PuckerbrushFlies

Meet the Gravel Gertie. You’d think that this was a secret fly but it isn’t; rather it is another one of those great flies that you don’t see much anymore. I remember this fly from the 1960’s; my dad had one in his box and a few of the shops stocked them. I haven’t used one in years but when someone asked me about this fly I realized that it had been out of use for so long that it’s officially a sleeper. One of the few references I can find say the fly is great for gravel bottomed rivers; I can’t confirm that but I thought I’d pass it along. I don’t know who originated it but I hear that the name comes from a Dick Tracy comic strip character.

Normally, this part of the column would tell you what baitfish or insect this fly is trying to mimic. Someday, someone will publish an interview with one of those supposedly super selective trout or salmon. If they do, I hope they ask the fish why they would chomp on something that looks like a black and white barber shop pole with an orange tail and pink throat. Until that day comes along, I have no idea what the fish think this fly is. I know that it is a well-respected fly among “thems that knows” and it’s easy to tie.

Recipe for the Gravel Gertie

Thread – Black

Hook – 6x streamer hook or Mustad 3665A, size 6 or 8

Tail – Red or orange wool    

Body – Black and white chenille, alternating

Throat – Pink wool or hair

Wing – White calf tail, under red fox squirrel tail

The hook is a 6x long streamer hook. The Mustad 3665A is the hook you’d use for a Maple Syrup or a Big Trout Only fly and it’s a good hook for this fly as well. The recipe calls for the tail to be orange wool, I substituted red; your fly’s body will look better if you tie in the wool yarn behind the eye a bit, lay the yarn on top of the hook shank and wind over it with thread. This will prevent an ugly hump at the base of the tail. The tail is a bit long and when you brush out the yarn, it has a full appearance. The body is two colors of chenille, black and white. Strip the fuzz off the first quarter inch of the chenille and you’ll see a thread core.  Tie in both colors of chenille at the tail by these thread cores. Then wind forward both colors to get the spiral barbershop pole effect. Tie off behind the eye; leave enough room on the hook shank to tie on a wing and throat.

The throat is supposed to be pink wool, rather long. I used calf tail here and you can as well. The wing is white calf tail a bit longer than the body. On top of the white calf tail wing tie on a small bunch of red fox squirrel tail about half as long as the white calf tail wing. Two wings and a throat is a lot of material, don’t use too much. Sparse will get you a lot more hits on this fly. You can substitute for the tail and throat. Red and orange are common color swaps in Maine.

This is one of those flies that not everyone is aware of or taking the time to tie. It has a respected history and if you want to throw out a streamer that the fish haven’t seen before, this is a good one.

The Ballou Special is said to be the first marabou streamer and was created by A. W. Ballou of Litchfield, ME in 1921 to imitate smelt off the mouth of the Songo River mouth in Sebago Lake. There is some pretty good documentation around about how this fly was developed and it’s clear that there was considerable trial and error. We all benefit from that because not only does this fly fish well, the marabou wing is something that once you learn how to tie it, you can transpose it onto other streamers. Marabou is inexpensive, and it’s a deadly addition.

Recipe for the Ballou Special

Thread – Black
Hook – Size 6 streamer hook
Tail – 2 Golden Pheasant crests, curved down
Body – Silver Mylar
Wing – White marabou, over red bucktail
Topping – Peacock herl
Eyes – Jungle Cock

Start this fly by tying in the tail. You don’t see a lot of Golden Pheasant crests on flies these days and that’s a shame, the material is not that expensive and there is something about the color that really adds to the attraction factor. Be careful not to bunch up the thread here, wind your thread back to the eye. Tie in some Mylar gold side up. When you start to wind the body, the Mylar will roll over, exposing the silver side. Wind the Mylar to the tail and then return to the starting point-any gaps you made on the way down will be covered by the return trip. Next, tie in about a dozen red bucktail fibers, extending just past the tail. If you have one, use a buck tail with very fine hairs. Bucktail is not expensive where I buy it and I am allowed to pick through and select tails that have fine, straight hair. Thick, heavy hairs will flare easily and make for some very tough to tame streamer wings. Don’t use a lot of thread wraps to tie in materials on this or any other fly. Marabou is a bulky material and there are five different material tie-ins behind the eye of this fly; if you use too much thread you’re going to have a pretty big head and that is not necessary. Except for the marabou, three to five wraps are all you need, use some thread tension and a drop of head cement if you feel the need.

The original recipe for this fly calls for four marabou blood feathers. That’s way too much for my taste but your mileage may vary. Some recipes use only two feathers-still too much for me. You can use, as much or as little marabou as you think is right for your situation. I suspect that the original marabou used for this fly was from the Marabou stork that was available at the time but is now endangered. The marabou we use today comes from domestic turkeys raised for the meat market. My bet is that the turkey marabou may be thicker and we don’t need as much as Ai Ballou did when he was developing this fly.

