These flies are a great standby for when big queenfish, GT’s and goldens, that are either hunting on sand flats or are attacking blue-water bait fish , shun more natural coloured offerings and yet get turned onto chartreuse coloured flies.
My clousers have progressively mutated to being tied out of synthetic Flash Blend. This is my best mutation to date and as well as being very durable it is slightly translucent and moves well in the water making the representation of a bait fish better than the original. It also sheds water well on the pick up and back cast making it easy to cast.
This is my favourite version of the clouser for use when targeting fish holding deep and is tied with H2O slinky fibre which makes the fly present as slightly translucent.
Matching the hatch is the key to catching pelagics such as queenfish, tuna, Australian salmon and herring on fly. These unweighted flies are like candy to pelagic fish because they closely match the form and function of a lot of naturals they are targeting. In smaller sizes, particularly in pink, they are a handy fly for targeting flathead and bream in estuary waters.
This bigger pregnant prawn fly is one of my goto flies here in Central Queensland estuary waters. I often fish it when targeting barra, grunter, jacks and flathead in estuary and harbour waters but it’s not unusual to hook up on queenfish, travally or other fish that eat prawns.
If your targeting Barramundi this is great prospecting fly for both fresh and salt tropical waters. It’s dressed in popular Qantas colours of red head and white body that is popular with so many barra type hard body and soft plastic type lures. With an overall length of a size from 9 cm to 15cm these are big flies for big fish so I suggest that you fish them on a #10 weight outfit.
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.
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.
