The original thing was pink and white and was tied by Graham White of Darwin the early 80’s. It got its name “pink thing” when one of his mates asked for “a lend of one of those pink things”. Whilst the “pink thing” was tied as a barra fly it has turned out to be a great dirty water fly for a range of tropical species.
A great fly to use when target fish are actively feeding on small fish such as sardines, whitebait and pilchards. You can either fish it on a floating line and strip it across the surface with dramatic effect or fish the fly on a sinking line, count the fly down and then retrieve it up through the water column using a fast stripping action or roly poly retrieve.
This is a great fly to rip through the water in front of Tailor, Australian Salmon, Tarpon and any other fish that is a predator of small fish.
The combination of the resin head and the body materials create a fly that is translucent and a very effective imitation of many small thin fish that that are targeted by bigger fish. This fly is much easier to tie than a candy and in my view a better fly overall.
This is quite a realistic prawn or shrimp imitation and incorporates a little bit of flash and a rattle in the body. Its particularly useful as a salt water polaroiding fly when just a twitch is often enough inducement for a strike and in murky water where a stop start strip gets the rattle working. I tie it in Root Beer / Pearl, Olive / Chartreuse and Pink / pearl but other colour combinations also work.
This is a prawn or shrimp imitation that has stood the test of time. Whilst I have seen it in all sorts of sizes and colours I have found that small flies tied in translucent shades of olives through to browns work best.
As the name implies these flies are built using a soft plastic lure body. I like to use 2″ and 3″ crescent tail type soft plastics as they tend to have a little more movement than some of the alternatives. For general prospecting or when targeting bream and whiting I use the 2″ version and when I am targeting flathead I use the 3″ version.
By varying the materials used, the colours and size I have accounted for trout, bream, flathead, mangrove jack and even barramundi on wiggle minnows. The recipe I have set out below is just one version of this very adaptable fly and I would encourage you to individualize the fly to your own requirements.
The Clouser in my view is the quintessential salt water fly. It can be tied in sizes to suit Bream or Billfish and with the correct dressing and size is equally at home in saltwater, trout and bass fisheries.
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.
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.
