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If you went back just a few years and you a asked an average fly fisher to name his for her favourite fly chances are it would be a Fuzzy Wuzzy.

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. Whilst it remains a great evening fly when fished around lake margins when the fish are feeding in close, particularly when browns are mooching around in the shallows and stirring up a bit of a mess, it also can be used to advantage as a great middle dropper or attractor fly in a three fly loch style team.

The recipe below is for my favoured version but its worth noting that this recipe lends itself to variations. In the second fly the body is tied with ice chenille and in the third fly the tail is tied with the thin wispy marabou tips that seem to make up half the content of many packs of marabou that you purchase these days.

Materials

Process

A	Wind the thread in  touching turns to the bend of the hook. Understanding hooks Tie in a tail as long as the hook shank. Tails on flies

B	Wind on or dub on a small ball of the body material. Try to make the balls as round and uniform as possible.

C	Tie a hackle in directly in front of the first ball Wind a hackle three or four time around the hook shank in front of the first ball with each wrap of hackle being in front of the last one.

D	Stroke the fibres backward and tie them down so that they slope slightly backward and nestle neatly against the ball. Select a hackle with slightly longer barbules and tie it in in front of the second ball but short of the eye of the hook. Wind a hackle three or four time around the hook shank in front of the first ball with the last wrap being just behind the eye of the hook.

E	Stroke the fibres backward and tie them down so that they slope slightly backward and nestle neatly against the front ball. Build up a neat head of thread. Whip finish the thread. trim the thread and varnish the head of the fly.

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