Remember those three reindeer fur flies I tied up a few months ago. Well Jeff Faulkner over at "Flyfishjeff blog" said they would be good for Striper so I sent them out to him to see how they would fare.
Looks like they didn't dissapoint after all! Thanks for the images Jeff.
Bucket mouth!
I've fished with this fly a lot over the last 3 weeks for one simple reason purely because of its action and ability to attract fish. I've really been surprised with the longevity of the reindeer fur as well considering I average around 170 cast per morning and evening session. This fly has a far more erratic action than all the other woolheads I've fished with which put down to the shape of the head.
Using large eyes and crimping them together flattens its profile drastically and I've noticed the fly dart all over the place through a retrieve far mor than the others in the set. Whether the reindeer fur and microbarb saddles have something to do with it I'm not sure, but I'm going to try this same head with maybe feathers or even synthetics as a main body feature to see what action they produce.
I've had 12 fish with this fly in the last week and It still looks in good nick. Total length 150mm
More from Rudolph & Prancer. This one I started by tying on a thick clump of reinder hair to the back of the hook.Added a green grizzly microbarb saddle to either side.Then some pearl flash and then three or four clumps of reindeer tied on hollow fleye style.
The red is arctic fox tail fur and the head is Olive bucktail.
This fly is 98% made from reindeer. I just added one tiny clump of chartreuse bucktail and also one of Olive through out the tie.
I've had my eye on these two Reindeer pelts lying in the lounge for a couple of years now and was pleasantly suprised to hear that they were no longer welcome back in the house. As a dry fly material for small Caddis type flies its fantastic but I've never seen it applied to Pike flies although I did fish with it on smaller clousers when I was back in South Africa a couple of years ago.
Generally the fur is too short for long streamers but if your lucky the neck area of a reindeer can hold some extremely long strands. These clumps I cut have hair around 6" inches/150mm which are perfect for my pike flies.
I've tied a number of flies up recently using the Hollow fleye method. This one is a combination of Reindeer,Orange bucktail and several strands of fine pearl tinsel. I do have reservations to the longjevity these flies might have due to the super fine hair snapping while casting, but to be honest as long as they catch me a couple of fish then they'll have served their purpose and well worth the effort that was put into them.
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