Saltwater Fly Spotlight
Here's a new feature from Saltwaterflies.com - our "Spotlight" on Saltwater Flies. This is just a page for us to share photos of patterns that we've tied ourselves, or come across along the way in our pursuits of the world's gamefish. We won't be getting too specific with step-by-step directions on these pages, but we will try to add a few "tying tips" if possible. Visit the "Site Map" link at the top of the page to view more features.
Ghost Shrimp
This is a craft fur Ghost Shrimp - it's a pretty simple fly made with readily available materials, and a weedguard fashioned from the mono eyes. This fly is used mainly in shallow water for tailing bonefish, and is an excellent design for grass flats or coral areas which will quickly snag flies without weedguards. This fly is plenty effective for other kinds of fishing, including shallow redfish, and also for freshwater fishing lakes with weeds & snags for largemouth bass, etc (try it in other colors for bass, or highlighted with marking pens to create barred patterns or a colored tail tip.
Another view. Specific materials used on this dressing include Extra Select Craft Fur ("Sand" color) for the tail and the body of the fly; Midge Flash Tan is used for the flash highlights. Hook used is a Gamakatsu SL11-3H #4. Eyes are "Enrico's Crab & Shrimp Eyes" size small. Thread is Ultra Thread 140 denier color Fl Shell Pink.
Specific techniques used to construct this fly include "bundling" the craft fur used for the tail with thread at the base of the tail clump, then adding a drop of thin super glue (Zap a Gap Brush-On is ideal) to that area. This helps keep the base of the tail stiff, and helps prevent it from fouling on the hook during casting and fishing. The body is created by making a dubbing brush from the craft fur with stainless steel wire, then palmering that brush as a body. The finished body is then brushed out with a dubbing teaser and trimmed to shape if necessary. When done correctly the body fur and the tail will blend seamlessly together. Mono eyes to form a weedguard are added last. Fly and photos by Chris Windram.
