Fly Candy

Here are a couple of flies I've been fishing with the last couple of weeks with varying success. I started by tying on a thin strip of grey rabbit zonker 120mm ,then added a barred black n white rabbit zonker directly over the top of that. Then added a couple of decent pencil thick clumps of white bucktail around the whole hook shaft followed by a thin clump of brown bucktail, then finished it off by wrapping some black UV Polar chenille near the hook eye. Both these flies have been fished slowly and left to drift in the current more than usual yet this has out fished the bottom one 4 - 1.

This one is very much the same kind of fly except instead of rabbit zonker I used recycled white/chartreuse & black icelandic sheep hair for the tail. Then added a couple of pencil thick clumps of chartreuse bucktail around the whole hook shaft then finished it off with some black raccoon fur. Out of the two models this has been the less successful. Chartreuse generally is a fantasic colour here around the island but maybe not in late autumn/early winter. As you know I far prefer naturals over synthetics, but if I have to be honest I'm not a big fan of using icelandic sheep hair on pike flies. Yes it has fantastic movement in the water but its certainly not pike mouth friendy and tends to get mullard and knotted all too easy. The same goes with big fly fiber as well.