The Nuke Egg is a simple very durable egg imitation that will generally out fish the more popular Glo-Bug. I caught a lot of fish on Glo-Bugs until I switched to Nuke Eggs. The CORE concept of the nuke egg is that it is tied with much less yarn and is much more translucent. There is a small brighter or contrasting color nucleus tied inside the outer veil. This accentuates the translucent appearance and the 2 colors blend in varying proportions showing a variety of color blends. This may look more like a real egg or it is just more attractive to the fish. The Nuke Egg concept I have just described has the outer color as the main color and the inner color as the accent that may barely show through.
The Veiled Egg idea has a large central ball as the egg which is the main color with a wispier outer veil over it.
I have been told on the stream "No need to get too technical about a bit of yarn on a hook" It is true, if they are on an egg bite, that no mater how you do it, if you get about the right color in about the right size, you can expect to catch fish. Here is how to tie a professional Nuke Egg.
- Hook Straight Eye, XShort Egg hook of the "105" type
- Thread Flat Waxed Nylon 210D for #8 to #4, 140D FlyMaster+ for smaller
- Nucleus Small Ball of McFly Foam, or Glo-Bug Yarn has brighter colors if needed
- Veil Glo-Bug Yarn is the right texture and translucency, Sparse Center tied and distributed evenly around the hook trimmed to size of desired egg. The inside color should partly shows through from all sides.
Some favorite colors:
Golden Nugget - pink: #10 to #6 KoreaSun 7057, Chartreuse Flat Waxed Nylon, very small Flame McFly Foam nucleus
Oregon Cheese - orange: #10 to #6 Egg hook, White Thread, medium sized Steelhead Orange McFly Foam nucleus
Dark Roe - cerise: #8 to #4 hook, Fire Orange Thread, big Cerise Glo-Bug Yarn nucleus
Generally softer paler outer colors will need a smaller subtler nucleus. Darker saturated outer colors will need larger brighter nucleus.
Pull both forward and rearward facing yarn strands up with tension and cut close with on snip. The distance you scissors are from the tie down point will be the radius of the ball.
Now you must get the forward yarn brushed back past the thread and the hook bend. I use a scissor point to split the forward yarn in half by pushing the point horizontally through right in front of the hook eye. Then split the bottom half of the yarn exactly down the middle by pushing a point from front to back right below the hook eye. You can now move the thread forward through that bottom split to get the thread forward of all the yarn.
Trim a bit off the back for a firmer silhouette.
