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My articulated swimmer dressed in the red and white "Qantas" colours has been one of my most successful prospecting flies for Central Queensland. It has caught more than its fair share of barramundi in both the Boyne River and Awoonga Dam and has caught other species including bream, flathead, grunter, fingermark, queenfish, trevally and mackerel in the salt.

I have tied and fished this "estuary version" in a number of colours and theses are the colours I have stuck with.

• Qantas colours of red and white ... definitely the most useful combination of all for Central Queensland waters.
• Natural colours of green over shrimp

This amazing estuary fly tied in Qantas colours of red and white or natural colours of olive and shrimp is like candy to many estuary species. This estuary version is tied on a size #2/0 hook with a 3/16" dumbbell eyes. I also tie a fish fish of this fly on a size #3/0 hook generally with 3/16" dumbbell eyes.

Building an articulated fly is basically a two part process with the first step being the tying of the trailing hook fly.

Materials for trailing hook

Process

A	Wind the thread in touching turns to the bend of the hook. Understanding hooks Tie in a woolly bugger type tail. The target length of tail should be one and a half times the length of the hook. My woolly bugger type tails

B	If there are any ridges in the dressing use a bit of scrap material to fill in the ridges or gaps.

C	Tie a length of FNF chenille along the top of the hook shank. Take the thread forward to just behind the eye of the hook.

D	Apply a little water to the FNF chenille and forward in tight touching turns making sure to stroke the fibers back between each wrap of the FNF chenille. Tie the FNF chenille off directly behind the eye of the hook and trim away the excess. Whip finish the fly body and apply a liberal coat of varnish or a couple of drops of super glue to the whip finish.

The second part for building an articulated fly is to attach the articulated head to the eye of the trailing hook and dress the articulated shank.

Materials for articulated head

E	Slide an articulated shank through the eye of the hook. Some Fish Skull shanks have an offset eye. If that is the case with the shank you are using make sure that when you slide the shank onto the hook that you position the offset eye so that it is facing down.

F	Start half way along the shank and wind the thread back toward the rear eye of the shank. Tie in a length of palmer chenille.

H	Stroke the palmer chenille back with wet fingers to form a skirt that disguises the join of the hook and the shank. Tie in a length of FNF Jelly Chenille. Wind the thread forward to just behind the eye of the shank.

I	Tie in your dumbbell eyes on top of the hook shank using tight figure 8 wraps. To make sure that the eyes don't rotate on the hook shank include a couple of tight wraps the thread around the base of the eyes on top of the hook shank and between every couple of figure of eight wraps take a firm wrap of thread around the hook shank. Tying in dumbbell eyes Finish with the thread behind the eyes.

J	Wet the FNF chenille and taking care to stroke all the fibers of the FNF chenille back between each turn as you wind it forward in tight touching turns to behind the dumbbell eyes. Tie the FNF chenille off behind the dumbbell eyes and trim the excess FNF chenille away using a sharp blade. Take the thread over the dumbbell eyes and whip finish behind the eye of the shank. Trim away the excess thread and put a drop of super glue on the whip fished thread.

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