The Frenchie's basically Casey Anthony, hot as hell and bat shit crazy
I spend more time thinking about my Frenchies than actually fishing and that's a fact. At this point it's almost pavlovian, I hear someone mention the Frenchie (or anything that sounds French to me) and I get REALLY excited in all the wrong ways. It's so bad that I straight up refuse to use shrimp pink uv ice dub and orange thread on anything but my goofy little pheasant tail knockoffs. The following is a stream of conscious / love letter to my Frenchies that I've been working on in my head for an unhealthy amount of time.
Origin
The Frenchie is a variation of a fly that every fly fisherman has thrown at some point. It's a direct descendant of the pheasant tail nymph, originally tied by Frank Sawyer in the 1950's. Frank's original pattern incorporated pheasant tail fibers for the tail, abdomen, thorax, and wing case and absolutely crushed it on the English chalk streams. This fly had an extremely thin and sparse profile in the water which many believe was a main trigger when fished as a Baetis imitation (besides the fact that it looks EXACTLY like a mayfly nymph). Now over the years, countless fly fisherman have added on to the original pattern, adding copper wire, peacock hurl, wings, and all other kinds of unnecessary bullshit. Luckily for you and me, Lance Egan (and I'm sure countless others involved in the comp. scene who were tying this fly for years before it got big) noticed this interesting little "hot spot" PT floating around the European competitive scene. Thus, the Frenchie as you and I know it was adopted and introduced to North American fly fishing.
Evolution
In competitive fly fishing weight must be built into the fly itself. In order to get down, competitive fly fisherman rely on flies that can incorporate a large amount of weight while limiting surface area and maintaining a proper profile. The Frenchie offers a solution to many of these problems. The sparse thorax allows a lot of weight to be built in under the ice dub. The typical jig hook allows an oversized tungsten bead to be added to the weight of the fly. And the thin build up of the abdomen maintains the proper profile of a generic mayfly nymph. Tack on the UV ice dub and hot spot collar and you have a fly that could pull a trout out of a drainage ditch.
How and When
The easy answer for how and when to fish it is yes. A sz. 20 unweighted Frenchie can be fished in the film or slightly below it as an emerging bwo, sulphur, or midge. A sz. 10 heavily weighted Frenchie can be fished as a stonefly or Hendrickson anchor in swift, deep runs and plunge pools. A quick adjustment in PT, ice dub, or hot spot color can create an impressionistic searching pattern for almost anything in the water. I've even heard people throw around theories on the shrimp pink ice dub creating the illusion of a small egg (take that one for what it's worth...) and the green ice dub giving the impression of a cased caddis (...oh come on...). There really isn't a right or wrong answer when it comes to throwing one of these on your rig.
Experiment
In my opinion, you can't go wrong experimenting with this fly. As long as you maintain it's profile you can get as crazy as you want. Some things I like to add / adjust:
PT Color: Natural for all mayflies. Black for black stoneflies, sulphur for yellow stoneflies.
Wire: I like to use red / blue / green for an additional trigger. UV yellow as something different for sulphurs.
Dubbing: Super easy to change up. I like shrimp pink as my go to. I also run a couple peacock, purple, pink, blue, and green thoraxed Frenchies. Some areas may be different but i rarely need to switch from my shrimp pink ones while hatches are on. I like blue and purple for winter dredging.
Collar: You can really do whatever color you like. I stick with orange but i know red and green are popular too.
Soft Hackle: My favorite variation is to stick a soft hackle collar into the mix. I use Brahma Hen Saddle.
Weight: This varies depending on stream type and flows. I have a smorgasbord of different sizes and weights to choose from.
Here's to the Frenchie! I think i need a beer.