I am confident that my tie is nothing like the original tie, but in my defense many years ago, when I first wanted to tie this fly, a search of all my reference books just didn’t uncover a copy of the original tie. My tie of this fly is however quite easy and delivers a useful and robust fly.
A New Zealand fly tied with an overlaid wing and tied as an evening fly to imitate their freshwater crayfish known as Koura. The preferred fishing technique in New Zealand is to fish it slowly along the bottom. It certainly works well when fished that way in Australia but it has also found its way into may Australian Loch fly boxes as a dropper fly for waters where orange is a good trigger colour and mudeyes or yabbies are on the move.
Originating in New Zealand in the 1930’s this fly was first dressed in colours of black and red and was designed as an evening or night fly representing a local crayfish. The fact that it is highly visible and symmetrical has allowed the Fuzzy Wuzzy to evolve into a must have fly with applications across a wide range of situations.
Most English wet flies of this type were originally tied as imitations of specific impoundment bait fish or to simply gain the interest of fish and illicit a strike. I have tweaked the original recipe by adding a thorax of claret seals fur. That breaks the harsh lines of the original tie and adds a little bit of extra movement.
A variant of a old English wet fly this variant is in the same class as an Alexandra this fly as an attractor fly particularly when rainbows are the target. It is different to the original in that the dyed blue hackle has been replaced by blue barbells from the chest feathers of a male peacock and the body is “Glamor” thread fuzzeled with silver UV dubbing.
Its a fly that has withstood the test even though it was apparently banned for a time in Scotland where it was developed because it was just too effective. It remains effective today and is an excellent middle dropper attractor type fly or tip fly when fishing for fast moving rainbow trout. My version is tied inverted making it much more stealthy.
I normally fish smaller sizes as a midge pupa and from time to time use larger sizes as a point fly in a team of wet flies on a floating or intermediate line. I tie it both with and without weight and find the addition of a small black tungsten bead makes it a handy anchor fly or a good prospecting fly in running water.
Although I have never seen a natural of these colours these fly remain useful dropper flies. I lean toward to two red versions when midge are around and the green version works well in waters when midge are around but stick caddis and sand caddis are also on the menu.
The Mallard & Claret was the first for me in this series. Whilst it has been tweaked at the edges a little this Mallard & Claret pattern remains remarkably similar to the original fly pattern that has its origins in England some 500 odd years ago except for the introduction of a fuzzeled body rather than a hackled body and a soft wing instead of feather slip wings.
It was the summer of 2000 that I first became involved on English style Loch Style fly fishing and slowly I accumulated an arsenal of techniques and flies. I really enjoy tying flies and so as I have seen various patterns I have tied them and tried them. Most have been discarded and just a few have won a place in my Loch Style fly box – this is one of the keepers. Although I have never seen a natural of these colours this fly is one of my top dropper favorite flies.
