Dark side

I developed this fly to fill a place in my fly box for a fly that can be fished in all those areas where scroungers including: Flathead, Mangrove Jack, Fingermark, Grunter and Salmon and other predators scrounge are targeting small fish that are being flushed out of mangroves, rocky shores, drowned timber and weed beds on falling tides.

This fly can be cast onto a muddy bank, right into mangroves and onto rock bars and then can be retrieved over and through all manner of structure with an extremely low incidence of getting snagged up.

SCROUNGING AROUND THE MANGROVES

• As the tide is rising small fish, shrimp and prawns become vulnerable as they move into the mangroves and other structure where they can feed and feel relatively safe. In the early part of rising tides it’s still too shallow for the Mangrove Jack, Flathead and Bream and to a lesser extent Fingermark, Grunter and Salmon to follow those small fish, shrimp and prawns into the mangroves but they do move closer to in front of mangroves so they can pick of small fish and shrimp as they run the gauntlet to get into the cover of the mangrove roots to feed. Presented on intermediate lines this fly is a great small fish imitation at this stage of the tide.
• In the latter part of the rising tide when the tide inundates deeper into the mangroves Flathead, Mangrove Jacks, Bream and to a lesser extent Grunter and Fingermark will move into the mangroves proper to ramp up their feeding. For most of the deeper part of the tide that pretty well take all of those predators out of our range./li>
• As the tide starts to fall below a comfortable depth for those predators they move out of the structure and often station themselves close to the edge picking of small fish, shrimp and prawns as they run out of water and run gauntlet to get back to deeper water and again this fly comes into its own.
• Once the escaping flush declines, and the run of small fish, shrimp and prawns spreads out in deeper water, the Flathead, Mangrove Jack, Bream, Fingermark, Grunter and Salmon retreat to mud flats or holes and other deeper structure close to where they were feeding and they scrounge around those areas for a feed until the next high tide approaches and the feeding cycle starts again in earnest. During this period they remain targets for this fly.

I tied the original version on #2/0 hook in olive over shrimp for use in the 2021 Boyne Tannum Hook Up and that helped me secure a win in the flathead on fly section of that competition. Qantas colours of red over white has turned out to be a great option.

It’s tied on a worm hook which in soft plastic parlance is also referred to as a weedless hook and more often than not this fly can be retrieved not only through weed but also over or around most structure such as detritus matter, drowned timber, rocks etc without being snagged up.

I like to work it through a range of retrieves including continuous retrieves at various speeds and retrieves with plenty of pauses that allow the fly to either sink through the water column or bounce along the bottom.

MATERIALS FOR NATURAL BAITFISH SCROUNGER – OLIVE OVER BAITFISH

MATERIALS FOR MANGROVE JACK BAITFISH SCROUNGER – RED OVER ORANGE

MATERIALS FOR QANTAS COLOURED BAITFISH SCROUNGER – RED OVER WHITE

Notes

• All the sizes in this post relate to tying a size #2/0 baitfish. Size range for this fly is size #1 to size #5/0 … adjust the sizing to suite the size of the hook.
• The 2/0 hook is 47mm long and the target length for the finished jelly prawn is 94cm.
• For the weight that you pre-tie onto the hook I recommend 10 turns = light weight, 15 turns = medium weight and 20 turns of the lead wire = heavy weight.
• With such a small amount of hook shank being used to anchor all the materials in the fly I urge you to apply a small drop of super glue to the tie in of each material as you proceed.

Process

A	Lock the back of the bend of your #2/0 hook already loaded with its lead wire weight into the vice. [member Link=”p=33117″ Title=”adding weight to the shank of a hook”] I have painted the lead weigh red to represent a bleed and the shank of the hook as far as the bend of the hook with nail polish the same colour as the body and tail material I’ll be using. [member Link=”p=10018″ Title=”understanding hooks”] Tie the thread in half way along the small flat section of the hook shank that is just back from the eye of the fly.

B	Select a small bunch of Flash Blend, in the body and tail colour, that is 20cm long. Select 3 strands of Krystal Flash that are 20cm long and as evenly as possible disperse those into the bunch of flash blend. Tightly tie the Flash blend and Krystal Flash bunch in with half facing forward and the the other half facing back ward behind the bend of the hook. Take a half hitch in the thread and apply a single small drop of super glue to the tie in of the Flash Blend and Krystal Flash.

H	When the epoxy has cured, stroke the body materials back into place and trim the body so that the finished fly is 94mm long and the tail of the fly has a nice tapered finish.