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As many of you will be aware there is a Welsh fly called a "Green Peter". It was designed as a dry fly. In a crunch one day when I was fishing a slick and targeting fish that were taking just below the surface I included a Green Peter dry fly in my team with two English wee wets behind. There was clearly an interest with a couple of follows but still no hook ups. On the strength of that, so that I could try my two wets a little deeper I swapped to an intermediate line and proceeded to strip the team back Roly Poly style and probably just a foot or two below the surface. Results were almost immediate, by the end of the session two of the flies had produced fish and one was the Green Peter. Examination of the fly revealed that the hackle on the Green Peter was now a shadow of its former glory, had been chewed up and thinned out and now was sloping back more like a wet fly hackle. That got me thinking and that's were development of my "leggy Wake" fly started. I am a great believer of hot spots in flies and with that in mind the next major step was the addition of a pair of legs.

It was only a short step to then realising that  by changing the materials the same recipe can be used to produce a comprehensive selection of other useful wake or bob flies. No fly works all the time but these "Leggy Wake" flies work often enough for me to keep a few in my Loch Style fishing fly box.

I continue to like to fish them on my top dropper and retrieve them just below the surface. They can take fish, particularly rainbows, at any time during the retrieve, on the hang and particularly on the dabble.

Dressed with a little floatant these flies also are more than passable dry flies particularly early in the hopper season.

Depending on the size and application of the fly I like between 2 and 6 legs on my leggy wake flies. If its only two I generally use legs made up of three knotted pheasant tail fibres on each side or knotted silly or rubber legs but if I am using flexi floss I generally add between 4 and 6 legs. Each ore shown below. The legs of course add just a little more action to the fly.

Kate McLaren (yellow)

Tail - Yellow or pink hackle fibres Rib - Silver wire Body - Black Seals fur Wing - Church window hackle or bronze mallard fibres Hackle - Brown hen hackle

Kate McLaren (pink)

Tail - Pink hackle fibres Rib - Silver wire Body - Black Seals fur Wing - Church window hackle or bronze mallard fibres hackle - Brown hen hackle

Claret hopper

Tail - Claret hackle fibres Rib - Copper wire Body - Claret Seals fur Wing - Church window hackle or bronze mallard fibres Hackle - Claret hen hackle

Dunkeld

Tail - Yellow Hackle fibres Rib - Copper wire Body - Orange Seals fur Wing - Church window hackle or bronze mallard fibres Hackle - Orange hen hackle

Cock Robin

Tail - Orange hackle fibres Rib - Copper wire Body - Yellow/red Seals fur Wing - Church window hackle or bronze mallard fibres Hackle - Ginger hen hackle

Materials for Green Peter

Process

A	Wind the thread in touching turns to the bend of the hook. Understanding hooks Tie in a tail of around  10 Golden Pheasant tail fibres that have been died red. Tails for flies The finished tail should only be about 2/3 as long as the shank of the hook. Tie in a length of gold wire.

B	Dub on a cigar shaped body. Wind the copper wire along the body forming 4 or five uniform segments on the body. Body segments Break the excess wire off.

C	Using a piece of Velcro teas out the dubbing creating a bit of a halo around the body of the fly.

D	Make up 2 sets of three Cock Pheasant tail fibres knotted to represent legs. More on legs Tie one each side of the front of the body to represent legs.

E	Select a clump of the wing hackle fibres and tie them in on top of the fly. The tips of the wing should finish above and just behind the back of the hook.

F	Tie in a hackle just behind the eye of the hook. Wet fly hackle Take several turns of the hackle between the body and the eye of the hook. The actual number of turns will depend on the thickness of the hen hackle fibres and if the fly is being tied "light" or "heavy". Pull the hackle fibres with the fingers of the left hand and lock them into place, so that they lay back along the fly at an angle of around 30 degrees, with a couple of turns of thread. Build up a neat head of thread. Whip finish the thread, trim the thread and varnish the head.

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