Borrowing from Conventional Tackle

Boredom, for me, turns into brainstorming time.  Last Saturday, during a long monotonous drive through southern Ohio to Cincinnati, I came up with an idea for a streamer to somewhat mimic an inline spinner.  When it comes to fly tying, I see no issues with borrowing from the conventional world.  Sometimes there really is no reason to completely reinvent the wheel when it only needs to be adapted to fit fly gear.  See Tommy Lynch's Drunk and Disorderly fly.  It was spawned from the idea of mimicking the side-to-side wobble of a Rapala.  I adapted the Zara Spook to the deer hair spook I created a few winters back.  There's not an easy way to replicate the vibration of an inline spinner, but the flash and profile could be done.

I started the fly with an Attractor Tail from Pat Cohen tied to a Gama SP11-3L3H in size 4.  I did add a small amount of weight to the hook in the form of a 5/32" tungsten bead.  I wanted just enough weight to force the fly to sink, but not drop like a rock.  I used thread to lock the bead in place where I wanted it, towards the front of the hook at about the 1/3 mark.

I next spun and wrapped a dubbing loop of Ice Dub to form the underbody of the streamer portion.  I used a hot spot (orange in this case) right behind the bead to allow some bleed-through gills/hot spot.  Once the loop was tied off and secured, I brushed out the Ice Dub and trimmed it to a taper towards the rear.

The remainder of the streamer portion was a small amount of craft fur (I used Psuedo Hair), olive over yellow, extending just into the Attractor Tail.  At the hook eye, I added a small clump of olive over yellow Laser Dub, brushed it back, and added a 6mm Fish Mask with 3D eyes to finish off the rear portion.  Then, I attached the rear portion (which would be a perfectly fine stand alone streamer pattern) to a short articulated shank.

All I added to the shank was a dubbing loop of Flashabou.  On this version I used a combination of copper and gold.  An imporetant note, if you go the dubbing loop route (a brush would also work if you can make one) is to use some dubbing wax on your loop.  If not, the Flashabou is prone to falling out.  Spin it, wrap it, tie it off, and trim it down to slightly wider than the diameter of the rear portion's body.  Here's the result, in wet profile after a swim test in the tank.

I also did another test pattern in my #1 streamer color for warmwater species: a combination of gray over white with a splash of pink.  The flash portion of this version was rainbow colored Flashabou, which has awesome hues of silver, blue, pink, and lavender.

I think this pattern will be really effective on the local bass and crappie populations.  I also ordered some tails by a different manufacturer to try on this pattern, Kiley's Slow Rolla tails.  They come in slightly smaller sizes so I can downsize this a little farther and I think they should also work well.  I'll be testing this one heavily in the spring, and hope to have some good results to share.