Trailing shucks and their use in fly tying is nothing new. I have looked back at where, why and how I started to use them and how I have found them useful in my fly fishing. If you haven't tried fly patterns with trailing shucks before I hope it might inspire you to give them a try.
Over a long period of time now I have been fascinated by the stage of the insects’ cycle where they shed their aquatic skin to emerge as an adult fly.
This process takes but a few seconds but it is a time when the insect is prone to the attention of trout and as they wriggle free of their shuck they can also be easy pickings.
To me, the shuck that hangs or trails behind the adult as it completes its emergence must also act as a trigger point to the fish. I will often examine the shucks that are washed down the river and in the UK when the Mayfly (Ephemera Danica) appears it is a great time to do so as the discarded shucks are large and easy to spot. One of the things I have noticed is that the translucent husk when viewed is surprisingly shiny especially when it catches the rays of the sun.
Again this leads me back to trigger points and how I could apply those to my fishing.
As I said at the very beginning I have been interested in this stage of a hatch for a number of years now and really started to think of the emergent stage when fishing a mayfly hatch on a chalkstream. I wanted to tie a fly that sat in the surface and also had something a little extra to seal the deal with the fish.
My starting point was Hans van Klinken's excellent Klinkhammer Special. It sat in the surface of the water, represented an emerging insect (the original was designed for caddis) and is, in its own right, a must have fly.
I tied some with a yellow body, ribbing and a brown thorax but I also added a tail using 3 strands from a pheasant tail. So now I had a fly that sat where I wanted it to and had the trigger point I was looking for. On trying it out with a few friends we had some pretty good success with it.
One of my fishing buddies will never take one of my flies. I hope it is because he doesn’t want to lose them rather than he doesn’t like them but the following year during mayfly time he rang me straight from the river to ask if I could tie him some more and post them off.
We came to call it the Mayhammer in homage to Hans van Klinken but I also wanted to see how things could be adapted some more so that I had more variety should I need it.
This time I went the whole hog and tied the fly with an antron trailing shuck. I opted for off white antron that in my eyes (not always the fishes) looked more buggy and organic.
I would fish this fly before the hatch had got going, usually mid-morning but with the knowledge I knew the fish were locked on to mayfly. I found it would work in bringing fish up.
Flushed with success I wanted to explore this some more as midges, caddis (not all) and other members of the ephemera family all have to break free of their shucks.
There is nothing new in patterns with trailing shucks as there are many out there. Those that know me know how much I admire Mike Weaver. He is a big advocate of the Sparkle Dun, a perfect fly to use at the start of an olive hatch.
I tied a few, firstly with the traditional tying of a deer hair wing and then with a CDC wing. This is where I have to hold my hands up and say I am no Paul Little or Oliver Edwards. I tie my flies so that I can quickly replenish my guiding box during the season. It can often mean there are differences in the pattern, sometimes intended but most often not. When it came to the Sparkle Duns though, I experimented a little, tying some with a long shuck and some with a shorter one.
I can vividly recall using my nippers on a few of my flies with the longer shuck to shorten them and how it made a difference and on other occasions it has seemed only a pattern with a long shuck (or bigger trigger point?) would do.
When it came to caddis I tend to favour Roman Moser's outstanding Balloon Caddis. I like this again as it floats well in fast water and the fish really like it. I added shucks to these too and have found a shorter, less pronounced shuck has worked best for me.
I like to tie these flies on normal dry hooks and also on the curved Varivas 2200BL that allows the fly to sit seductively in the water with the shuck in good view.
One of my favourite places in the Westcountry to fish is the vast expanses of Dartmoor. The advice often given to anglers fishing there is “something small and black” when it comes to dry flies and it is, generally speaking, good advice. On a day guiding last year we had been catching fish but we felt they were coming a little short. I was using a simple black F Fly but on checking my fly box I thought that we would try a similar pattern this time with a trailing shuck. It worked really well and although the harsh environment for trout on Dartmoor may make them more aggressive when the opportunity of food is presented I continued to use the F Fly with a shuck with good success throughout the remainder of the season.
So I now have a few patterns in my fly boxes which have trailing shucks that cover the early part of a hatch. Over a period of time I have built up a lot of confidence in them. If you like to dress flies and haven’t tied some with shucks why not give them a go and tell us how you get on. If you don’t, there are a lot of patterns out there by those who forged the trailing shuck path a lot longer ago than me. I’m glad they did.