Hans van Klinken’s emerger, tied for grayling on Norwegian rivers and adopted by trout anglers everywhere. Its idea is simple: an insect leaving its shuck is the easiest meal a trout gets, so put the body of the fly where the emerging insect is, under the surface, and keep only the post and hackle on top. It fishes anywhere fish are sipping rather than splashing: the slow glides of a tableland river, a Tasmanian lake edge on a still evening, a Victorian stream in the evening rise, a shaded tailwater pool.

The hook does half the work: a curved, light-wire emerger hook whose bend drops the rear of the fly through the surface. From the bend forward: a slim abdomen of dubbing or stripped quill along the curve, sometimes ribbed. A thorax of peacock herl or dark dubbing at the top of the curve, the only part that sits in the film. An upright post of white or bright polypropylene yarn, and a parachute hackle wound horizontally around the base of the post so the barbs lie flat on the water. A small thread head in front of the post.

Use it as the visible half of a rig as much as a fly. A fourteen trailing a weighted sixteen epoxy nymph on a five-foot dropper is a useful rig for polaroiding cruising Tyenna trout in tight upper-river water; when good drifts through likely pocket water draw a blank, a small nymph or amphipod under a Klinkhamer-style dry turns the session; and a brightly posted one tied purely as an indicator still drew a genuine dry-fly eat from a late-season alpine trout. Little Klinkhamer emergers are the Monaro answer to fussy risers, a big oversized one drifted through heavy pocket water brought a large trout up on the first pass, they are fished into the Swampy Plains undercuts from a raft, and a brown Klinkhamer took a large Geehi rainbow the moment it touched the water.

Treat the post as the indicator and the body as the fly. Grease the post and the hackle only; the abdomen should hang under the surface, which is the entire point. If the whole fly is riding high it is just an odd-looking dry, and the fish that refused your Adams will refuse it too.

Cast it to a rising fish, not to empty water. Put it a metre above the rise and let it drift through without a twitch. A fish taking emergers is taking them because they cannot get away, and any movement breaks that. Size it to the naturals and err small: a 14 covers most Australian stream hatches, a 16 or 18 when the fish are on midge or small caddis.

In slow, shaded pools a small Klinkhammer over a bead-head Pheasant Tail is a gentle dry-dropper option. It can fool wary browns sitting low in the film once they are looking up, while a fully dressed dry may draw refusals.