More complex patterns! :) *

[Traditionalist]

This fly uses three materials, ( as well as the thread of course)



HOOK: #12 Ashima  F-52 heavyweight shrimp here, but any Scud, shrimp or even a normal hook will do.
BODY:  Hare fur, dubbed as described below.
RIB: Gold tinsel, ( or other material to taste, one may also use clear nylon etc etc )
SHELLBACK: Clear polythene, treated as described below.
THREAD: Any light coloured multi strand thread. ( I used 6/O Danvilles yellow here)

Mount your hook in the vice, and run your thread down to the position shown;



Don?t be tempted to take your thread too far around the bend. This will drive YOU round the bend!  It just makes things unnecessarily complicated.

We now need to prepare and tie in some polythene.  Prepare???  What?s to prepare?   I?m glad you asked!

Polythene is a very interesting material, with a lot of useful properties.  Here we are mainly interested in one of these properties.  Find a piece of "Clear" relatively thick polythene. This is used for all sorts of things so should be easy to find.  This is a piece from a zip-lock freezer bag I am using here. For this fly, cut a piece about a quarter of an inch wide.

Owing to it?s molecular structure, polythene ( as often used for thicker polythene bags) may be stretched.  This has several results. The first result is, that because the long polymer chains are forced "into line", the resulting strip of plastic is a very great deal stronger than it was before you stretched it!  It is also a very great deal thinner, and the strip becomes more or less perfectly translucent. The polythene used for food packaging and the like is often ideal.

One may use this technique on a number of flies which require "shellbacks" and the like. You may have to try a couple of various bags etc before you find the optimum.

Take the strip in both hands and pull it, until you feel it "give". Maintain the same tension, and keep pulling until you have a piece that you can use.  This is very difficult to explain, although very easy to do. After doing a couple of strips, you know instinctively how much pressure to apply to achieve your result.

The strip you have made will look like this;



I know it?s hard to see, that?s because it is just about invisible!


With a little practice, you can tie a piece of the polythene in, and stretch it afterwards, but you will need to practice this!  It?s a bit of a  bugger if you want to pull the shell back over your finished fly, and snap the plastic! So prepare the strips first for this fly.

Now tie in your ribbing. Once again I have used round gold tinsel here, I have taken a photo here, after putting the polythene in my material spring so that it catches the light. Tie the ribbing in FIRST!  it must be UNDER the polythene, which will result in it being OVER the polythene when it is brought over the fly.

Cut the thick unstretched part of the polythene off, and tie the strip in at the tie in point;




You might now take your thread back up the hook and tie in a few ( I would use up to six turns on a size #12 shrimp like this) turns of lead wire, sticky backed  lead tape, or a host of other finicky stuff! 

However, a long time ago now, I discovered that there is a much better and easier way of weighting these and other patterns. Go to a coarse fishing tackle shop, and ask for "mouse droppings".  They won?t give you funny looks, or a handful of mouse shit, but a box like the one on the photo, full of extremely useful, assorted, and extremely precise lead weights, which pole fishermen use for their arcane practices! The last time I bought some, it cost about a quid for several hundred in a range of sizes. Much as I detest paying for things, ( and I know there are a lot of Scots here too!) this is so practical and easy to use that it is worth it!   It also results in all your flies having the same weight!  Which is  not to be sniffed at either!




Select a weight which you deem appropriate, and open the slit up with a knife blade, taking care not to cut your fingers in the process. Blood ruins the dubbing we are about to use!  having opened the slit somewhat, tie the weight in on top of the hook like this. There is a reason for this, which will shortly become apparent. Please tie it in exactly as shown! ;




Now, using either your fingers, or a pair of needle nose pliers if necessary, bend the lead at each end to fit the hook curve precisely;



Criss-cross the lead with thread wraps, take the thread back to the bend, and then varnish the lead and the wraps with quick drying varnish, like nail varnish, cellire etc.. You MUST use varnish here or the lead will bleed through the dubbing when wet, and ruin the fly. I just whop a dollop on, and spread it with my dubbing needle. Allow to dry;




OK?   Now we need some hare fur! ( Surprise surprise!).  Take your pelt, and select a small bunch of fur;



Take your scissors and cut the tips off!  ( Of course you can prepare all this and place it in suitable containers beforehand). You don?t want any of  the black fur in this dubbing mix!

