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It was the summer of 2000 that I first became involved in English style Loch Style fly fishing and slowly I accumulated an arsenal of techniques and flies. The mallard and claret was the first for me in this series. Whilst it has been tweaked at the edges a little this mallard and claret pattern remains remarkably similar to the original fly pattern that has its origins in England some 500 odd years ago. In contemporary Australia whist still popular as a wet pattern for stream fishing it is also popular as a top dropper or "Bob" fly for lock style fishing.

When mayflies are around I still occasionally use this fly but more often than not I tie a soft hackle version on that doesn't include the feather slip wings.

Materials

Process

A	Wind the thread in touching turns to the bend of the hook. Understanding hooks Tie in a length of fine copper wire. Segments on flies Tie in a tail of 6-8 Golden Pheasant tippets that is as long of the hook shank. Hackle tails

B	Dub on a cigar shaped body over the rear 2/3 of the hook shank. Single strand dubbing Tie the body hackle in directly in front of that body. Palmered hackle

C	Wind the body hackle back along the fly forming 3 or four segments. Whilst holding the body hackle in place with one hand pick up the copper wire back up the body with the other hand also forming 3 or 4 segments that lock the body hackle in place. Tie the copper wire off and trim the excess. Trim the excess hackle off at the tail with a blade. Directly in front of the body tie in a matching pair of feather slips that extend over the back of the fly at around a 30 degree angle. These wings should be as long as the shank of the hook. Feather slip wings

D	Tie in the front hackle directly behind the eye of the hook and wind it back to the wings in touching turns. Take the thread back to the wings. Wind the thread through the front hackle locking it into place an then at the eye of the hook whilst stroking the hackle back build up a neat head, lock off and trim the thread and finally varnish the head.

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