Metalic pink TBH brown woolly bugger
This is a variation of a bead head woolly bugger that has worked very well for me in Lake Eucumbene and Tantangara Reservoir on brown trout and on Lake Maroon for bass.
Trout flies
Humungus – black and gold
The tie of my fly is very close to David Downey’s fusion of those two flies which he describes as perhaps the best still water fly in the world. I use it as a top dropper attractor and for that reason use a brass rather than a tungsten bead. Particularly in water that is a little discoloured I am confident this fly brings a lot of fish to my team.
Todd’s Vampire (variant)
Based in Maple Ridge, B.C. Todd Oishi designed his “leach” (Vampires are also a blood sucker hence the name) fly with a tail of black rabbit fur or black marabou and with Vampire Vippy as the body. I have not been able to find any Vampire Vippy and tie my Vampires with UV straggle fritz.
Destroyer – Chatto’s variant
My variant does not include the shroud of mara wool tips around the zonker tail. I have left that off because for me the currents around the body of the fly produce more movement in the tail when it is not shrouded. I like hot spots on flies and accordingly have added a hot spot of red Wapsi palmer chenille under the tail. For my deeper water flies, as many other users have done, I use bead chain eyes rather than the unweighted plastic chain eyes as on the original.
Muskins PTN
This is very popular Northern hemisphere fly and whist it more popular in still water it also has its uses in running water. Appealing to fish that are on mixed diet that includes mayfly nymph and midge.
UV cruncher
More of a class of fly than a fly in itself because you will find UV crunchers tied a all sorts of colours from black right through to dun colours and pale olives. I like this particular tie because it incorporates peacock herl which is one of my favourite fly tying materials.
Leaders – set ups for trout
When it all boils down leaders don’t have to be as complicated as they are made out to be. I have set out below how I set up my trout leader and I hope that will provide as a minimum a reasonable starting point. Keep in mind however that I fish 10 foot #6 weight fly rods when fishing for trout in lakes and consequently if your using a shorter or longer rod you may need to adjust some of the measurements that I have used.
PTN variant
This variation of Frank Sawyers pheasant Tail Nymph takes into account the shorter herl on pheasant tails that dominate the market these days and to include the substitution of peacock or coloured dubbing in the thorax and the addition of legs.
Carrot dry fly
Tied with natural seals fur it is a fly that sits well on the water and easily sheds water with a snappy false cast.
Carrot wet fly
This fly came about as an extension of the idea of using very popular carrot dry fly and has turned out to be a great weighted attractor fly to use on the top or middle dropper when fishing a representation fly on the point to river fish.