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This fly is inspired by the Clouser but it is so different I just call it a a baitfish fly.

It's slightly translucent and swims well making it a realistic generic baitfish pattern. It also sheds water well on the pick up and back cast making it easy to cast.

I tie my "baitfish fly" in a range of colours and from size #1 up to #4/0 and if I could only carry one colour that would be olive over UV shrimp. That one colour tied in a range of sizes covers a big cross section fish that I target in Central Queensland. In the smaller sizes it's great for estuary and coastal species such as bream, flathead and whiting. Moving up to #2/0 sizes and you have smaller pelagics, drummer, fingermark and jacks covered and in the #3/0 and #4/0 sizes you ready to target big pelagics including tuna, queenies, mackerel and GT's.

Pink over white is my favorite colour when I am fly fishing for flathead.

Materials

The only colour combinations I tie this fly in are:
Natural- olive over shrimp
Qantas - red over off white
Guns & roses - red over chartreuse
Brown Bomber - black over bronze back & orange

Process

A	I have tied this fly on a #2/0 Mustard 34007 Stainless Steel hook with 3/16 inch dumbbell eyes but it works well on a range of size hooks with proportionally sized dumbbell eyes and on similar shaped stainless and non-stainless hooks. Start off with your big fly thread and wind that half way down the length of the hook and then half of that distance back toward the eye of the hook and build up a small mound of thread to anchor the dumbbell eyes against. Put a drop of super glue on top of the small mound of thread. Understanding hooks

B	Position the eyes directly in front of the small mound of thread and tie them in on top of the hook shank using tight figure 8 wraps. To make sure that the eyes don’t rotate on the hook shank include a couple of tight wraps the thread around the base of the eyes on top of the hook shank and between every couple of figure of eight wraps take a firm wrap of thread around the hook shank. Your finished with the big fly thread now so tie a couple of half hitches in the big fly thread and trim away the excess. Tie in your denier thread now directly behind the dumbbell eyes.

So as to avoid too much body material in front of the dumbbell eyes I tie one third of the Flash Blend in behind the dumbbell eyes. If you tie all the belly material in using the steps you would follow if using natural bucktail you will finish with too much bucktail in front of the dumbbell eyes to make a neat cone shaped head on the fly.

I target a tail on my clouser flies to be one and a quarter times the length of the hook. The Mustard 34007 SS hook that I am using for this fly is size #2/0 and is 40mm long so the tail will protrude behind the back of the hook 50mm making this a 90mm fly.

Do take care when selecting materials for all your clouser type flies that you don't select too much. From my experience a lightly dressed clouser is always better than an overdressed clouser.

C	Cut you first third of Flash Blend 2.5 times the length of the hook from the hank. Dealing with long strands of synthetic materials

D	Tease the end of the Flash Blend out so that when it's tied in and doubled over the tips will all meld into together.

E	Position the flash blend so that the tips extending behind the fly 1.25 the length of the hook. Tie that in behind the bead on top of the hook shank. Dealing with long strands of synthetic materials

F	Fold the forwarding facing Flash Blend and fold it back over the rear facing Flash Blend and lock that in using soft wraps of thread. With your thumb and forefinger massage the now rear facing fibres of Flash Blend so that it's evenly dispersed around the hook shank. Now lock the Flash Blend using firm wraps of thread

G	Turn the hook over in the vice. Take the thread forward to half way between the dumbbell eyes and the eye of the hook. Select a second third of the Flash Blend, again about 2.5 time the length of the hook, and tie that in half way between the dumbbell eyes and the eye of the hook, with half the Flash Blend facing backward and half facing forward.

H	Pull the front half of the Flash Blend over the rear facing Flash Blend and lock that in on top of the hook shank a distance equal to the diameter of the dumbbell eyes behind the dumbbell eyes, with firm wraps of thread

K	You can make the third quarter of the Flash Blend the same colour as the first three quarters of the fly but my preference is to make the fourth quarter of the fly a contrasting colour in this case pink. Select your final third of Flash Blend and tie that in half way between the dumbbell eyes and the eye of the hook. I normally tie that in half way along its total length. Pull the front half of the Flash Blend over the rear facing Flash Blend and lock that in on top of the hook shank with firm wraps of thread.

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