Signing Your Work

Hot-tipping zonker strips has become sort of a calling card for a lot of my fly patterns lately.  It's a technique I started playing with this year, it looks great, the fish seem to dig it, and it's really not all that hard or time consuming.  Most folks assume you need to use a needle or mandrel to do this, but I have never felt it to be necessary.  Trim an 1/8" chunk of hair from the tail end of the rabbit strip, clamp it in the vise jaws, and start gently wrapping thread onto it.  You'll be surprised at how the thread wraps immediately solidify the tag of hide strip.  Then it's pretty simple to add whatever material you wish to the tail of your zonker.  I usually opt for arctic fox, but rabbit would also substitute well.  I have also added deer hair tips for a buoyant tail and flash for more shock value.

Here are some hot-tipped claws for the HD Craw pattern.  This little craw bug has been easily my best pattern this year, claiming loads of bass of all three primary species we have in Ohio (smallmouth, largemouth, and spotted).

This week I tipped a few barred zonker strips for a little streamer design I have been playing with, based heavily off a pattern tied by Brandon Mena, usuing arctic fox for the tips.

The Flash Ass Zonker uses Flashabou spun in a dubbing loop and wrapped onto the tag for the flashy kick.

And the complex streamer I call Woody that I started tying over the winter uses some stacked and flared deer hair for the hot tip.  The deer hair gives the pop of color, as well as adding some buoyancy for a little different motion in the water.  Unfortunately, I didn't get much of a chance to test this pattern this year, but it does look really good in the water,