Built for Water That Punishes Guesswork
Tailwaters fish nothing like freestones. The flow is cold, clear and metered by a dam instead of the weather, the bugs run small and consistent year-round, and the trout have seen every pattern in your box twice. Success comes down to a narrow band of scuds, sow bugs, worms and midges — fished small, fished precisely, and fished deep.
This assortment is built for exactly that. Thirty-six flies across twelve proven tailwater patterns, spanning the four food groups that carry a tailwater trout through the year: scuds for the weed-bed crustaceans that never stop being available, sow bug imitations in the Ray Charles mold, worms for high or off-color releases, and midges and small mayfly nymphs for the technical days when nothing else gets eaten. Sizes run 8 through 20 so you can go big when the dam is pushing water and drop to a #20 Black Beauty when the flow settles and the fish get selective.
Every fly is seated in the JHFLYCO Slim Magnetic Fly Box — the right box for this job. Magnetic bases hold #18 and #20 midges securely without the hook-bending and hackle-crushing that slit foam inflicts on tiny flies, and the slim profile drops into a chest pack or wader pocket without bulk.
Included Patterns
3 of each pattern – 36 flies total
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Scud – Orange (#14): The color a scud turns when it is dead, dying or gravid — and the one trout single out. A reliable attractor in tailwater weed beds year-round.
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Scud – Pink (#16): The same silhouette in a softer, fleshier tone. When the orange gets refused after a few fish, pink resets the drift.
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Flashback Scud – Olive (#16): The natural olive of a live scud with a flashback shellback for a little extra signal in moving water. The everyday scud.
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Beadhead Soft Hackle Flash Pheasant Tail (#18): The most versatile mayfly nymph in fly fishing, with a soft hackle collar that breathes like an emerging insect. Fish it on the swing or under an indicator.
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Sparkle Worm – Purple (#14): An aquatic worm with a purple sparkle body — the color that keeps producing on tailwaters long after natural reds get ignored.
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Double Bead Ultra Worm – Red (#10): Two beads to get it to the bottom fast in heavy dam release. When the flow comes up, this is the first fly on the point.
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San Juan Wire Worm – Red (#8): The tailwater standard, wire-bodied for weight and durability. Named for a tailwater, and there is a reason.
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Tungsten Bead Duracell Jig – Coppertop (#16): A tungsten jig that rides hook-point-up and sinks like a stone — the pattern for tight-line nymphing deep tailwater runs.
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Hot Head Ray Charles – Orange (#16): The Bighorn sow bug that changed tailwater fishing, with a hot orange head for a trigger point. If a tailwater holds sow bugs, this catches fish.
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Hot Head Ray Charles – Pink (#18): The smaller, softer-toned version for low, clear water and pressured fish. The follow-up when the orange stops working.
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Black Beauty (#20): The definitive tailwater midge pupa — slim black thread body, fine wire rib. On a cold, flat winter tailwater this is often the only fly that gets eaten.
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Henderson’s Master Baetis – Black (#18): A small dark baetis emerger for the Blue-Winged Olive windows that tailwaters produce reliably in spring and fall.
Features
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JHFLYCO Slim Magnetic Fly Box Included – Magnetic bases hold #18 and #20 flies securely — no crushed hackle, no bent hooks, no lost midges
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Four Food Groups Covered – Scuds, sow bugs, worms, and midge and mayfly nymphs — the complete tailwater subsurface menu
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Full Size Range – #8 through #20, so you can match a heavy release or a flat, low, technical afternoon
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Year-Round Patterns – Tailwater bugs do not follow the calendar the way freestone hatches do — this box fishes in January and July alike
Why Choose the JHFLYCO Loaded Tailwater Nymph Assortment?
Tailwaters are the best cold-water fisheries in the country and the least forgiving. Constant temperature and constant flow grow big fish in dense numbers, and then those fish get looked at by every angler in the region. What separates a good tailwater day from a blank one is rarely presentation talent — it is having the right small fly, in the right color, at the right depth, before the fish loses interest.
This box removes the guesswork. Instead of assembling twelve patterns across a dozen product pages, you get a curated, water-specific arsenal in a box built to protect small flies, ready to fish the next time the dam comes on.
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