Basic Black: do you remember when every woman had the basic black skirt and slacks as a foundation to their wardrobe? Perhaps they still do…at least the skirt. Well such is the necessary fly fishing presentation of basic black. A black gnat tied small: size 18 hook, black 8/0 thread body, black dubbing ball for thorax and few turns of a small starling feather. You could add a tail of black hackle fibers if you wanted to lean towards a mayfly vs. the midge/chironomid/gnat imitations. Here, I used the 8/0 for the thread head and may, aesthetically, have done better to finish off the fly with a smaller 14/0 thread for the head.
This small, simple pattern was suggested to me several years ago by a gnat fanatic fly fisher. He almost exclusively fishes “gnats” in black, brown, yellow, olive, tan….simply changing the thread color for the abdomen when tying the pattern. He does quite well in the reaches of the Western U.S. No bead head, no ribbing, no fuss. Mostly just basic black….and good presentations.
SwittersB & Exploring 
Love the look of that fly. Hard to beat a simple black pattern. I used to (almost exclusively) fish three flies: black ants and black wooly worms, and black wooly buggers. All three are super simple to tie, durable, and in the right sizes take a good variety of freshwater fish. The ant was my favorite: build up a thread hump in the back, tie in a black hackle, build up a hump in the front, coat the humps with cement, tie off and done. Caught countless trout and bluegills on those and they’re still my favorite bluegill fly.
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you are absolutely right…thanks for dropping by.
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It’s called a ‘little black dress’ now and women wear it when they mean business. Nice looking fly BTW.
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Thank you.
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