Brownfish Bitters

The other week I was looking through the 2014 flyswap on FlyCarpin'. One fly that stuck out to me was the bitter bugger, the wooly bugger/bonefish bitters mash up. The reason it jumps out to me is that I also went with the bonefish bitters for carp but found it lacking movement. Even though I've caught plenty of bonesfish on it I think I only managed a couple of carp . Anyway I'm not a huge fan of the wooly bugger for carp, but I decided to revisit the bonefish bitters as I do like the epoxy head as it really makes for a nice stable platform for the fly to stand on.

I added a bit of bulk and sparkle with a cactus chenille body, kept the rubber legs, added a soft hackle and dropped the deer hair wing in favour of arctic fox tied in "temple dog" style to keep it from collapsing.

The Brownfish Bitters

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Last Monday I took my buddy Hideto from the Tokyo flyfishing blog out to show him the ropes. He'd been carping before but like most he'd struggled and never really got in to it. Eventually I convinced him that carp were worth chasing and he asked to come along. I took him to a small river near my apartment, it doesn't have many big fish but it has a lot of fish so I was confident he'd get a fish or two. After a quick coffee and explanation about the river, flies and presentation we headed up to the water. It took Hide a little while to get to grips with the presentation and reading the fish, although identifying takers is going to take more than one session to pin down. Any way we eventually got him a small fish about 20 inches or so after which his confidence started to grow along side a healthy respect for the carp as a fly fishing target. As the day wore on he picked up a few fish finishing with 5 or 6 nice little commons. I didn't fish that hard as I

Damsel Booby

This is a fantastic booby that will catch you fish year round. I find these larger boobies work best on the point or fished singly and really lend themselves to slightly faster retrieves that get the tail moving. For some reason I have found this particular pattern less effective when tied smaller in a competition size format. To support the channel, join the monthly tying classes and enter the giveaways head to https://www.patreon.com/flickingfeathers and sign up or contribute through https://www.patreon.com/flickingfeathers . Materials list Hook: Kamasan B175 size 8 Thread: Olive Uni 8/0 Tail: Medium olive marabou Body: Olive chenille Rib: Med silver holographic Hackle: Grey partridge dyed yellow Eyes: 6mm yellow foam cylinder Book of the month 6 is available here https://amzn.to/3jwznCE Amazon.com https://amzn.to/3DuHvM1 Amazon UK

Partridge & Yellow

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