What I do is I strip a small bunch from a quill and use that. I like my wings just fine. You may need a few more thread windings due to the nature of the marabou but don’t over do it. Top the fly with about six peacock herls. You can use as many as a dozen, depending on how thick your herl is. The topping is meant to represent the dark back of a baitfish, in this case a smelt. Peacock herl is iridescent and is a fantastic material. Try not to use herls that are stiff. The marabou is very soft and gives great action in the water; you want the topping to be flexible as well. I use Jungle Cock eyes because I like them on this fly. If you don’t have any, it’s all right to paint eyes on the head. All baitfish imitations work better with eyes, but it’s your call.

This classic Maine fly is over 90 years old and it’s the original marabou streamer. It has brought an enormous number of salmon to the landing net and still does to this day. That’s a good resume where I fish.

The Magog Smelt is a well-respected streamer that came out of Montreal and was designed to imitate smelt in the Vermont-Quebec border area.  The fly went on to be tied in larger sizes and used over striped bass.  It is easily identified by the purple bucktail in the wing, as well as by its teal shoulders.  I’ve selected this streamer to show you for several reasons.  First of all, it is a fine example of a traditional fly that catches fish.  I see it around but it seems to fall into the category of second class streamers-the kind you dig out if your usual favorites don’t seem to work that day.  That’s sad, because this fly has a fine reputation and should be seen on a leader more often.  My second reason for picking this fly is the way it is put together.  This fly has three colors of bucktail, a layer of peacock herl topping, teal shoulders and a hackle fiber beard.  That’s six different materials all tied in at the head.  Seven, if you remember to count both shoulders.  This can make for a bulky tie if you don’t plan ahead; however if you tie in everything correctly, this fly has great action and great coloring.  That’s a good resume for any streamer.

Recipe for the Magog Smelt

Thread – Black

Hook – Streamer hook, size 6 for landlocks, size 2 for stripers

Tail –Teal body feather fibers

Body – Silver Mylar

Throat – Red hackle fibers, beard style

Wing – Sparse layers of bucktail, white just above the Mylar, yellow above that, then purple

Topping – 4-6 peacock herls

Shoulders – Teal body feathers, one third as long as the wing

Eyes – Optional, I use painted eyes.

Here are some things to remember as you tie this streamer.  Start your Mylar a good eighth inch behind the hook eye.  Use the size of the hook eye itself as a guide, the distance of two “hook eyes” is just about right. You’ll need this space to tie in all the hair of the wing and you don’t need a layer of Mylar under all that, just adding to the bulk.  After the tail and Mylar body, it’s time to tie in the beard.  Keep the mass of feather fibers below the hook shank and use only three or four thread wraps (side by side, not on top of each other).  Trim the excess.  Keep the hair count of each layer of bucktail to about ten hairs each.  This is enough to show the colors but not so much that your head will be too large.  This will also allow the bucktail hairs to move more freely and give it more action.  That’s an important point to remember; less material means more action.  You may be tying streamers that look great, photograph well and make your friends jealous.  But they don’t seem to catch fish.  You may be making one of the easiest fly tying mistakes there is – too much material.  Think about it.

The topping should extend past the wing tips.  I like to use peacock herl that has natural, pointed ends.  Not snipped off square.  I think they look and move better.  Although the red beard may disappear under the shoulders, that is all right.  It is meant to be red gills seen from below.  I think that teal feather shoulders tie on a lot easier than silver pheasant and they seem to stay in position easier.  If you prefer jungle cock eyes then by all means add them.  I use black on white painted eyes on this fly.

Give the Magog Smelt a try.  Once you take the time to tie on all of the materials correctly you’ll be happy to have that skill.  It’ll make a difference in all your flies.

The Thunder Creek streamer represents a style of tying that you should add to your arsenal. The style has been around awhile; Carrie Stevens tied some for her customers. The definitive work on this type of streamer is by Keith Fulsher, and he named his version the “Thunder Creek Series”. He teamed up with Dave Klausmeyer to publish a book a few years ago about the streamer design and he used the word “series”. This is because once you learn to tie this style; you can adapt the colors to imitate any baitfish you want. It’s a versatile streamer that is easy to tie, inexpensive and it catches fish.

