Most nymphs try to be a specific insect. The Blowtorch does the opposite — it tries to be irresistible. Devin Olsen tied the first ones in the Czech Republic in 2014, ahead of a World Championship, and the pattern he came up with has since become one of the most trusted searching nymphs in the sport: a peacock body wrapped between two hot spots of fluorescent orange, on a tungsten jig hook that plummets to the bottom and rides with its point up. It doesn't match a hatch. It just gets bitten.
A trigger, not an imitation
Everything about the Blowtorch is engineered to draw a reaction. The fluoro-orange tag and collar are visual triggers — hot spots that a trout's eye locks onto in moving or slightly-coloured water — while the peacock body throws just enough natural flash to sell it. The jig hook does the mechanical work: the slotted tungsten bead gets the fly deep fast, and the up-riding hook point keeps it out of the rocks where it belongs. The result, as its fans put it, is a fly that gets noticed without overpowering the drift.
▶ The Blowtorch Nymph I Actually Fish — Tim Cammisa
Tie it, and dial it in
It is a fast, forgiving tie, and it takes well to variation — the one constant is the fluoro-orange hot spot.
Dialling the Blowtorch
- ✓ Size — #12–18; a #16 is the versatile starting point, and go smaller in clear water
- ✓ Bead — copper slotted tungsten, sized to the hook, for a fast sink
- ✓ Hot spots — a fluoro fire-orange tag, and a hot collar (orange soft-hackle in the original)
- ✓ Collar variants — swap the collar to natural hen or CDC when you want it softer and less loud
How to fish it
Tight-line (euro) nymphing is the Blowtorch's home water. Run it as the point — the anchor fly — dead-drifted deep through riffles, pocket water, fast seams and slightly-stained flows, with a slimmer, more natural nymph on the dropper above it. The logic is contrast: the Blowtorch pulls fish in from a distance; the natural fly fools the ones that come to look. It also fishes well under an indicator, or as the weighted anchor in a dry-dropper rig — see river nymphing for the mechanics.
When to reach for it
Sources & further reading: Tim Cammisa, "The Blowtorch Nymph I Actually Fish" (YouTube); the Trout & Feather write-up (materials & rigging); and Tactical Fly Fisher for the pattern's origin. Videos © their respective creators, embedded from YouTube.