Archive for January, 2010

Recipe:

• Main hook: cheapest hook you can find. It will be cut anyway
• Trailer hook: any hook type you like. I prefer carp hooks
• Tail: mink fur strip
• Body: mink fur strip (cross cut)
• Eyes (optional): bead chain, dumbbell eyes, cone head, etc
• Other materials: piece of backing or monofilament line for mounting the trailer hook

As I wrote in my article on Globalflyfisher.com – chubies love bugs. Bug makes noisy splat that draws their attention to what is going on on the surface. Those days I was fishing big bugs, and actually they produced some real nice-sized fish, but now I am fishing with light rod (8′ 2wt.), so trowing chunky flies is kind of trouble.. So I had to decrease size and do some research with color combinations. Here is quote from my article on GFF:

The bug fever started when I got a foam beetle from my friend Darius Vaskevicius.
Within short, the fly caught me my biggest chub ever, which was close to 60 cm/24″.
So this bug was so attractive, that I started experimenting with shape, colors and other woodoo things. One of the experiments resulted in a beetle with creamy body and mint colored foam. It was tied just for fun and not for fishing. However, one day, when the fish were not biting, I tied it on and within a few hours I caught many and nice chubs. It does not look natural, but it certainly works very well. Now I am aware that it works best under the pre-spawning period. The rest of the season, the fish prefer brown and black flies looking more naturally.

Rest of article along with some photos you can find on Globalflyfisher – HERE

Tying instructions

• Cut a foam strip. You’ll need any foam, any color – it will be used to form the body. Tie it as shown;
• Cut a LOCO foam strip and tie in. Can be used regular foam in any color you prefer;
• Put some dubbing in loop for the “hot spot” – chartreuse, orange, red will do fine. Wrap it;
• Make another dubbing loop and put there darker dubbing for the body (here I use Peacock dubbing from Siman);
• Wrap 2/3 of body, bend Loco foam and tie it with your thread. Make one turn with dubbing (optional);
• Tie in the legs, bend the rest of foam and form the head…
• You know the rest – whip finish, varnish, blah blah blah

There can be hundreds of color combinations, just try to find what is best for your favorite waters. Good luck!

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This is modified intruder pattern, based on Ed Ward Intruder pattern (click HERE for .PDF file). I’ve replaced some materials with those I had home.  Will need to buy some marabou, ostrich, because Intruders are very beautiful flies and I bet they will work great for Sea trout as well.

So here is materials I’ve used for this fly:

• Hooks: cheap front hook, carp trailer hook;
• Dumbbell eyes;
• Black braided line for trailer hook;
• Hot orange dubbing (for tail hot spot and body)
• Pheasant and bird fur heathers for tail and front hackle, orange feather (for palmering body)
• Some dubbing for head

This streamer is tied using the technique found on Hatches magazine but instead of cross cut rabbit, I’ve used synthetic  fur, bought in local sewing craft store. For this fly you will need: cheap front hook, carp trailer hook, synthetic fur, some lead and eyes (dumbbell, bead chain), backing, monofilament or braided line for trailer hook and thread of course.

Here is a quote from Hatches magazine:

The Strung Out movement was created by Pacific Northwest guide Derek Fergus. Articulated flies are nothing new, but this method of tying permits an angler to create very large flies with articulated action yet eliminating a solid, long hook shank. Tube flies can give you large flies and small hooks but they loose the articulation some folks find very appealing, especially on flies intended to be swung and not retrieved. Articulated flies use the long solid hook shank of a front hook to build the fly, but that shank can be used by the fish as leverage to work the fly loose or break the leader. Fergus’ Strung Out philosophy of tying involves tying the fly on section of “string”.
The MOAL (”Mother Of All Leeches”) is a successful version of the Strung Out Leech.

Here is my synthetic version of MOAL leech in reversed red head version:

Bunny strip (zonker) streamers are good lifelike flies, but they are hell to cast. Fur soaks the water and streamer becomes heavy and dangerous projectile. There is one way out of this situation – I’ve read about it in old Fly Tyer (Summer 2007) magazine under “The Leather Tail” title.  It is a bass pattern but works great for trout and sea-trout fishing – imitating various ‘leechie’ creatures.

The main idea is to lighten the tail by cutting off all hair, leaving just leather strip. Article author (Jay “Fishy” Fullum) gives brilliant idea – replace rabbit (bunny) strip with black pigskin. Rabbit fur is not a problem for me (have whole black dyed rabbit skin) so I’ve tied this streamer with shaved rabbit strip (fur gone for making other flies and mixing some dubbing).

So here it is – the recipe. Actually it’s more tying style not the recipe:
Hook: any streamer or salmon hook you prefer;
Weight: dumbbell eyes or (and) some lead [I used bead-chain eyes + lead];
Tail: small bunch of bucktail (any color to match) and bunny or pigskin strip tied above;
Body: mohair yarn [pict] (can be replaced with any matching dubbing);
Head: artificial fur dubbed in dubbing loop.

Tying steps:

mono line loop and bucktail prevents long rabbit strip from tangling around the hook