Whilst not designed to represent any particular bait fish I have designed this fly to have a shape, form and function similar to many of the little fish that predators hunt. This #2/0 estuary fly is 9 cm long and because it’s unweighted it’s relatively easy to cast. It’s a great fly to use when […]

Poppers are a bit harder to cast than a normal fly because of the wind resistance but if you slow your cast down a little I’m sure you’ll soon get the hang of it. Once you do you have another tool in your arsenal which is useful in three diverse situations:

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.

This is a great fly to rip through the water in front of Tailor, Australian Salmon, Tarpon and any other fish that is a predator of small fish.

The combination of the resin head and the body materials create a fly that is translucent and a very effective imitation of many small thin fish that that are targeted by bigger fish. This fly is much easier to tie than a candy and in my view a better fly overall.

Whilst the fly can be tied using materials such as polar fiber or craft fur or un-crinkled nylon materials such as ‘Fishhair’ I think that candies work better when tied with crinkly nylon fiber material such as ‘Superhair’ or ‘Supreme hair’. Also, both these materials take on a translucency when wet and I think this is one of the triggers to the fly’s success.

I developed this fly to fish both the snaggy rock and coral waters but more recently have found a place for it when fishing the open blue waters and estuary waters of Central Queensland.

This fly has now accounted for bream, flathead, whiting, trevally, mullet, tailor, flounder, bass and trout. I expect it will be attractive to many other species also. Native fresh water Bass are a favourite of mine and if I could only carry one type of sinking fly to target then with the Black Estuary/Bass fly would be it.

My first fish on fly fell to the magic of a Woolly Bugger and many have gone the same way since then. Tied predominately as a prospecting fly for barra in Awoonga this fly also gets a swim in estuary and coastal waters when I am looking for grunter and fingermark.

This fly is a floating version of my PET prawn fly and can be a real game changer and so much fun when estuary species, particularly bream and whiting, are feeding on the surface.

The mud prawn is my first choice of fly for general prospecting in estuary waters or for targeting, whiting, flathead and bream. In water of only a meter or so fish it on an intermediate line. In deeper water I prefer to fish it on a sinking line. The best retrieve is a jerky but slow retrieve leaving plenty of time between strips for he fly to settle back on the bottom. used in this way it’s a good representation of a prawn fleeing from its sandy retreat after being disturbed.

This PET shell nipper is significantly different to my PET shell prawn as that is unweighted and is designed to fish hook bite down whereas this nipper has a weight under its tail and is designed to be fished on the sandy bottom with the hook bite up.

Prawns and shrimp are crustaceans, of the family Isopod, and are endemic to our Australian estuary waters. They are toward the top of the food chain for a lot of coastal species of fish including bream, flathead and whiting.

This is the third in my series of scrounger flies and like the scrounger baitfish and the scrounger jelly prawn it’s tied on a worm hook which in soft plastic parlance is also referred to as a weedless hook and more often than not this fly can be retrieved not only through weed but also over or around most structure such as detritus matter, drowned timber, rocks etc, in rivers and lakes, without being snagged up.

This fly can be cast onto a muddy bank, right into mangroves and onto rock bars and then can be retrieved over and through all manner of structure with an extremely low incidence of getting snagged up.

I tie this fly on a #1 or #3/0 unweighted worm hook to which I add my own weight. Even though the natural jelly prawn is only about 4cm long versions bigger than that dont seem to worry bigger fish and I am guessing that they are more tuned into the colour, form and function of the oversized representation of a jelly prawn and see the bigger offering of protein as a bonus.