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Fly Tying for Opportunistic Scroungers
by Tony Orman
Fly tying can be either a fish catching or an art in creating a fly that looks so beautiful requires great skill to tie and mostly still catches trout.
With fly tying as an art form, I think of John Morton who I had the privilege to know as a good friend and angling companion. His skills were incredible. His flies could be wonderful creations, such as his dragon fly nymph “Little Annie” or his Frog pattern.
But he also tied up necessarily “not so pretty flies”, basic in their tying and tied solely to catch trout. The reality is, many - but not necessarily all - of the better trout flies are simple to tie. And many only require materials that you can get for ‘next to nothing’.
Of course your initial outlay for vice, bobbin holder, scissors etc will cost something but thereafter you can cut your costs greatly by being an opportunist scrounger.
Expert scrounging is an art and a skill.
It requires a good amount of resourcefulness and large amounts of fertile imagination.
Rabbit Fly
For instance there’s the story behind the Rabbit Fly, a wet fly lure which works well anywhere in North or South Islands. Alan Duncum of Hawkes Bay was the creator of the Rabbit fly lure. Perhaps one evening Alan’s eyes noticed his wife’s slippers that were trimmed with rabbit fur.
Using some scissors he cut a strip off and used it to tie a trout fly. It also said he was still married to the same lady, so she must have been an understanding wife!
You don’t need to go around seeking womens’ slippers to get rabbit fur. You could get into trouble doing that!
If you’re a hunter shoot a rabbit and skin it, peg it out, inside of the skin up/fur down. Then smear the skin with a 50-50 mixture of baking soda and kerosene. Do this for 3 or 4 days and then let it dry for a few days. Then to soften it up, rub it with a pumice.
Perhaps you don’t hunt but know a hunter? If you know one, ask - i.e. scrounge - him or her for a rabbit skin off the next one shot.
Perhaps you don’t hunt or don’t know a hunter?
Road Kills
Well in driving the country roads or highways carry a plastic bag and look for a clean road kill. Often a rabbit or hare killed by a car has had only a glancing but fatal blow so it’s dead and not a bloody mess.
Grab the animal and either skin it there and then leaving the skinned carcass for a hawk - or take it home and skin it, peg it out and cure it.
The trout fly use for rabbit fur is not confined to Alan Duncum’s rabbit fly lure. I’ve found rabbit fur dubbing nymphs to be pretty good too.
In the Rabbit Fly lure the strip of skin with fur is used for the top wing. i.e. to look like a small fish. The body is normally chenille in shop tied Rabbit flies. But you don’t need chenile - use wool, red, green, yellow, orange or whatever takes your fancy. It’s very cheap at the wool shop or you can just pinch some from your wife’s wool balls in the knitting/sewing kit.
The rabbit fly has a ribbing of thin wire just to hold the ‘wing’ in place. More on that thin copper wire later.
Hare and Copper
I mentioned briefly hare fur. Frequently I see road killed hares. Hare fur is very good for nymphs such as the Hare and Copper nymph, surely one of the most buggy looking nymphs out? Well the trout think so.
The Hare and Copper nymph uses thin copper wire as ribbing around the body. You can buy copper wire for fly tying from most tackle shops.
But back to the thin copper wire. I scrounged loads of it from the local auto-electrician in towns in the 1970s. I’ve still got those rolls - they last decades and cost me nothing except a smile and a poverty stricken look when I asked.
UK nymph guru Frank Sawyer used simple nymphs. His book “Nymphs and the Trout” is a great book.
Killer Bug
One of Frank Sawyer’s simple nymphs was the Killer Bug, made of fawnish wool wrapped around the hook torpedo style and a ribbing of that copper wire, hopefully scrounged from the auto-electrician. That’s all - simple, easy to tie and a “killer” to coin Frank Sawyer’s name for it.
A ball of a suitably coloured wool of that will last you a lifetime!
With the wool, a strand is three or four mini-strands together. Pick these out and use just one. That’ll make the the ball of wool last a lifetime.
Flies don’t have to be pretty. Many an ugly fly will catch trout. Therein lies a potential failing. A fly that looks good to the human eye may not look good to the trout’s eye - and perception.
Going back to road kills, a road killed possum skin gives you oodles of excellent fur for dubbing nymphs. Skin the carcass and cure it with that baking soda/kerosene paste mix and the same with the black furred tail which gives you countless flies, either dark nymphs or John Morton’s Hob Nail Boot, a favourite after dark streamer fly of mine.
Hob Nail Boot
The Hob Nail Boot is an excellent fly lure. I recall John Morton telling me it’s important to tie it sparsely. Don’t over-dress it.
I scrounged an old wallaby skin off a taxidermist and used the fur as dubbing for a nymph I called The Bouncer.
Possum fur is very underrated for flies. Possum fur comes in a couple of variations. For instance there’s the brown pelt and the grey one. The grey possum is ideal to dye particularly an olive colour.
Olive coloured possum fur is ideal for the Green Stonefly Nymph for up-country rivers and tying damsel fly imitations for Lake Argyle. The Hob Nail Boot in olive on a size 6 or 8 hook is a good imitation of a dragon fly nymph. About size 10 or 12 hook, ideal for a damsel fly nymph.
Anyone with chooks inevitably has to kill them to renew egg laying stock. If you have a friend with hens, ask them when they kill one, if you could have the neck hackle feathers. Three or four fibres make good tails for nymphs.
There’s no end to the opportunities. You just have to keep your eyes wide open and that imagination running in top gear.
© A road kill possum
© Hob Nail Boot fly lure made from possum fur tail
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