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Beetles are of the order Coleoptera and there are over 28,000 species found in Australia.

Terrestrial beetles

Many different types of beetles are fond in the vegetation throughout Australia. There are those that live in forests, other that live in pastures and yet others peculiar to tussock ridden high country grasslands. Sizes and colour vary significantly as do the patterns that represent them. Because beetles are blown onto the water rather than intending to be there it is common to find a number of different types of beetles on the trouts “shopping list” at the one time.
Some of the more commonly encountered beetles include the fiery brown, various gum beetles and even ladybird beetles.

Aquatic beetles

A small number of beetles spend either part or all of their laval and or adult stages as aquatic or semi aquatic insects. These "aquatic beetles" are also targeted by trout or other fish from time to time. Having said that fly fishers have generally not focused on tying any specific flies to represent either the lava or adult of individual species of these aquatic beetles.  This is probably because other than by detailed autopsy it is difficult to identify if a beetle found in a trouts stomach was taken as a floating or wet terrestrial or was in fact an aquatic beetle and at the nymphal stage they are difficult to distinguish from nymphs of other insects.

Because this identification is so difficult for the fly fisherman (and hopefully the trout) it is assumed that trout feeding on lava of aquatic beetles will accept nymphs of other insects and trout feeding on adult aquatic beetles will accept a drowned beetle representation or in the case of diver beetles a Corixia representation.

Fishing technique

Both floating and wet  beetles (including drowned terrestrials beetles and aquatic beetles) should be fished in the current with as little line drag as possible or with a very short twitching action. A nondescript well tied beetle pattern if presented in the right way when fish have beetles on their menu, more often than not, will be accepted by fish. Consequently no fly box would be complete without a selection of beetle patterns. Good representations include: red tag, geehi beetle, humpy, cock-y-bonddu and foam beetle

Common names size dressing:

Fiery brown #12  red/brown body, brown wing casing & brown legs.
Geehi beetle #12 peacock herl body, brown wing case & yellow legs.
Tea tree beetle #12 black body, brown wing casing & brown legs.
Ladybird beetle #14 black body, red wing casing & black legs.

Materials

Process

A	Wind a heavier than normal thread in touching turns to the bend of the hook. Understanding hooks Tie in a tail like feature extending behind the hook about 2/3 the length of the hook shank. This isn't really a tail. The tail like feature on my beetles is tied in to imitate the beetle wing parts that often trail behind the beetle like a tail when it gets trapped in the water mid flight. Return the thread to 75% of the way along the hook shank toward the eye of the hook.

B	Tie in closed cell form forming an under-body and leaving enough foam extending beyond the bend of the hook to pull over to form the beetle back. Tie in your body material at the bend of the hook. Closed cell foam bodies

C	Wind the body material over the under-body toward the eye of the hook with firm touching turns. Tie the body material off and trim the excess body material at the same position that the under-body ends. At this stage you can add hackle legs. Hackle legs on foam beetles Pull the closed cell foam into position over the top of the fly.

D	Hold the closed cell foam in position onto the top of the hook shank at the tie down point with the fingers of your left hand. With your right hand take a couple of tight wraps of thread. Without releasing pressure on the thread place a couple of double hitches over the eye of the hook.

E	Trim the tag end of the foam just behind the eye of the hook. Trim the thread and paint eyes on if you like. If I haven't tied in hackle legs on all but the smallest beetles I like to add silicon legs. This can be done very easily by just threading the silicon onto a darning needle and passing the needle through the under-body and then pulling through and trimming the legs to size.

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