Recipe for the Thunder Creek Series

Thread – White or red, 3/0 or 140 denier
Hook – Straight eye streamer, size 2-10
Flash- optional- Krystal Flash
Back –Gray bucktail
Belly-White bucktail
Gills- Red thread or paint
Eyes – Painted on

This fly is best tied with a straight-eyed hook. By this, I mean that the eye is not turned down. These hooks can be harder to find and Keith does say that you can used turned down eye hooks, but the fly seems to look better with a straight eye. If you use a standard turned down eye hook, leave a bit of a gap between the eye and the head of the fly. As for size, I use 6 through 10, depending on the size of the baitfish I’m trying to imitate. Smaller hooks for brooks and larger hooks for bigger water, your call. I use red thread for this fly but Keith recommends using white thread. Start your thread behind the eye. If you are going to use some flash, tie it in now. Go sparse here, a half dozen strands is plenty. Note here that the hook shank is left bare-there is no body material. There is a top and a belly to this fly. Dark color on top, white bucktail for a belly. This is the universal pattern on baitfish, dark over light. Select a small bunch of dark buck tail. I used gray bucktail for the fly in the photo. Pull out the short hairs and tie it in just behind the eye. This step is important-tie it in with the hair facing forward over the hook eye, you’ll be pulling it back over the shank later. Turn the hook over and similarly, tie in some white buck tail for a belly, facing forward just like the dark hairs. All of these materials should be small sparse bunches.

After the materials are tied in, I put a drop of cement on the thread windings to lock them in. Position your thread about a quarter inch to three eighth inches behind the eye. Now, lightly moisten the hairs to make them more manageable, pull back each bunch of hair back onto the shank, dark on top and white on bottom. Use your pre-positioned thread to wind around the bucktail top and belly to form a bullet shaped head. Keith recommends untying the thread and then retying it. By untying the bucktail and then re-tying it, the hairs become trained to stay in place and the head stays neater. It works but it reminds me of my mother forcing me to have a wet head to train my hair when I was young. If I resisted training my hair, my father would finally take me to the Rangeley Barber Shop to get a crew cut from Sheriff Pete the barber. But I digress. Pull back hard on the bucktail this second time and tie it off. Here’s a tip: reposition your hook in the vice so that the point is concealed in the jaws. When you pull back on the bucktail, sometimes your fingers will slip and your hand will fly back onto the hook point, barb and all. You can thank me later.

Finish tying the bucktail back with a half dozen wraps of thread and tie off. The red thread I use looks like gills, if you use white thread, you’ll have to paint on gills. Use some five-minute epoxy to cover the head and thread wraps. Don’t use much or you’ll get an uneven head that will cause the fly to not swim straight (ask me how I know). If you don’t have epoxy you can use several coats of glossy head cement. When bullet shaped head is dry, paint on some eyes.

You can also tie this fly with dark and light colored marabou or even add a feather wing under the top for a different silhouette. You can use different colors of bucktail to match a particular minnow or smelt in your area. Try a stainless steel hook and saltwater baitfish colors to use on striped bass. This is a good fly to learn.

This is the Supervisor streamer. This is another example of an old Maine streamer that is not only famous but continues to fish well. Originated by Maine Game Warden Supervisor Joe Stickney in 1925, this smelt imitation is colored a bit differently than other Maine streamers. And that’s the reason you should have this streamer in your wallet. The waters you fish in vary from location to location and that changes the way light is refracted and thus how the color looks to the predator. Chartreuse is a good example. I’ve never seen a chartreuse baitfish, but it works well. When this color is a few feet deep in the right colored water it comes close to the green sheen seen on some baitfish. There are times when a different color scheme seems to be what it takes to get a strike, not to mention that it pays to use a fly that the fish haven’t seen a several times already that morning.

When tying this fly notice that the tail is wool, tied short. This is a slender baitfish imitation; resist the temptation to tie in a big bunch of red fur. Use only a small bunch of white bucktail for the under wing, if you use too much it will bulk up the fly and change the action. The blue wing feather is a light blue called appropriately enough, “supervisor blue”. The green cheek feather should be about 1/3 the length of the wing. I find it is a lot easier to position this feather if I put a small drop of cement at the juncture point, just behind the thread wraps. You can maneuver it into position with your fingers and the cement will dry it into place. Five strands of peacock herl topping is a traditional way of imitating the iridescent green of a baitfish back and nothing does it better. The topping should extend to the end of the wing. The Jungle Cock eye is optional and expensive, I include it because it is traditional and I believe eyes work. You can leave it off, use a substitute or paint eyes on the head.

Recipe for The Supervisor

Thread — Black
Hook – 8X streamer, size 4-8
Tail – Red wool, short
Body—Silver Mylar
Ribbing –Silver
Throat –White hackle fibers
Wing—Blue saddle over small bunch of white bucktail
Cheek—Green saddle, 1/3 length of wing
Topping—Peacock herl
Eyes- Jungle Cock

If you are inclined, you can tie a bucktail version of this fly, it wouldn’t be the first time that has been done. Keep the color scheme in mind and remember that less is more on this fly.

That’s the Supervisor streamer. This is an old fly, very well respected and like some others I’ve written about, you don’t see a lot of them. That’s a shame because this streamer will catch fish. If Joe Stickney’s name seems familiar, it’s because he is also the originator of the Warden’s Worry. You could do a lot worse than to have both of these famous Maine streamers tucked away in your trolling box.