Yabby – Bill’s Eucumbene version

 

This little woolly bugger type fly was given to me by Jim Blyton. Jim and his mates fish Lake Eucumbene a lot. As is so often the case the locals have developed flies that work for their fishery and this fly is one that Jim and his mates use to great effect.

Materials

Hook Thread Weight Rib Body Hackle Head
Tiemco 3769 in size 12 or 14 Olive .010 lead wire Fine copper wire Olive dubbing Rust coloured Hends Grall thread - red

Process

A
  1. The hook used by Bill for this fly is the Gamakatsu L10-3H. The hook I chose as an alternative is the Tiemco 3769 SPBL. I picked that hook because it's still relatively heavy wire and it's barbless and it has a longer bite than the Gamakatsu hook.
  2. Wind the thread form the 95% position half way down the hook shank.
  3. Tie in the lead wire and take 7-8 turns for a size 14 hook.
  4. Continue winding the thread to the bend of the hook.
  5. Tie in a wispy marabou tail that is about 2/3 the length of the hook shank.

B
  1. Tie in a length of fine copper wire along the top of the hook shank to the bend of the hook.

C
  1. Using the single strand method of dubbing build up a cigar shaped body between the bend of the hook and the 95% position.
  2. The dubbing described by Bill was a mix of olive possum sparkle and dull lime dubbing. With a sample to work from I selected a mix of blue wing olive super fine dubbing and light olive antron dubbing mixed 3:1.

D
  1. Select a rusty brown hackle with barbules about as long as the gape of the hook and trim the hackles of the top side when the shiny side of the hackle is facing forward.
  2. Tie the trimmed hackle in with the remaining barbules facing down and the shiny front side of the hackle facing forward.

E
  1. Wind the hackle back along the fly creating just 3 or 4 body segments.
  2. Whilst holding the hackle in place at the bend of the hook with one hand pick the copper wire up with the other and wind it forward creating 3 or 4 segmentations along the body of the fly and locking the hackle in place.
  3. Take an extra turn of the wire just behind the eye of the hook and worry off the excess.
  4. Tie in the red Grall thread at the 95% position.
  5. Use the red Grall thread to tie off the olive thread.

F
  1. Trim away the olive thread and the butt of the red Grall thread and build up a neat red Grall thread head.
  2. Whip finish the thread and varnish the head.



Last Updated: December 11, 2011
Author:
Categories: Flies, Wee wets, Woolly buggers & variants
Tags: