I have just gone and tied a ridiculous-looking fly and am feeling a curious mixture of pride and shame. I can well imagine a seasoned fly tiers looking at this thing and just raising their eyes to heaven, or shaking their heads slowly from side to side. Whatever reception it might receive it deserves a name and so I am going to propose one. How about “weird worm”?

I started out intending to tie a little bead head hare´s ear nymph but I just saw some odd materials lying around and found myself going off script. The general intention is to fish my weird worm thing on the bottom in front of some carp that is grubbing around. It has a little bead head that sits on the floor and a little strand of some odd plastic material that is supposed to imitate a worm. I don´t know exactly what this stuff is. I came across it one time when I was out walking the dogs. The interesting thing is that I tied a little strand of pink foam to make the bend of the hook point upwards. The foam was knotted to the strand of material that is supposed to be the worm and so the worm stands up off the bottom enticingly and it is hopefully long enough to make itself seen. A very gentle twitch should just give it a little movement, enough perhaps to draw attention. Of course whether the fish ingests my little creation or just laughs at it remains to be seen.

I subjected my new fly to rigorous sea trials by chucking it in a large glass of water. This is the self same glass that is likely to accommodate a generous gin and tonic a little later this evening. With the little weird worm at the bottom it might be taken for a tequila. The worm behaved rather well. It more or less did what I hoped: it sat on its arse and pointed upwards. What more could you ask for?

So am I optimistic of success with this new addition to my fly box? Not a bit of it! I have hardly even seen a carp this year yet alone have had a chance to dangle a fly in front of one. The barbel in the river hugely outnumber the carp and I don´t think they would have much time for it. My little weird worm will probably not even see the light of day tomorrow when I am hoping to slip off to the Río Guadlahorce for a few hours. Be that as it may, it does no harm to have something to hand just in case a carp shows up.

Stranger things have happened.

There´s a worm in my drink!
You never know. It might work! I need to find a carp to find out.
I imagine the hare´s ears are embarrassed to be even in the same photo. I will put them in a separate compartment of my fly box to avoid conflict!