The beauty of this fly is that once tied with legs if on the day if you decide you want a fly without kegs its easy to snip the legs off. It’s also versatile enough, witha little dry fly dressing, to be dry fly. My favourite dressings are blae and black, mallard and claret, green peter and Kate McLaren.

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.

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.

Conceptually these are a very simple fly but when tied with the right materials and in the right density they are a great all round fly. You can use them as a stream fly or for polaroiding or prospecting but in my opinion they are at their best when used as an attractor fly in a team of loch style flies. Choice of fur is important. If you can get died kangaroo that’s OK but my preference is rabbit fur off a zonker strip.

I particularly find the yellow version useful when yellow winged hoppers or other insects with yellow parts are on the trouts menu. At other times pink is a great trigger color and when combined with the flash of the holographic tinsel and or the movement of the fuzzeled body and the soft front hackle are often enough to trigger a response.

One of the first loch flies I was introduced was a mallard and claret tied in a traditional way with a pair of feather slip wings. I thought it was the bees knees as a bob fly and used it any time when mayflies were around. Over time I modified the tie until I reached the variation below. For me this is a vastly superior fly and as well as being a great substitute for a traditionally tied mallard and claret also works well on mayfly feeders taking pre emergers.

This royal bibio version is always worth a swim, particularly if there are midge or damsels around. It’s a variation of the original bibio except that the dubbed body has been replaced with the same sort of body you find on royal wulffs, hair winged royal coachman and royal trudes to name just a few.

I have changed the materials from the originals to include a couple of my fly tying favorites namely marabou for the tail, peacock herl for the body and a crow breast feather up front. If you swap the front feather to a blue feather such as swamp hen or a smallish peacock breast feather you have the also popular blue Zulu.

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.

The MK2 is a great alternative middle dropper lock fly to my tie of a Dunkeld for those bright full sun days and also a very formidable wee wet for faster or discoloured rivers.

The cormorant fly is a popular loch fly and particularly in rainbow trout waters. The original tie has a peacock herl body with silver rib whereas this competition version has been jazzed up a bit by substituting clear holographic tinsel for the herl body.

A simple to tie fly that incorporates two of the greatest fly tying materials, marabou and peacock herl and it continues to be a popular single or team fly. It’s also a fly that has lent itself to adaptation and you will often come across versions with glass or brass bead heads, bodies of all sorts of tinsels and colours and wings in a range of marabou colours. These days the cormorant and its many variations are fished in all sorts of ways from almost static right up to roly poly on a full range of fly lines.

One of the first wet flies tied was the coachman and that consisted of just a black body and a a set of white hackle slip wings. Over time flies have evolved and one path the coachman took was the substitution of a “royal” body for the simple black body. Many versions have been tied since and this one works for me.

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.

When a seriously flashy fly is needed because of visibility or you just need a fly to excite fish this fly may save the day.

I now tie it in three versions. The first is as set out in the recipe below. Originally designed for red fin feeders it has become my favourite bag fly overall. It has red hackle fibres tied under the tail and as a light beard and over time I found these a great trigger point for all versions. The second version is all brown except for the red beard and is a great alternative to a Diawl Back. Finally I tie a bead head version for when I want to fish a little deeper.

A bead head version is not a bad idea either. Swap over to a slightly longer hook such as a Tiemco 3769, start with a small black tungsten bead and continue with the recipe below.

My version below varies from the original tie in that it doesn’t include a body hackle. Instead the body is dubbed with seal fur dubbing which has been teased out in step ‘D’ with a Velcro rub.

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.

A variation on my Soft Winged Bob flies is to turn them into anchor flies for use as the point fly in a team of loch style flies. They are attractive to fish and because of the smaller size and additional weight they sink faster than most flies and keep my leader straight making it easier to keep in contact with my dropper flies. The weigh is a 2mm gold, copper or black tungsten bead (or brass bead and 8 wraps of .015mm lead on the front half of the hook shank).

My bag fly is based on the Tom Jones flies and are suggestive of a number of items that find themselves on the trout’s menu from time to time. They vary from the original Tom Jones flies in the materials used and the inclusion of an under-tail and beard. They are a good buggy looking fly.

This is my favourite damsel fly imitation and ticks all the boxes. It is quite representational of an emerging damsel with its overall form and function and has a neat little hot spot in the form of the red eyes. It’s a great fly to fish at any time when there are midge or damsels around as most importantly the trout love it.

We don’t have Cockabullies here or an equivalent native fish but despite that they are one of our most successful flies around weed beds in both lakes and rivers. They can be fished from dead drift to “roly poly” but my favorite retrieve is a reasonable fast figure eight.

My standard Yeti variant is a very successful fly but every now and again you need something a bit mor flashy. This fly fills that gap in my fly box. In smaller sizes I prefer my Bag Fly or my Tom Jones.

In its larger sizes, this fly fishes well and is equally at home fished as either a general prospecting fly retrieved slow and deep around weedy margins or as a fly for windy conditions where it can be allowed to slosh around for a few seconds and then can be slowly retrieved or as a point or attractor fly in a loch style fishing team of flies. In windier conditions it also works well when ripped across the surface.

I carry this fly in my lake box rather than my nymph box because I use it in lakes rather than rivers. For me it is a great middle dropper fly in a team of lock style flies in still water where the the flash of red, yellow, orange or pink in the thorax it make it a great attractor pattern.