Now turn the fur bunch around, and cut off the butts with the underfur.  You should now have three small separate piles of fur. The brownish yellow tips, the dark "middle cut", and the greyish/white butts;




Or, if you were sensible, you have three containers in front of you ( I use 35mm film containers) each with the appropriate fur, which you prepared beforehand!  I have done it like this to demonstrate what is required. using fur like this will allow you to mix any shade required, and save you an awful lot of pratting on with mummified hare?s ears!

Choose a pinch of  the light underfur dubbing, and a pinch of the brown yellow tips ( we don?t want any dark fur in this fly!) Mix this in your fingers. Now we are going to dub with this. Only use small amounts, apply them to the thread, and only twist the the fur in one direction!  Don?t use wax!!!!!!  It will clog the fur, and ruin the effect we want.

Your dubbed thread should look like this;



Wind to the head. Throw in a whip finish, but leave the thread hanging;




Take your dubbing brush, and brush the body thoroughly only brushing in a downward direction, until the fly looks like this;



You could simply stop now. Whip finish and varnish the head. Unfortunately, if you have followed the instructions carefully up to this point, you have a length of ribbing and a lump of plastic hanging off the fly?s arse!   This tends to make them spin when casting! SO I suppose we better do something about that.

If you want this to be a pregnant shrimp, which has a red /orange spot visible through it?s shell,  (These are the eggs of the shrimp which it carries in a pouch) then take a marker pen now, and add such a spot in the appropriate place, as I have done here.  Now take your polythene strip, pull it over the body of the fly and tie off.



Take your ribbing, and rib the fly carefully, tie off and whip finish, and varnish the head;
Oh dear!!  Catastrophe!!!  The fly looks awful!  All our work for nothing, the legs are all trapped in the ribbing! oh woe is me!



Fear not, help is at hand!  WAIT TILL THE VARNISH IS DRY!!!!!  Then take your trusty multi-purpose beautification brush, and beautify!  Brush thoroughly under the fly and down the sides;



That looks OK now.  nevertheless, I will let you into a little secret here!  You can leave out the polythene, and the rib, and the marker, and the fly catches just as well, if not better!  Easier and quicker to dress as well!

There are a number of reasons for brushing the fly thoroughly again after ribbing. Firstly, although many people think shrimps ( this is of course  a freshwater gammarus shrimp), have hundreds of legs.  They don?t!  They only have  a few!  Brushing removes more of  the underfur, and accentuates the thicker legs ( which are the tips of the hare fur you mixed in originally), and also makes the fly fish better. Also, although of course I can not swear to it, I think it unlikely that the trout bother counting them anyway.

If you don?t want to mess on with the polythene etc, Then rib your fly immediately after dubbing it, whip finish, varnish, WAIT TILL DRY!!!, and then brush it out thoroughly. The hare fur dubbing mix you have used here turns transparent/translucent when wet anyway, and imitates the natural shrimp very well.

With a little practice, these flies only take a few minutes at most to dress. You may of course prepare a number of bodies with lead, varnish them, and put them aside to dry. Just start your thread again when you want to dub them.

Here is one dressed after just such preparations, without any pratting!   I timed it, it took 76 seconds, including brushing!



Cheated!!!! ??  Of course I cheated!    In order to brush flies like this out, the brush is a bit slow. If you want to speed up the operation considerably, then you will need another piece of highly specialised equipment, and here it is;



This is simply velcro glued to a lolly stick.

Apart from which, I have been doing this for forty-five years, and it is hardly surprising that I can do it a little faster than many others!

So!  Hope you enjoyed this one, time for a coffee break!

TL
MC

[Traditionalist]

If you don?t want to buy loads of different hook patterns, then you can modify most hooks easily yourself.  Take a Mustad 3904a for instance. This is a #12;



After a little bit of judicious bending with the needle nosed pliers, ( I do this in my fingers ), and Eh voila!:



You have a perfect shrimp hook!

Use a hook one size larger than the size you would normally use for this. If you are dressing a size #14 shrimp, use a #12 hook. This keeps a reasonable gape. Also, bending effectively "shortens"  the hook

There are many people who will tell you that this will weaken a hook. Indeed, they are correct, but there is still no trout in existence that will bend or break that hook before the tippet gives way!  I have been using hooks like this for over forty years. I have NEVER! had one break or bend on a fish.

If you hook trees and bushes with any regularity, or hit concrete slabs, walls, dams, and various other objects, with hooks when casting, then they will bend or break. But so will the original unbent hooks!

