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This is a shrimp or prawn imitation which I made up as an alternative to my Mud Prawn for competition fishing trout fishing. That's right trout fishing. I had been using small versions of my Mud Prawn for trout feeding on shrimp with considerable success and I wanted to carry that success into my competition fly fishing but the Mud Prawn was illegal because of its exposed lead shot weight. This was about the same time I found a bobbin of Straggle Fritz when browsing through a tackle shop on my way to compete in the 2009 Fly Fishing Championships in New Zealand. As soon as I saw this new product I had an idea of how to use it.

In the ensuing months with the usual process of tying multiple prototypes and testing them this fly slowly evolved. It has now caught brown trout, bass, estuary perch, flathead, tailor, bream and trevally. I still think my Mud Prawn is a better estuary fly but this fly is a better bass fly than the Mud Prawn and certainly fills that niche in my competition fly fishing for trout.

	Mud prawn

I always fish it on a fast sink line with a leader of around 8 or 9 feet. The best retrieve is similar to spinning soft plastics i.e. jerky movements with plenty of pauses to let the fly to settle back on the bottom. Used in this way it's a good representation of a shrimp or prawn fleeing from its sandy or weedy retreat after being disturbed.

Materials

 

Hook	Thread	Gut	Additional weight	Body & legs	Eyes	Body
Gamakatsu SS15/T size #2 to #8.	Clear monofilament	3.5 to 4mm tungsten bead	.020mm to .025mm lead wire.	UV Straggle Fritz, standard in brown	Burnt 40 lb monofilament	Super hair with a few strands of  Krystalflash

Process

 

A	Most beads have a large opening at one end and a smaller opening at the other. Slide a tungsten bead over the point of the hook small opening first. Adding weight to a fly Put the hook loaded with the bead in the vice normal way up and slide the bead to the eye of the hook. Tie your thread in behind the bead and wind the thread in touching turns down the shank of the hook to directly above the tip of the point of the hook. Understanding hooks Push the bead back to the 75%position and tie a length of lead wire along the next 1/4 of the hook shank being careful to push the leading end of the wire well up into the opening of the bead.

 

B	Tie a length of Straggle Fritz in where the lead wire finished.

 

C	Wind the Straggle Fritz forward in touching turns to the bead, tie it off and trim the excess. Turn the hook up the other way in the vice and take the thread over what is now the top of the bead. Prepare a set of burnt monofilament eyes that are equal in length to the gape of the hook.

 

D	Tie the eyes in mid point between the bead and the eye of the hook. Burnt monofilament eyes Bend the eyes upward and forward into there finished position. Tie in 4 to 6 strands of Krystal flash between the eyes and the lead shot.

 

E	Take 9 to 12 strands of  Super Hair and double it and double it again. Synthetic fibres Cut each of the folds in the resulting bunch of 36 to 48 strands of super hair and trim the leading edge square. Tie the Super hair in between the bead and the eyes.

 

F	Take the thread in front of the eyes, whip finish and trim the thread. Mix a small quantity of 5 minute epoxy. Working with epoxy Being careful not to get any on the Straggle Fritz put a generous coating over the bead , around the eyes and in the gap between the bead and the eye of the hook. Rotate the fly whilst the epoxy goes off so as to ensure a nice symmetrical and round head. You can of course use an epoxy rotator to rotate a large number of flies or as you can see, with the aid of a pin and a cork three or four flies can be epoxied at the one time. When the fly is finished trim the body of the fly so that the finished fly is about twice to two and a half times as long as the hook and so that the body is not too square at the end.

 

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