Scotch Poacher

 

A New Zealand fly tied with an overlaid wing and tied as an evening fly to imitate their freshwater crayfish known as Koura. The preferred fishing technique in New Zealand is to fish it slowly along the bottom. It certainly works well when fished that way in Australia but it has also found its way into may Australian Loch fly boxes as a dropper fly for waters where orange is a good trigger colour and mudeyes or yabbies are on the move.

Materials

Hook Thread Tail Rib Body Wing Hackle
Long shank Black Calf or kip tail Silver holographic tinsel Orange seals fur Swam hen or Pukeko breast feathers Hen died orange

Process

A
  1. Wind the thread in touching turns to the bend of the hook.
  2. Select a bunch of calf tail or kip tail fibres about as thick as a match stick and tie them in along the hook shank with the tips forming a tail for the fly about as long as the hook shank.
  3. Tie in a length of silver holographic tinsel. I keep all of my tinsels on bobbins tie them in and then leave the bobbin hanging over the back of the vice until I need them. This makes it much easier to wind the holographic forward when required and save a lot of waste from off cuts.

B
  1. Build up a neat body of seals fur.

C
  1. Wind the holographic tinsel forward forming 4 or 5 segments on the fly.

D
  1. Tie a wing consisting of 2 or 3 blue swamp hen feathers with the tips extending around half way along and over the tail.

E
  1. Tie an orange hackle in just behind the eye of the hook by the tip.
  2. Trim the tip that is in front of the tie in and take 2 or 3 full turns of the hackle depending on the quality of the hackle.
  3. Stroke the hackle fibres back with your left hand and whilst holding them in position lock them in place with a couple of wraps of thread.
  4. Build up a neat head of thread.
  5. Whip finish and varnish the head.



Last Updated: February 12, 2011
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Categories: Flies, Loch flies
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