I added some pictures of different Magnus to the gallery. The Magnus is a very popular pattern for seatrout in the Baltic Sea, especially the Polar-Magnus in the winter time.
A ‚must have‘ in every fly box of a coastal fishermen. I’m sure it will work for other fish species, too.
Polar Magnus
Olive Magnus
Brown Magnus
I tie and fish with Fish Skulls since fall 2011 now. When I first saw them, I wasn’t really sure if I like them or not. They looked very massiv and heavy. I thought they were to heavy for my kind of fishing. I was wrong.
The Fish Skulls are not made out of tungsten or brass like other metal heads on the market, they are made out of aluminum.The weight of the aluminum is big enough to give the fly a nice jigging effect and bring ít down to the fish, but light enough for easy casting.
You can buy them in different sizes. For my fishing, the small Fish Skulls work great with wide gap hooks like Gamakatsu F 314 # 6 or #4.
The biggest weight of the Fish Skulls is on the lower part, which works like a keel, so the fly always swims straight. That’s the reason, why it’s really easy to tie up side down patterns, just switch the head.
Every package contains 10 Fish Skulls and the eyes, which you just fix with a small spot of super glue on each side. I like to „pimp“ the Fish Skulls with other eyes, like fluo eyes.
It’s easy to tie with the Fish Skulls. Just tie your fly and leave a little space next to the hook eye. Apply a drop of super glue and slip the Fish Skull of the hook eye on the fly. You can create a little „thread dam“ between the Fish Skull and the hook eye, but I think you don’t have to, because the super glue will secure the Fish Skull really tight. Sometimes I like to give the fly a hot spot by using fluo thread for the „thread dam“.
As you already know, I’m a really big fan of zonker stripes, so the first try with Fish Skulls where the combination of zonker stripes and Fish Skulls and it works perfect! I fish them since then in this combination.
I haven’t used the Fish Skulls for seatrout fishing in the Baltic Sea yet, but I think they will work there as good as for my freshwater fishing.
In my opinion, the Fish Skulls are worth to give them a try.
tight lines
Holger Lachmann
Zonker stripes are one of my favorite materials for tying streamers. The Zonker-Fish is a really simple pattern made out of a zonker stripe, which is very durable and, most important, it catches fish.
You can find a lot of color examples in my photo album Streamers.
Materials:
Wind on some lead wire and secure it with super glue.
Tie in a piece of mono for ribbing.
Mix two colors of flash dubbing.
Split the thread and put the dubbing in the gap. Then spin the bobbin to twist the dubbing.
Wind the dubbing around the hook shank and brush it with your velcro brush.
Tie in a zonker stripe at the front and rib it with the mono from the back to the front.
Tie in a strand of krinkle mirror flash on each side and form a little head with flash dubbing.
Use some super glue for fixing the Clear Cure Eyes on each side and fill the space between the eyes on top and bottom with Clear Cure Goo to create a durable head.
tight lines
Holger Lachmann
I’m very happy to be invited again to tie at the spring fair of adh-fishing in Peine on 3. + 4. march 2012.
As always it’ll be a great weekend with great casters and fly tyers like Christopher Rownes, Allan Bloch, Leif Stävmo, Mikael Frödin, Andy Weiß and more.
The best thing there is the atmosphere. You don’t feel like entering a shop, which is getting bigger and bigger btw, you feel like coming to friends!
I really LOVE the casting pool behind the shop, where you can test cast every rod, no matter single hand or spey rod, from Sage, Guideline, Orvis, Vision, Loop, Scierra and Scott.
Yeah, it’ll definitely be a fun weekend!
BE THERE OR BE SQUARE ! ! ! :-)
Here’s a step by step tutorial for a matuka streamer. This type of streamer is very old and you don’t see it to often in the fly boxes of the fishermen today, but the truth is, that the feathers move nicely, especially when you put some weight in the front of the fly, which causes a jigging effect.
Materials:
Wind some lead wire around the shank and secure it with super glue.
Create a little dubbing ball at the end of the hook shank, tie in a saltwater hackle and wind it around. The dubbing ball pushes the fibres to the sides.
