Slow roller

 

When barra are showing on the sounder but are not responsive I have noticed that the soft plastic fishos revert to rolling 5" plastics such as the Castaics Jerky J very slowly past sulking fish. If they can get their offering in the face of fish they will often get a response seemingly just to break the monotony.

Fish these lightly weighted "slow rollers" on intermediate or fast sink lines and a 30lb Maxima Ultra Green leader of about rod length. If you can see fish holding amongst timber put in a good cast beyond the timber and then count your line down and then work repetitive slow roly poly retrieves through the area.

Barra are upward looking fish so count your line down so that the fly will be swimming just above or equal to where the fish are holding. As an example my intermediate line sinks at around 2.5 inches per second so if the barra are holding at 4 feet (48 inches) I will count down from say 14 seconds (2.5 x 14 = 35 inches) to 20 seconds (2.5 x 20 = 50 inches) ... much deeper than that and your fly will be below their line of vision. My fast sink line sinks at 8 inches per second so the count down for 48 inches would be between 5 seconds (8 x 5 = 32 inches) to 7 seconds (8 x 7 = 56 inches).

The bib is integral to this fly as it imparts a slow swimming action.

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Materials

 

Hook Thread Under Tail Flash Over-tail Body Bib Head Eyes
Size #3/0 Mustard 34007 stainless 100 Denier Marabou Tiewell kystalflash Marabou FNF UV jelly chenille Fly Lip bib and 00 lead shot H2O Streamer Brush Stick on eyes and a coat of UV resin

Process

A
  1. Wind the thread in touching turns to the bend of the hook.
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B

    I build my marabou tail for these flies in three stages.

  1. The first stage is to tie in the under-tail. The target length of tail should be about one and a half times the length of the hook which in this case is 44mm so the tail will extend around 66mm behind the bend of the hook.
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C
  1. The second stage is tying in the tail flash. I don't like the krystal flash tied in on the outside of the marabou and prefer it partially hidden in the tail. To achieve that i tie 4 or 5 strands of krystal flash around the top half of the under-tail. In this case I have tied in 2 strands of peral abd 3 strands of red krystal flash.

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D
  1. The final part of the tail is tying in the over-tail which can now be tied in on top of the under-tail hiding some of the krystal and completing the tail. In this version of my slow Roller the over-tail is the same colour as the under-tail but on some slow rollers I use a contrasting colour.
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E
  1. Rotate the fly 180 degrees.
  2. Just behind the eye of the hook build up a little mound of thread so that when the lip is tied in there will be plenty of room to attach the tippet to the fly.
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F
  1. Tie a fly lipp in so that it is flat along the bottom of the shank and it leaves enough access to the upturned eye of the shank to be able to connect your shank eye to your leader when you fish this fly.
  2. Rotate the fly back upright.
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G
  1. Tie in a length of jelly chenille directly in front of the palmer chenille skirt.
  2. Take the thread forward to 75% position on the hook shank.

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H
  1. Wind the jelly chenille forward in tight touching turns. Jelly chenille ties in better if you wet it and stroke the fibres back between each wrap of the jelly chenille.
  2. Tie the jelly chenille off at about the 75% position on the hook shank and trim away the excess.
  3. I generally do a couple of half hitches at that stage just to insure that nothing comes unravelled.
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I
  1. In this fly I have used H20 streamer brush for the head but other materials such as craft fur or Todd's palmer chenille are good alternatives.
  2. Tie the body material in at the 75% position.
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J
  1. Wind the body material forward in tight touching turns to the eye of the hook.
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K
  1. Tie the body material off and trim the excess away with a sharp blade.
  2. With wet fingers stroke the body material back with your thumb and forefingers forming a neat head.
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L
  1. Attach stick on eyes on each side of the head.
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M
  1. Mix a small amount of two part 5 minute epoxy and coat the front of the head and the eyes.
  2. Rotate the fly in the vice to ensure that any excess epoxy flows evenly.

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n
  1. Take a #00 lead shot, open up the split.
  2. Mix a very small amount of two part 5 minute epoxy and put just a drop in the split in the lead shot. I use the 5 minute epoxy because UV epoxy does not stick well to the flylipp.
  3. With a pair of pliers position the lead shot in the middle of the leading edge of the flylipp and then use the pliers to pinch the lead shot closed so its locked into that position.
  4. Rotate the fly in the vice to ensure that any excess epoxy flows evenly around where the lead shot is attached to the flylipp.

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