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The Cormorant was popularised by Graham Pearson who was a boatman in one of the English youth internationals. As the story goes it was one of those competition days when the fishing was tough and very few anglers boated fish. One of Pearsons angler bucked the trend and landed three fish using a short line cast only 20 yards or so and a slow retrieve with a single fly that has become known as the cormorant fly.

The name of the angler concerned unfortunately has been lost and its unsure if the angler conceived the fly or came across it somewhere else or if it was already called a cormorant or if Pearson gave it that name.

In any case is a simple fly that incorporates two of the greatest fly tying materials, marabou and peacock herl and it continues to be a popular single or team fly. It's also a fly that has lent itself to adaptation and you will often come across versions with glass or brass bead heads, bodies of all sorts of tinsels and colours and wings in a range of marabou colours. These days the cormorant and its many variations are fished in all sorts of ways from almost static right up to roly poly on a full range of fly lines.

The original tie did not have the tag tail or the lateral flash.

See also: Cormorant-competition version and original cormorant.

Materials

Process

A	Wind the thread in touching turns from the 95% position to the bend of the hook. Understanding hooks The original fly did not incorporate a tail or tag but I like to tie in a red floss tag. If you decide it's too much when your fishing it's easy to trim it off the tag. So my preference is to tie in a floss tag equal tin length to the gape of the hook.

B	Tie in a length of fine silver wire. My preference is to tie it in along the top of the hook shank all the way from the 90% position to the bend of the hook so as to maintain a relatively uniform under-body without any ridges.

C	Tie in between 2 and 4 peacock herl depending on the size of the fly and the quality of the peacock herl. Again, my preference is to tie it in along the top of the hook shank all the way from the 90% position to the bend of the hook.

D	Form the peacock herl and the thread into a rope and wind the rope forward all the way to the 90% position forming a cigar shaped body. Tie the peacock herl off and trim away the excess. Roping peacock herl

E	Pick up the wire and wind it forward to the 95% position in tight turns forming 7 or 8 segments and also reinforcing the fly body. Tie the wire off at the 90% position and worry off the excess wire.

F	Pick a bunch of marabou and position it with the tips directly above the tip of the tag. If the marabou is too wispy at its tips then leave the wing a little longer so that the thin wispy ends can be pinched off in line with the tip of the tag.

G	Swap you hold over on the wing to your other hand and tie the marabou in place in front of the body with a couple of firm turns of thread. Trim away the excess marabou butts with a sharp pair of scissors. If your going to tie in some lateral flash select a short length of thin red holographic tinsel and tie in a single strand at the 95% position on each side of the fly with the tinsel laying along the full length of the side of the fly. I tie lateral flash in most of the time as it's a simple task to trim it away if you think the water your fishing is too clear or that fish are put off on the day by too much flash. Build up a neat head of thread. Whip finish the thread. Trim the thread and varnish the head.

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