The same tie is used for both of the above flies. The only difference is that the bread fly is dubbed a little heavier and then trimmed to shape. These flies should be weighted enough to sink but not so weighted that it becomes unnatural in their action. It is often often useful to suspend these flies under a floating bread fly or other buoyant fly so that you can detect any bites.
This PET shell nipper is significantly different to my PET shell prawn as that is unweighted and is designed to fish hook bite down whereas this nipper has a weight under its tail and is designed to be fished on the sandy bottom with the hook bite up.
Prawns and shrimp are crustaceans, of the family Isopod, and are endemic to our Australian estuary waters. They are toward the top of the food chain for a lot of coastal species of fish including bream, flathead and whiting.
Whilst not tied to imitate any particular insect this down wing style of fly can be tied with your favorite materials and in your favorite colours to imitate a range of insects. It is a good prospecting fly when nothing appears to be happening. In larger sizes it can be twitched or fished dead drift to imitate a hopper, cicada or other terrestrial insect that has found itself in the water or in smaller sizes can be danced across the surface to imitate a caddis fly.
When bass are feeding on big insects like Cicadas and Hoppers that crash onto the water they also become susceptible to large noisy and obvious flies like Dahlberg Divers cast around their structure or twitched across the surface. At other times they just have a whack at these big flies because there intruding into their domain. In either case the strikes and hook ups can be spectacular.
Most fly fishers will have one or more flies that they use to represent Mudeyes and these include Craigs Night-time, Tie Happy Tickler and Micks Mudeye. An alternative Mudeye representation is set out below. It incorporates many of the features of the flies mentioned above and utilizes two of my favorite fly tying materials, Peacock herl and Ring neck Pheasant (Church Window) feathers.
This fly imitates the poddy mullet and is easy to fish. I like to dredge it with regular strips over sandy bottoms. Hits are generally pretty hard and can be from flathead hardly bigger than the fly right up to monster lizards.
With a heavy lead shot head the fly sinks quickly and can as the name implies be jigged up and down in the zone. I am sure that the same pattern in a variety of colours will work on Trout as well as estuary species such as Flathead, Bream and Whiting.
If I could only carry one surface fly when fishing for Bass, Yellow belly and other native species my black Poll-Head-Popper would be it. They a definite “boof”as the fly lands and that is often enough to induce a strike.
With the tow point at the tip of the 90 degree stem any forward movement of the fly raises the fly up a little and a steady forward movement of the fly creates a very natural wake. If just twitched it creates circles reminiscent of a struggling terrestrial insect.
