From The Just
Fishin” Newsletters: Every now and then along comes a fly that seems absolutely lethal. The Bead Fly is one just fly. In about May 1996 I was having a tincture or two with Gary Akers, owner of the seriously beaut Taupo Lodge. In the course of the discourse Gary showed me some flies I had never seen before that an American client had used with devastating effect both in the rivers and lakes. Now Gary is a seller, and a good one, so normally my bovine excreta antennae would be in full defence mode. But this time Gary was much more earnest than usual about the virtues of this fly, almost evangelistic, so I studied the fly in deep detail. Not that the study took long. At first glance the fly seemed to be gold bead at the head, then a series of coloured glass beads, a tuft of some feather at the tail. Simple enough to that point, but the intriguing thing was the thin almost weblike covering that fully encased the beads. Encased yes, but allowing the colour and lustre and basic shape of the beads to gleam and glow through. Carefully I wheedled a fly from Gary’s tight grasp and on arriving home I tried to duplicate the fly. No luck. Despite having one of the fullest fly tying selections in one place on the planet, I simply could not accurately duplicate the web like covering of the beads. I tried stockings, Z-Lon, various gauzes, but to no avail. Nothing looked the same, and nothing fished the same. Every time I used the bead fly I caught a fish, but if I used one of my rough imitations no fish. So the project to duplicate the lethal fly went on the back boiler. That is until I saw a sample of a new product Orvis was releasing as part of its fly tying range. It is called "Second Skin", but it is not the first aid treatment of the same name. Second Skin is a web like tube that is perfect for tying the glass bead fly. To tie the fly, thread on a gold bead, then as many coloured beads as will cover most of the shank of the hook. Tie in a short tail of you name it, I have used squirrel, opossum, feathers, does seem to matter. Then pull a section of Second Skin Tube over the beads and secure behind the beads at the base of the tail. Tie off. Cut off the tube in front of the gold bead and tie off and whip finish. Sometimes I leave the beads slightly loose under the Second skin, then can add more internal movement to the fly as it moves in the water. I have fished this fly in lakes and rivers and it has outfished anything I have used before. I have searched all manner of books to try and find the name of this fly but cannot find any reference to it, so until I or you, found out its name I propose it should be called "Skinny Dip". What do you think? |
"Some people have terrible memories…
they never forget anything!"
Copyright © 1997 by Tony
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