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Endemic to beaches all the way from Northern Queensland to Central Victoria nippers (Trypaea australiensis) are widely regarded as the best of baits for a range of coastal and estuary species of fish. They are a borrowing shrimp and generally harvested with the use of a nipper pump. They are a small 4cm to 6mm long, crusteation that depending on their habitat present in almost translucent shades of pale coral colours to pink.

Following the success of my PET shell prawn I developed this fly as an extra fly to use when targeting mainly bream, flathead and whiting ... it works a treat.

It 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.

Materials shrimp shell shrimp

Process

A	Add a lead shout on the bottom of the hook shank a distance equal to the diameter of the lead shot behind the eye of the hook. Adding a lead shot to the shank of the hook Place the hook in the vice. Understanding hooks

B	Wind the thread in touching turns down to just behind the bend of the hook.

C	Select around 5 strands of flash blend and double that up a couple of times. Tie the flash blend in on top of the hook shank with the tips extending behind the fly a distance equal to the length of the hook.

D	Select a badger hackle with barbules about half as long as the gape of the hook and tie it in at the bend of the hook. Wet fly hackle

F	Palmer the hackle forward with three or four separated turns over the thorax. Palmering hackle Lock it in with firm wraps of thread and a half hitch. Trim away the excess hackle.

G	Tie a small bunch of marabou on each side of the hook shank.

H	Take another pinch of dubbing and dub on diminishing amounts of dubbing down to behind the lead shot forming a cone shaped body and then take the thread over the lead shot and apply a little dubbing between the lead shot and the eye of the hook. Take the thread forward to the 75% position.

I	The Carapace, abdomen shell & eyes of the prawn is made from clear or coloured PET packaging which is everywhere these days as it's used for packaging all sorts of things from tooth brushes to fishing terminal tackle. I have drawn the back outline, which should be the same length as the hook, in thicker than normal black permanent marker so as to ensure that the target shape is obvious. For the real thing I generally tie the outline using a thin marker of a similar colour to the thorax and body dubbing. Using coloured markers you can of course colour the PET. If your doing that I suggest you colour the side that is going to face don on the dubbed thorax and abdomen of the fly.

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