The guy I first talked to about it said it was very effective in still water situations but worked well also in river. He said he took 18 of them with him on his trip to SA and everyone in camp begged for one. Said he came back with none, LOL.

Several places I want to try them...including my ponds where I believe it would be highly effective "dead sticked" under an indicator for spring bass.

My experience was that I was catching crappie on a small clouser, but after a few fish they got really timid, to the point where I couldn�t keep the clouser in the right zone long enough to hook up. Suspending the balanced leech below an indicator let me hold the fly in place long enough that I started hooking fish again. And the action from just the surface ripples gives it just a little movement, which could be important.

In that case a bugger would have probably also worked, to be fair.

The balanced leech and a bead or cone head bugger definitely swim or suspend differently. I haven�t yet fished the Balanced leeches I�ve tied under an indicator, but I have let them suspend stationary. They do sit more or less horizontal depending on the placement and size of the bead. A bugger does not.

The leeches definitely resist popping nose up on the strip. No doubt they present differently to a fish from a similarly weighted bugger either suspended or on the strip and fall.

I went out at lunch yesterday and caught five nice Crappie in short order from a small circle in 2-4 feet of water. This circle was 40-45 feet from the dock I was on and the fish never got shy, I missed a few, I ran out of time and left them biting. As long as the leech works like that, I�m not ever going to put it under an indicator.

Ordered jig hooks and dressmaker pins. Hoping I can use a few "craft" beads to get it balanced. I know tungsten is a lot denser...I'm just cheap.

The dressmaker pins are too easy to bend for me. #18 x 5/8 sswire brad works great and is only $2 for a box of 100.

I�m using the #20 dressmaker, heavier than the 17# pins. So far so good, no bends with the bass and Crappie. I cut off about 1/4� of the pin.

Tungsten isn�t cheap, but it sure works well. Depending on which ones you get, they run 25-35 cents per bead. Might be cheaper shopping around, but a lot of the bargain beads supposedly have a lot more steel and a lot less tungsten. The almost pure tungsten beads sink 3 times faster in water than an equal weight of lead. Makes for a nicer and an easier fly to cast, with less weight needed to get the sink rate you want. The 1/8� tungsten bead does a nice job balancing the size #4 daiichi jig 90 degree hooks. Those daiichi jig hooks run light and small.

The same size tungsten bead as a lead bead would sink 3 times faster. Surely if they are both the same weight this will not happen. Thanks for the post the fly remains interesting but I mostly fish ponds with lots of weed. This would be a weed attractor.

Saw one vid where the guy was wrapping the pin with lead wire, but I've sworn off using lead. The whole thing is a bit of a teeter-totter, the pin helping forward of the eye but against behind it, and the more forward the weight on the pin, the better. Thin wire hook (as you stated) is better. Should be fun even if tungsten proves needed.

Depends on the target fish....thin wire hooks and big trout don't mix well at all. Its hard to find 3x jig hooks in size 8 but they are perfect for my application.

https://www.manictackleproject.com/flyfishingarticlesinkrateofnymphsinrivers/

.8 grams of tungsten sinks 3 times faster than .8 grams of lead. Same weight, tungsten being almost twice the specific gravity of lead makes the difference. There�s a graph with the test results in the article.

Weight of the pattern is eventually the enemy of fly casting. Use far less weight with tungsten and get the same sink rate as a much bigger amount of lead. That�s the beauty of tungsten. You may not need a sinking pattern, but if you do, don�t think you have to sling a massive chunk of lead or brass when far less tungsten will get the job done,

I saw that video. I didn�t like how he did his. Adding lead to the pin shank really sort of defeats the purpose of the tungsten bead at the head of the pin as a counterbalance. It�s fine it he does it, but it just adds unnecessary extra weight mostly where it doesn�t need to be as far as I�m concerned.

I keep the bead in place by simply adding extra thread there. Use red thread if you like. I do this on several I�ve done. I like having flies with a hot spot.

No supplies yet, so I hope it's OK to continue the conversation for better understanding. The tungsten vs lead references are based on sink rate in water, which is certainly important to getting deep in fast moving water, but weight is weight with respect to balancing with the eye as the fulcrum. My initially interest in this type of fly is for still water where sink rate isn't really a need. Tungsten beads certainly are preferred based on mass per unit volume, and a single bead extended furthest forward maximizes the counterbalance. In this regard, they are probably required for heavy hooks for heavy trout. But for crappie and small bass, I'm hoping that thin wire hooks and cheaper beads (more than one per fly) can do the trick. We will see...

Regarding a hot spot, this pattern would seem to lend itself to making egg sucking leeches as well by painting the bead.

Check out this egg sucker, Kaboboom. I'm willing to bet it will be a great crappie/bass killer, not to mention big rainbows. Imagine this sucker at the end of the drift rising unlike any other fly the fish have ever seen. I'm really excited to try it out.

You're a head of me. Looks balanced and pretty deadly. What are your weighted materials out front? There's this white cord stuff I buy at Hobby Lobby I use for crappie jig instead of chennile. It's impregnated with crystal flash. The cool part is that when colored with a Magic Marker like black on top, the flash shows through in kind of a scale like pattern. My first attempt will be to make balanced jigs with this, and suspend with a slip bobber on my leader.