TL
MC

[Traditionalist]

fantastic way to add weight they look like those hooks with the pre molded lead, but off course there quite expensive for a flee which is enevitably going to get snagged up on a rock , thanks for the tip traditionalist.
cheers col

My pleasure.  If you want, you can superglue these things to the hook. You still need to varnish though, as otherwise the lead will bleed through the dressing and ruin the fly. ( same applies to non-varnished copper wire!)   Of course, you can also cut them in half, and do a lot of other things with them as well.

TL
MC

[Traditionalist]

I don?t know how many of you fish salt or brackish water for seatrout etc, but you might like to try these as well;



These are a size 4, but you can dress them any size.

The "naked" hooks look like this;


You can find them here;
http://www.gamakatsu.nl/html/english/ls-serie.asp

And are a bait fishing hook, but I use them for several things. Here is the relevant text on dressing the shrimps above from an article I wrote quite a long time ago;

Although they all look basically the same in outline etc, and indeed are composed of largely the same materials, they are in fact quite different.

This is quite purposeful. If I only needed one shrimp pattern, I would only tie up one sort, and I would only carry one pattern in my box. But these shrimps are for different situations.

In point of fact, the shrimp tied on the red hooks outfishes the others, in terms of fish, about three to one! This is mainly (but not only), due to the fact that I find more situations where the red hooked one is appropriate, than the ones on the black or bronze hooks. Also, the shape is somewhat better. I also use some other patterns for highly specific situations, but let's stay with the four in the picture for the moment.

None of these patterns is weighted. They sink very slowly indeed, due to the amount of fine brushed out dubbing which brakes their descent, and they react to every single tiny pull on the line, or the vagaries of the current. The "legs" feelers, etc, are continually moving, just as in the real thing.

It is not obvious from the photo, but when wet, these things become fairly translucent, again just like the real thing. Look closely at the two shrimps on the red hooks, can you see any other differences?

Well, one is greyish, and the other is more of a fawn colour. Both shrimps are dubbed with hare body fur, and both are ribbed with cheap soft cock hackles from Indian capes. One is a light cree colour, and the other is a somewhat darker grizzly colour. Both have the same cheap cock hackle tips as "claws", from a cree type Indian cape, but one is longer and darker than the other.

Don't worry, at some point in this series, I will list the patterns, materials, hooks etc, for all these things. At the moment, this would just make the articles far too long. We are looking at basic principles here. As far as is necessary I will describe the reasons for using some materials in the relevant places, but I will leave full pattern descriptions for another article.

Now you may feel that this is splitting hairs, but these two shrimps work best under entirely separate and specific conditions, which are again entirely separate from the conditions under which the other two work.

Of course, they will work under practically any conditions under which a shrimp is likely to work, and better than most, but they will work FAR BETTER! when used in the right conditions.

The greyish "red hook" shrimp is typical of the shrimps found in water with a low saline content, and a darkish bottom, of rock, stones, mud etc. The fact that it has a highly visible red hook still makes it very obvious, even when wet, translucent, and in murky water. So where do I use this shrimp?

Anywhere where the water is less saline, and especially if the bottom is dark coloured or stirred up!

I use the fawn coloured one in water which is more saline, and where the bottom is sandy, or also stirred up. Both these conditions are easily tested. Look at the water, and taste it! If it is salty and murky, you know what to use! It is basically as simple as that.

Why are the shrimps tied "backwards"? This is not to make them look more attractive to an angler's eyes, although of course it does so. It is quite simply because when a shrimp flees, it does so backwards, in short fast spurts. So we now know how to retrieve it as well! They have "eyes" of melted black monofilament, because this is a prominent feature on shrimps, and they have "feelers" and "claws" for the same reason.

I don't usually bother with tails. It does not seem to make any difference at all to the fish, and can be a nuisance when tying flies on to the leader, as it obstructs the eye of the hook. Also, a tail may cause the shrimp to move backwards in the wrong way when the line is jerked. This would be very unnatural behaviour, and is best avoided. One may epoxy the backs of these patterns, but it makes them heavier, and removes some of the built in movement, so I don't do it. They are robust enough anyway. They are tightly ribbed with wire, and I have caught upwards of twenty fish or more on such a fly without it losing either its shape or its effectiveness. They do tend to get a bit raggy in use, this only makes them more effective! Of course they will eventually fall to bits. Nothing lasts forever, not even epoxy flies.

Short fast spurts, means a movement of anything from one to three inches, with pauses in between. Stripping in shrimps at high speed, or with foot long hauls, is unlikely to be successful. These creatures simply cannot move so fast or so far at a time. You may catch an odd fish doing this, in fact you probably will, but you will catch a lot more if you retrieve as described.

