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For Chech nymph techniques.   Use this one as point fly or first fly - as the heavy fly in the middle you use a czech style fly.

Aura Larva is an imitation of a free living caddis larva. There are a lot of free living caddis species in Norwegian rivers and streams and they are an important food source for both grayling and brown trout. Often, we may see trout rise to the adult caddis during summer and fall, but as staple food the larva is more important. But they are not that easy to discover. Because when trout feed on larvas it's always at the bottom of the river bed. Most caddis species live their life underwater as cased larvas, but some very important species for both the fish and the fly fisher are the so called free living and net builders.

In many Norwegian rivers it is often more productive to fish an imitation of a caddis larva than an imitation of a mayfly or a stonefly nymph. The best way to find out what fly to use is simply to take a stomack sample of a fish in the river you fish most.

Especially if the river seems "dead" and with no fish activity, it may be extremly effective to fish a heavy caddis larva near the bottom of the river. During the early spring trout fishing I've had lots of experiences when a Aura Larva has outfished noumerous dry fly patterns. It's a fine pattern for Chech nymph fishing.

This fly was first published in the magazine Flugfiske i Norden in the early 90s. At that time we called the fly Oterstokk Larva.

How to tie the Aura Larva

The special trait is the Aura technique. There are no magic, but the Aura gills give a special kind of translucent life to this imitation. As you can see on the imitation, there is nothing special about the fly, except the gills - imitating the gills found on free living and net building caddis larvas. Tie it with Magic Shrimp Foil for a faster sinking czech style fly.

1. The Aura Larva has a simple dubbed body and thorax. To make the gills: Make a dubbing loop at the hook bend. Then, dub the body/ abdomen. 2. Stroke the loop with a wax (for example BT's) and then touch dub the ball of antron fibres onto the threads. Then rib the body with the loop 7-8 times som that you can see a lot of gill threads along the body. 3. Tie the thorax and tie in some legs as usual.

André © Brun