Detailed below are the flies I used on my last Tropical Fly Fishing Trip. Whilst that trip was to Melville Island off Darwin the selection is relevant to most Australian tropical destinations and is a good starting point for one of those exotic tropical fly fishing destinations. For normal salt water use I always tie on Stainless Steel hooks so that the fly can be rinsed and put back in my fly box. Because there is the potential to loose a lot of flies when fishing up north you may want to consider cutting costs by substituting coated hooks rather than Stainless steel and bead chain eyes rather than the much more expensive dumbbell eyes and real eyes. Also think about “form & function” and restrict the list of flies that you take to a selection that covers the range of fishing situations that you expect to encounter and carry multiples of each fly rather than a having more than one fly with the same form and function. A good tip is to carry some split shot. If the fish are fishing too deep just adding a split shot can get the fly down that extra meter or so and that may make all the difference. Also tie some of your flies with weed guards. They don’t cut down the hook up rate and you will find that they save a lot of snags when fishing shallow drains and around mangroves. In any case you can cut weed guards off if necessary but gee they are hard to add in the field. I like to carry two rigged rods. My preferred outfit is a #9 weight rod rigged with a Rio Intermediate sink tarpon taper line. I use this for 80% of my tropical fishing. I also carry T14 fast sinking shooting heads backed with 50lb slick shooter running line, and a floating line amongst my spare lines. I nail knot 1 meter of 50lb of good quality mono off the end of my fly lines as a leader and finish that with a loop knot. I like my tippet to be connected to that with a loop knot and to be the weakest link in my rig so I restrict that to a maximum of 40 lb straight mono or fluorocarbon. That can be fished straight through to the fly or you can add a lighter tippet or heavier shock/abrasion tippet. Oh and if I was only taking 2 flies they would be size 2/0 pink things and size 2/0 chartreuse/white clousers – these two flies will cover probably 80% of your tropical fly fishing.

If it was a serious trip that I had planned and saved for I would take the following flies as well as my estuary fly box for flats fishing, my bass box for anywhere there are lilies and my offshore fly box for any pelagic fishing.

Articulated poppers

As a teaser a popper will often excite pelagics such as trevally and queenies and give you the chance to present a more conventional fly. These articulated poppers are as simple as it gets. Thread your tippet through the hole in the simple closed cell popper head and tie on any unweighted deceiver or thing or a dedicated popper tail and your in business.

Clouser minnow

he 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.

Deceiver

In terms of popularity with salt water fly fisher folk it probably runs second only to the Clouser Minnow. The Deceiver was designed to be easily tied in a range of sizes and in a range of colors and consequently it has applications across a range of fisheries. The only change I have made to the recipe is to include a foundation of buck tail under the tail hackles and reduce the tail hackles from 6-8 to 2-4.

Thing

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.

Wiggle minnow

By varying the materials used, the colours and size I have accounted for trout, bream, flathead, mangrove jack and even barramundi on wiggle minnows. The recipe I have set out below is just one version of this very adaptable fly and I would encourage you to individualize the fly to your own requirements.