These flies are fished on a floating line. I usually use slightly longer and finer leaders for this. Indeed I go down to 6lb mono on occasion, to preserve the "movement" of the fly. The thickness of the leader will also affect the rate of descent. If you are snagging up on the bottom, or weed, all the time, don't change your rate of retrieve, put on shorter or thicker tippet.

The flies in the photo have bodies about 20mm long, and are overall between 25 and 30mm in length. Most shrimps I have caught and seen are about this size, although I have also caught larger and smaller ones. As I have no way of knowing what size the shrimps may be in any particular area at any particular time, or if the fish even care much, I decided long ago to use this general size. I don't carry any other sizes. There is no point in doing so. I have at least a dozen flies of each pattern, (although usually more), in my box. All I have to decide is which colour to use when. This has proved eminently successful, and I see no reason to change a successful tactic.

These shrimps by the way, are also ideal seatrout flies in rivers! They are also very successful in the Baltic for seatrout and other fish, but that is another subject. I usually add a little bit of red to the dubbing for river fishing. They are far more successful than some of the other various concoctions on offer.

TL
MC

[Traditionalist]

Great stuff Traditionalist, I like the dubbing brush idea.The saltwater shrimps look good too, look as though they could be useful in Orkney. Do you have any good sandeel patterns, or flys for Bass fishing?
cheers, Brian.

How many would you like? 

Try this;

Mike?s Sand-eel




This fly is tied on a short tube. The tube is a piece of Q-tip tubing about 30mm long. ( About an inch). A set of bead chain eyes is bound firmly to the tube about a third of the way from the front end. This is best done by laying down a firm thread foundation, and then the usual "figure of eight" bindings. When firmly fixed, a drop of glue or varnish that soaks well in is advisable.

A layer of thread is then built up behind the eyes. This should be parallel to the tube ( i.e. the thread layer should not slope backwards), the wing should not be "tilted" at an angle to the tube. It should be straight in line. This affects the behaviour and appearance of the fly in the water.

The "wing" of dark olive fox hair, and light olive crystal flash is then tied in. One may reverse the order of the hair, by tying the crystal flash "on top" of the tube, and the fox hair below. This is how I originally did it, but it does not seem to matter much actually.

The overall length of the fly is 15cm. ( 6"). One may of course dress them in other sizes, but small ones are not as effective.

Despite its apparent size it may still be cast easily. The raised layer of thread ensures that the wing is straight out behind the fly, and not at an angle. This is important! Dark olive chenille is then attached, and wound in to cover the wing roots, and a length of silver grey chenille is used to form a head. Wind over and through the bead chain eyes. Tie off with several whip finishes, and varnish the thread. Use thin varnish, so that it soaks well in under the chenille. Don?t put any varnish on the chenille!

I also make up some of these things using epoxy with "glitter" added for the heads.

To fish, a long shank straight eyed stainless steel hook, size 4, is mounted in the usual way on the rear of the tube. Use red tube, it simulates the "guts" of the fish very well, and enhances the pattern?s effectiveness.

This fly is fished on a ten to twelve foot leader, and a floating or intermediate line ( depending on conditions). The technique is to cast out. Allow the fly to sink, ( careful here, takes "on the drop" are common). Then retrieve in long slow pulls, with pauses in between. Takes may be gentle, ( so strike at anything at all, don?t assume it is just "weed" etc), or extremely fierce. In which case there can be no mistake. One may of course vary the retrieve as desired.

I also have a pattern of this fly with a floating head, for use in deeper water on a sinking line. It is basically the same as the pattern described, except the head is a block of closed cell foam, slightly longer than the "sinking" head, sprayed with aluminium paint on top, and the dressing added afterwards.

I use sequins of the appropriate colour for eyes on this, with a black pupil of paint or varnish, ( one may simply use a hole punch to punch out circles of silver or gold paper etc, and place a "pupil" of varnish or paint in the middle), and epoxy the heads thinly when the fly is complete. I consider the eyes of paramount importance on such imitations, They are one of the most salient recognition points for predators, although not necessarily the aiming point for feeding attacks.


TL
MC

[Traditionalist]

Thanks for the pattern and advice Mike, and for taking the time and effort to put in your posts, keep them coming.
cheers, Brian.

My pleasure Brian. I enjoy doing it. A very pleasant way of passing the time. Most especially if it helps somebody else, and even more so when they express their appreciation!

I thank you, and indeed everybody else for their kind words in this regard.

TL
MC