Tie in a piece of mono for ribbing. Split the tying thread and put the dubbing mix in the gap. Spin the bobbin to twist the dubbing. Wind the dubbing around the hook shank and brush it with your velcro .
Take two feathers and pull some fibres from one side as shown on the photo. Tie in the feather at the front and secure them by ribbing them with the mono. Catch the ribbing with your thread.
Tie in some strands of krinkle mirror on each side and do a whip finish with your thread. Take two gator eyes and put them on each side. You should use super glue to secure them. The fly is nearly finished. Just take some Diamond Hard Tack Free resin and let it run between the eyes, then cure it with your uv torch. Repeat this till the gap between the eyes is filled. This makes the fly very strong and durable.
tight lines
Holger Lachmann
Last night I wanted to tie a CDC-Shrimp. I’d just done the first few wraps with the tying thread, when my cell was ringing. My buddy Aik was calling. So, what to do? Stop tying? No way! :-) I clamped the cell between my ear and my shoulder and continued tying with this „special“ posture…. When I finished the telephone conversation, the fly was finished too, including the back with Clear Cure Goo.
To be honest, I was concentrated on the call and was wondering, that the fly looked no too bad either. I should always tie without thinking! :-D
I like….no, I love streamers, which are easy to tie, but they always have to play nicely in the water. Zonker stripes are one of my favorite materials since a long time. It’s durable, easy to tie in and most important, it moves in the water like hell.
This little fellow is only about 5 cm long (less than 2 inches). The front part with dubbing and the eyes is coated with uv-resin, in this case I used Clear Cure Goo (CCG) which works really well. First I used CCG Hydro, which is fluid like water, to fix everything, than CCG Tack Free for the final coating.
It’s an all around baitfish pattern, which can be used for any type of predators. I tie it on a saltwater hook and nip down the barb, when using in freshwater. So I use often the same fly first in spring for seatrout and later in the year for brown trout.
Materials:
Wind the lead wire around the shank and secure it with super glue.
Tie in a piece of mono for ribbing.
Split the thread, put the SLF Prism Dub in the gap and spin the bobbin to twist the dubbing and the thread.
Wind the twisted dubbing around untill you reach the middle of the shank.
Tie an piece of zonker stripe.
Rib the Zonker with the mono and catch the mono with your thread.
Here you can see the nice profile of the zonker.
Dub the head in the same way like the body and brush it with your velcro brush.
Put some eyes on the head and and secure it with Clear Cure Goo Hydro. Then put a final coating of Clear Cure Goo Tack Free on the head.
No bubbles like with epoxy, just clear resin so you can see the hot twinkle of the Prism Dub.
tight lines
Holger Lachmann
The famous shrimp fly „Pattegrisen“ is one of the most popular seatrout patterns of the last years for the fly fishermen at the Baltic sea. It’s a very large fly with a great movement in the water. The key-material are Rooster Spey Hackles from Whiting dyed in the colour salmon. The long soft fibres pulsate, when retrieving with some stops . Lovely!
But there’s a little problem…. the original Whiting Rooster Spey Hackles are expansive. Some years ago you payed about 35,- € for a bronze grade cape, now about 80,- to 90,- €!
That’s the reason I tied the „Poor Mans Pattegrisen“. This pattern is much cheaper, easy to tie and, believe me, it looks really nice in the water! The main ingredient are Whiting HEN Spey Hackles dyed in salmon. They are much cheaper and softer as rooster hackles, but not as long as the original.
Just give the Poor Mans Pattegrisen a try, maybe also in different colours, it’s worth it!
Materials:
Wind some lead wire around the front part of the hook shank and secure it with super glue.
Tie in a spey hackle with the tip first.
Wind the hackle towards the hook eye and catch it with your tying thread.
Tie some strands of fluo fibre on each side of the feeler.
Tie in a strand of krinkle mirror flash on each side and form a little dubbing ball.
Tie in the shrimp eyes. The dubbing ball helps to split the eyes nicely.
Tie in a piece of mono and a spey hackle.
Dub the first part of the body, wind the spey hackle around it and catch it with your thread.
