As you’ve probably noticed over the last 9 months Marabou hairline…. Or in some circles “Bird fur” features heavily on a lot of the my flies. I’ve been using it for donkeys years. In my eyes its just has to be my absolute favourite material to tie with. I’m not a big fan of tying up baitfish pattern type pike flies to target Snotrockets. On your vise it looks like a fish…..because that’s the way you’ve tied it, but once its wet it looses much of its shape and just becomes a long strip of whatever fibers you’ve tied on to your hook. With Marabou hairline though your fly truly does take on a life of its own once you have it in the water. It gives you lots of volume & movement for very little weight. The theory behind my madness is “Mike the pike” is going to be far more attracted to something that moves through the water column in waves & pulses, than just a stiff length of your favourite synthetic material. Sure EP fibers/ SF Flash blend/ Alien fur/Flash ‘n Slinky to name but a few, retain less water than natural products, but I’d rather sacrifice a few grams of extra weight in water when having to re-chuck my fly, just to have that extra movement it gives off when under the surface.
Don’t get me wrong synthetic baitfish pattern flies work….and will keep on catching pike for as long as we keep chucking them, And if your happy with using them then don’t change a winning formula. I must add though, other than my normal White/red Schlappen streamers that regularly bag me fish, 70% of my fish this season have been caught with my marabou hairline streamers.
Pink/Purple; Pink/Blue & White/Red have been working extremely well for me. There are 3 or 4 different ways one can tie it onto your hook and I’ll go through those over the next few weeks. There’s also a fantastic time saving piece of equipment specifically designed for those that use the material a lot, which I will feature as well.
4 comments:
Yes, I must get some marabou to tie some flies up... it does look stunning... love the red and white fly!
Dunno if u saw my other comment on the SF blend on ur baitfish post?
The linked fly i just tied is, i think, a very nice mixup of the synthetic more stiff SF Blend and the soft marabou materials. Doesnt have to be either or :)
I did Jeppe,they are some top looking flies in your arsenal. I like how you are combining your materials
Simon, great ties once again! I am however a little confused about the naming of things, because I thought that "Bird fur" was something completly different from marabou. Bird fur is a product from Whiting which comes in whole skins with long slender lookign feathers with a base of "marabou'ish" structure, they are not too different from spey feathers actually.
I might be totaly wrong here, but I think this is two completly different material?
Cheers!
U
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