I was fishing with one of the guys from the Queen Mother reservoir and found my self losing ground badly as he caught a succession of fish on what was obviously an orange lure. Despite ringing the changes in my lure box none of my orange flies worked.. Finally my boat partner took pity on me and gave me one of his lures. Of course I couldn’t catch him up but did manage a few fish to save an otherwise hard day..

I asked him what the fly was called and he hadn’t given it name so as he’d caught 7 “lucky” fish on it I named it for him.

Since that day its been in my fly box in many different colours.

One great advantage to the fly tier is that this lure is tied using mostly scrap materials.

Dressing

Hook           Size 10 to 14 Competition heavyweight

Thread          8/0 Black

Tail              Fluff from the bottom of a large genetic saddle or neck hackle

Rib               Silver wire

Body            Dubbed hackle fluff as used in tail

Body hackle Waste tip from a genetic hackle

Head            One strand of Peacock herl

Step by step instructions

1)   Wrap silk for the full length of the chosen hook, and tie in a bunch of fibres taken from the bottom of a large genetic feather. I use all of the fluffy fibres from one side of the feather.

I usually tie this fly after a session tying other flies, especially palmered dries and wets as these flies use the middle parts of the long genetic saddles leaving the correct sized parts for this fly as waste

2)  Tie in the wire rib

3)  Take all the fluff from the other side of your large genetic hackle and dub it onto the silk. Wind a tight body, stopping about 2cm short of the eye

4)  Tie in the hackle tip and wind backwards to the tail.

5)  Bring the wire rib forwards, taking care not to trap the hackle fibres under the wire. Tie off and break off the waste end.

Tie in a single strand of Peacock herl and wrap a small tight head. The head can be wrapped over the front of the hackle to force the first turn to slope backwards slightly which improves the look of the fly.

6)  Whip finish and varnish.

This fly can be tied in any colour and if using natural coloured feathers some amazing shade variations can be seen even in feathers from the same cape or saddle.  

Try it in the bold colours and fish it as a mini lure on the top dropper but it is also good when in greens and browns as a Damsel imitation

Apart from the original orange, my favourite colour combination is black tail and body with an orange hackle and a gold wire rib.