction to Pyramid Lake. The wind was somewhat high causing the waves to crash into me. The choppy waves desperately wanted to crawl up my waders to the perfect spot below my arms where they’d be able to start filling them up with the ice-cold water of Pyramid Lake. I could almost hear them say “Blast the stupid milk crate, it’s the only thing keeping us from filling up Lance’s waders and soaking him.”

Pyramid Lake

While fighting the waves and the ice-cold water at the “Nets” we ran into an individual who gave a couple of newbie Pyramid Lake Fly Fishers a few pointers and made the fly suggestion of the Prince Nymph to entice these beautiful fish. Lucky for us we were already familiar with the Price Nymph and happen to have a few with us. I pulled out the promotional fly wallet that sat in my vest, opened it and tied on a beaded, peacock covered fly that not only had two white biots growing out of its back, but it also had a band of red thread that sat behind it’s bead to giving it a hot-spot. It wasn’t long after casting the Prince Nymph to what I hoped where hungry fish that it was fish on! These Lahontan Cutthroats weren’t anywhere near the massive size of the fish I had heard from the “stories” we heard at the lodge, but they were still fun to catch. 

The Prince Nymph is a considered a classic fly pattern and is pretty easy to tie. It can be tied with or without a hot spot. The one I demonstrate below has a red hot spot behind the bead just as the one I used on the enjoyable afternoon fishing with my Dad at Pyramid Lake. The most difficult part of the part of tying the Prince nymph in my opinion is tying in the goose biot horns. It took me tying few flies to get comfortable tying them in and finding the best technique to tie them in that worked for me.  

The Prince Nymph is an effective pattern that belongs in any fly box. Go get yourself the materials below and tie some up for your next outing!

VIDEO: