Jonny King's Splitsville Beetle

Trout love beetles, but the flies that imitate them often miss the mark. A real beetle that’s stumbled onto the water isn’t calm, cool and collected, but is usually frantically trying to right itself, with its wings splayed and legs akimbo. The Splitsville Beetles captures that vulnerability perfectly, with its spent-wing profile and spray of hackle fibers. And unlike most beetle patterns, you can see it clearly even when you tuck it in the shadows under overhanging branches or off dark undercut banks, where trout wait for these hapless victims.