BMS (Bullen Mary Special)

 

At the 2003 Australian Fly Fishing Championships held at Mt. Beauty this was one of the few flies that produced more than one fish. It is a favourite fly at Lake Bullen Merri where it gets its name BM Special. Because of its history of success it is often regarded as a quintessential Rainbow trout fly by many Victorian fly fishers. This variant is tied with round tinsel which doubles up as a dubbing loop.

The original is tied with flat tinsel as in the third photo below:

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Materials

Hook Head Thread Tail & body Weight Ribbing Collar
Size 8 to 10 Glass bead Clear Mono Synthetic  Living Fiber (SLF) in choice of colours Lead as required Silver oval or flat tinsel Red tinsel or floss

Process

A
  1. Place bead on hook & fix hook into vice. The bead is likely to be a bead designed for the jewellery industry and probably wont have one opening bigger than the other so it can on the hook from either side making it difficult to slide it round the bend of the hook.
  2. Wind the thread in touching turns from behind the bead to the bend of the hook
  3. Tease out a bunch of SLF and tie in a tail about 3/4 the length of the hook shank.

B
  1. Use dubbing of a similar colour to build up a slightly wedge shaped body.
  2. Tie in the tinsel as a dubbing loop at the bend of the hook.
  3. Take the thread forward to behind the bead.

C
  1. Load the tinsel up with SLF making sure that its equally distributed along the length of the loop.

D
  1. Twist the loaded dubbing loop into a rope.

E
  1. Wind the tinsel and SLF rope along the shank of the hook to the bead in touching turns.
  2. Tie the dubbing rope off and trim the excess.
  3. Tie in a length of red tinsel or floss directly behind the bead.

F
  1. Wind the red floss forming a collar directly behind the bead.
  2. Tie the floss off with the clear mono and trim the excess.
  3. Apply head cement over the bead and collar.
  4. Tease out a bit of SLF on the top and bottom of the fly to form a nice smelt shape.



Last Updated: December 28, 2010
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Categories: Flies, Streamers & pulling flies
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