Tie in another spey hackle and dub the rest of the body.
Wind the hackle around the dubbed body and secure it with your thread, then rib the body with the mono to make it strong and durable.
Brush the fly with your velcro brush, so the dubbing fibres are mixed with the hackle fibres.
Tie in another spey hackle…
… wind it around and secure it with your thread.
Take 3-4 spey hackle and equalize the length.
Tie in the spey hackles as a roof of the fly.
If you want, you can create a little hot spot with fluo tying thread.
Varnish the head or put some uv-resin on it. Voilà! The „Poor Mans Pattegrisen“!
tight lines
Holger Lachmann
A simple, but quiet effective mayfly emerger.Tie it in different sizes and colours to match the hatch. The body of the emerger should hang deep in the surface. Never put some floatant on the body, only a bit on the thorax and the wings if necessary. With the amount of uv-resin on the quill, you can control, how deep the fly should hang in the surface.
This pattern often made my day, when other patterns were ignored.
Materials:
Tie in a stripped peacock quill.
Wind the stripped quill around the hook shank and catch it with your thread.
Put a layer of uv-resin around the quill body to secure it.
Tie in a piece of yarn.
Tie in a bunch of CDC fibres.
Spin the dubbing around the thread.
Dub the thorax.
Fold the yarn to the front to split the CDC and catch it with your thread.
Whip finish the fly and cut the CDC in shape.
View from underneath.
tight lines
Holger Lachmann
Turkey biots are very good for tying dry fly bodies. They swim really well.
I don’t discribe every tying step here, because they are the same (except the biot abdomen) as you have seen at the quill body CDC parachute tutorial.
Materials:
tight lines
Holger Lachmann
Material:
Put a hook in the vise and tie in some fox tail hair. Put a strand of krinkle mirror flash on each side and tie it in.
Mix the dubbing. I used SLF Saltwater Dub in pearl and ginger and a little bit of SLF Prism dub.
Tie in the mono for ribbing, split the thread, put the dubbing in the gap and spin the bobbin to twist the dubbing and the thread.
Wind around the dubbing, tie in a hackle next to the hook eye and wind it backwards, then wind the ribbing to the front to secure the hackle. Catch the ribbing and do a whip finish. Use a velcro brush to comb the fly.
Cut the hook bend.
Put another hook in the vise and wind some lead wire on the front of the hook.
Tie in a piece of mono for the connection between the two pieces.
Connect the two pieces like above. Use super glue to fix everything.
Tie in another piece of mono for ribbing, then split the thread and put the dubbing in the gap. Spin the bobbin to twist the dubbing and wind it around to the front.
Wind around a hackle and rib it with mono like you’ve done with the first section.
You can finish the fly or dub a little head, put some 3 D eyes on each side and secure them with uv-resin.
tl Holger Lachmann
A fast to tie mayfly dun pattern made out of CDC. It floats very well and is durable. I like to fish it in semi-fast running water. Micro fibetts, 2-4 CDC feathers (colour of your choice) and a bit yarn, that’s all you need. I don’t know who invented this pattern, but I think it was Marc Petitjean.
Materials:
Tie in a loop of thread and 3 micro fibetts. Split the fibetts with the 2 piece of thread after cutting the loop.
Tie in a CDC feather with the tip first. Twist the feather and wind it around the shank. Then cut all little fibres, so that you’ve got a nice tapered CDC body.
Tie in a piece of yarn.
Preparing the CDC
Split the thread and put the prepared CDC in the gap. Then spin the bobbin to twist the CDC and the thread.
Wind the twisted CDC around the hook and pull it up with your fingers after every turn.
Seperate the the CDC with the yarn, to create the two main wings of the mayfly. Catch the yarn with the thread.
I like to fold the yarn back again, tie it in and cut it, so I make sure I’ve got a nice free hook eye.
A whip finish to secure the fly. Take your scissors…
…and cut the fly in shape. That’s it! If you tied some of them, you need less then 4-5 minutes to tie it.
