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One of my top 10 trout flies is my Kalkite special. It's no surprise therefore that I have a cousin to that fly, perhaps with a little influence from the yeti fly, in my bass fly box. Unlike the trout Kalkite special fly I seldom fish this fly as a single fly but find that if fished on a dropper about 1.2 meters above one of my preferred point flies it works like a dream. I tie it with a choice of three different colours in zonker strips(olive,black and brown) and hot spot tails and beards in both red and chartreuse. In some of my ties I also include eyes of slips of silver holographic tinsel as seen in the third photo above.

See also 'Tom Jones variant'.

Materials

Process

A	Wind the thread in touching turns from the 95% position to about half way along the hook shank. Understanding hooks Tie in a length of 0.015 lead wire and take 10 wraps toward the eye of the hook. Worry off the excess wire. Options to add weight to a fly Tie in an under-tail of just 8 or 10 red or chartreuse hackle fibers.

B	Tie in a substantial over-tail of black buck tail hair and bind the butt ends along the top of the hook shank to form an under-body. The finished tail should be around one and a half times as long as the shank of the hook. Trim the possum fur butt ends off at an angle at about the 90% position so there wont be an obvious ridge at the front of the under-body. Tie in a length of fine wire at the bend of the hook.

C	Select 4 or 5 peacock herl, depending on the quality of the herl and the size of the fly and tie them in toward the front of the under-body. If you hold the herl above the hook as you wind back to the bend of the hook the tied in herl will be neatly positioned on top of the shank of the hook. Form the herl and the thread into a herl rope. Roping peacock herl

D	Wind the herl rope forward to the 90% position creating a uniform cigar shaped body. Tie the herl rope off.

E	Seperate the herl from the thread and trim away the butt end of the peacock herl. Take a length of zonker strip and tie it on top of the body of the fly at the 90% position. Wet your fingers and stroke the rabbit hairs forward revealing a gap in the zonker just in front of where the wire is tied in at the bend of the hook.

F	Pick up the fine wire and take it through the gap in the zonker locking the zonker squarely on top of the body of the fly at the bend of the hook. Wet your fingers again and about 20% further up the hook shank stroke the rabbit hairs forward revealing a gap in the zonker. Pick up the fine wire and take it through the gap in the zonker locking the zonker squarely on top of the body of the fly. Repeat the above steps until you have looked the zonker strip squarely along the top of the body od the fly with 4 equal segments. Take 2 or 3 firm wraps of the fine wire just in front of the body of the fly and then worry off the excess. Trim the rear end of the zonker strip so that the tips of the remaining rabbit fur sits directly above the tips of the tail of the fly.

G	Turn the hook over in the vice and at the 95% position tie in a beard of a few red hackle fibers at the 95% position.

H	Trim away the butt end of the beard hackle fibers. Turn the fly right way up in the vice.

I	Cut a small bunch of the rabbit fur off the zonker strip and tie that in at the 95% position.

H	Trim away the butt end of the bunch of rabbit fur. If you adding slips of holographic tine as eyes for the fly tie one slip in on each side of the fly at the 95% position. Build up a neat cone shaped thread head and whip finish. Varnish the head of the fly Neat heads

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