You could say the Jingler is a cult fly. Originated about 200 years ago to fish mayfly hatches on the River Tweed, Jingler patterns have been in use for quite some time, having gained a reputation as a killing fly in the Border Country of its origin. Yet I’m not really sure why the Jingler pattern, often called a “soft-hackle dry fly,” has never attained wide usage with American anglers. Being convinced of the pattern’s effectiveness, I’m left to suspect it might be the Jingler’s unconventional looks that are responsible for its absence from American fly boxes. “Looks,” everybody knows, will get you far, while unconventionality is no great booster. Some say the Jingler is downright ugly. And sure, the design may not reflect the refined elegance of a Catskill style dry, but to my eye Jingler flies possess a certain utilitarian elegance that is lively, evocative, and pleasingly abstract. It is interesting, though, from what I can gather from the writings, in the Jingler’s long history the design has always been considered somewhat of an oddball, obscure, yet never without ardent fans. Some swear by it and will fish nothing else.
(I’m not that zealous. Live by only one pattern, no matter how good it is, there’s bound to be days you will die by it too.)
Though a dry fly, the Jingler design incorporates the three pillars of good wet fly design: obfuscation, light, motion. Basically, it is a floating soft-hackle fly, buoyed with the addition of rooster hackle palmered over the thorax area. Tails are generally rooster or waterfowl flank. Bodies are usually dubbing or quill. Most often the soft hackle is partridge or hen, though not limited to that. The original pattern was wingless, though more recently some tyers add a CDC wing between the palmer and front hackle. Border Country tyers often add tinsel as a tip, or wound over the thorax before palmering the rooster hackle. I like the latter method, with the tinsel glinting through the hackle after it is wound.
While it may look odd in hand, a Jingler is stunningly realistic when hunting on the water and difficult to discern from naturals drifting near it — and many times I’ve had pressured trout select the Jingler without hesitation from a close group of drifting naturals.
In my experience, the Jingler designs come into their own when meeting hatches of medium-sized mayflies such as the Isonychia, Hendrickson, and March Brown. The dressing presented here is a version that ended up being my go-to pattern during March Brown hatches last spring. I dress it with floatant and present it as a dry fly, though it also fishes well pulled under and presented as an emerger, cripple, or drowned spinner. Often, I’ll quarter the cast upstream, the Jingler beginning its drift as a dry fly, and when drag begins to set in I pull it under and finish the cast swinging the fly as a soft-hackle to simulate an emerged.
Tying the March Brown Jingler
Hook: Size 12 and 14 TMC 101 or standard dry fly hook
Thread: Rust-brown UNI 8/0
Fore hackle: Gray partridge. Tie in by the stem, behind the hook eye, concave side up.
Tailing: Coq de Leon (lemon wood duck also okay)
Body: Dark tan turkey biot, with gold tinsel over the thorax area. Apply thick head cement (I use Hard As Nails) over the thread and let it tack for a minute prior to winding the turkey biot.
Palmer: Rust-brown grizzly rooster. Working forward, tie in the tinsel, then tie in the rooster hackle at the rear of the thorax before winding the tinsel forward (leave one turn of tinsel exposed behind the hackle). Wind the tying thread and then the tinsel to the hook eye, fasten the tinsel with a few turns of thread, then trim. Wind the hackle forward to behind the hook eye, leaving enough room for a couple turns of partridge hackle ahead of it. Bend the front soft hackle perpendicular to the hook shank and wind back two full turns, so it’s just starting to enter the palmer hackle. Apply a couple turns of thread to fasten the hackle tip, then wind the thread forward through the hackle, two turns to the hook eye. Trim the hackle tip and finish.
