ESF contributor Nick Thomas sent us this great pattern with a name to match!
I've used EP fibres for a number of years to tie saltwater baitfish patterns and it was while browsing the racks of a tackle shop in the US for fresh supplies that I came across some packets of egg yarn. For those of you not familiar with this stuff, it's very popular in the US and Canada for tying balls of fluff which imitate salmon eggs. The yarn is supplied as a folded hank of twisted yarn of very fine synthetic fibres. Looking at the wide variety of colours available (not just the pinks and orange usually used for egg flies) I figured it was worth trying to see if it could be used to tie up some fish instead of fish eggs.
Hook: saltwater 2 to 2/0
Thread: monofilament
Eyes: bead chain
Body: egg yarn, pink, orange and olive
- Attach the thread at the hook eye and run back to half way down the shank. Build up a small hump of thread turns to act as a anchor point for the bead chain eyes. Catch in the eyes on top of the shank in front of the hump and secure with figure of eight wraps finishing with the thread behind the eyes. Secure with a drop of superglue.
- Cut a 6 inch length of pink egg yarn and use your dubbing needle to split it in half. Fold one half around the thread with one end slightly longer than the other. Tie in on top of the shank right behind the eyes.
- Rotate or flip the hook and repeat with another length of pink yarn under the shank behind the eyes.
- Advance the thread to the front of the eyes and tie in folded lengths of orange yarn above and below the shank.
- Tie in a length of orange yarn on top of the shank, do not fold this length around the thread. One end should lie back along the body with the other projecting over the eye.
- Repeat with a length of olive yarn tied in under the shank. Build up an area of thread wraps about 3 mm wide tapering towards the hook eye. Whip finish and cut off the thread.
- At this point your fly will look a mess with tufts of yarn sticking out all over the place; never fear, it will all come right in the next steps.
- Apply superglue all around the thread wraps and then pull back the yarn strands hanging over the hook eye and pinch down onto the glue coated thread wraps. Move your fingers around the hook as you pinch, this helps spread the fibres and stops you getting stuck to your creation. All that's needed is enough adhesion of the fibres to fold the fibres back (see the close up photo of the head).
- Now comes the shaping. Take your dubbing needle and stick it through the fibres and pull back towards the rear of the fly. Repeat this step several times and you'll find that you have a bunch of fibres that have pulled out or broken off wrapped around the base of your needle. Carry on with this process sticking the needle in through areas where the fibres remain clumped together. As you progress you'll see that the fibre colours blend together and a tapering teardrop shape is formed. Carry on until you are happy with the shape.
- The fibres can be coloured with permanent markers, so if you want to add stripes or other patterns just pull the fibres taught and stroke with a black or other dark coloured pen.
If the fibres become tangled after fishing the fly for a while simply comb through the fibres to restore the shape. I flatten the barbs on all my saltwater patterns so I simply use the hook point of another fly. Thanks to Shaun, a long time Star Wars fan, for naming the fly.
Nick Thomas lives in South Wales. He started fly fishing on Scottish hill lochs many years ago and continues to design, tie and fish flies for trout, carp, bass and anything else that’s going.