Fish view
tight lines Holger Lachmann
A superb all around mayfly pattern, which lies nicely flat and realistic on the water. Tie it in different sizes and colours to match the hatch. Personally I like to use CDC for the wing instead of polypropylen on the smaller sizes. It just looks more naturally.
Materials:
Tie in a loop of tying thread and the end of the fly.
Tie in 3 micro fibetts, cut the thread loop and seperate the fibetts with the 2 pieces of thread.
Tie in a stripped peacock quill.
Tie in the tips of some CDC feathers as a wing.
Wind the peacock quill around the hook shank and catch it with the thread next to the wing.
Put a drop of tack free uv-resin on the quill body to secure it. Make sure, that there’s just a thin coat on the body.
Tie in the hackle as shown.
Dub the thorax.
Wind the hackle around the wing post and catch it with the thread underneath the hackle.
Cut of the hackle and do a whip finish underneath the hackle. A little drop of really thin varnish secures the whip finish. Ready to go!
View from below aka „the fish view“.
tight lines
Holger Lachmann
Most people use CDC for all kinds of dry flies, but it’s a good material for streamer or for example shrimp pattern, because of the movement under water.
This is an easy pattern, which works really great for seatrout, especially when you’ve got sunny, calm weather. Works well for the baltic garfish too.
This fly doesn’t immitate a specific animal, it just looks like food for the seatrout. A little bit like a shrimp, a small baitfish or a mysis.
Materials:
Wind thin lead wire around the front part of the hook shank.
Use some CDC fibres for the tail.
Add two fibres of Micro Chrystal Flash.
Tie in some mono for ribbing. It’s imortant to fold the mono back and catch it with the thread, so it can’t slip when pulling tight for the ribbing.
SLF Saltwater Dubbing in Pearl and Ginger before mixing
Mixed dubbing.
Split the thread and put the dubbing in the gap.
Spin the bobbin to twist the dubbing.
The first part should be 3/5 of the shank.
Bring the thread to the front.
Again, split the thread, put the dubbing between…
… and dub from the front backwards to the beginning of the already dubbed body.
Split the thread and put CDC fibres in the gap. To prepare the CDC i like to use the Marc Petitjean Magic Tool.
Spin the bobbin to twist the CDC.
Wind the CDC to the eye of the hook, whip finish, brush the whole fly with a toothbrush and varnish the head. The fly is finished.
I tried to show you how the fly looks in the water. The SLF becomes semi-transparent. Together with the CDC looks the fly like it’s alive and yummy.
tight lines Holger Lachmann
When it’s getting dark on the river, the caddis often become very active. It’s really fun to fish a big caddis fly surfing over the surface. Sometimes the trouts go mad and take the fly very aggressively.
I don`t want to check all the time, if the fly is floating well. The fly should float like a piece of cork all night long. That`s why I like to use materials like CDC and foam for those kind of flies. If you want to treat the fly with fly floatant, you should use a highly fluid floatant like Water Shed. Very important, Water Shed must be completely dried before fishing.
Materials:
Put a needle in your vise and tie a layer of thread. Very important: Use NOT a waxed thread. If you do, you may get problems pushing the finished body from the needle.
Put a 3 mm wide strip of foam on the needle.
Create some nice segements with your thread. If you got problems creating the body, just google „extended foam body“. There you find some nice videos.
Finish the body behind the last segment with a whip finish.
Pull the extended body from the needle and tie it in.
With a permanent marker you can give the body a nice colour.
As a wing, tie in three CDC feathers. They should be longer than the body.
Over the CDC wing, you should tie in some moos hock hair in the same length like the CDC. It push the CDC down, so the wing is always flat over the body and it increases the floatability. Then tie in some fibres from a pheasant tail. Split the thread, put in some CDC and twist the the thread by rotating the bobbin. I like to work with the Petitjean Magic Tool when preparing the CDC.
If necessary, repeat spinning the CDC and wind it around a second time.
Fot the antennae I used two hair of moose hock.
Pull the pheasant fibres foreward and catch it with the thread.
Spinn some CDC as dubbing around the thread and create a little head, then fold the pheasant fibres back, cut it and whip finish the fly.
To secure the thread and the pheasant use a bit of varnish or really thin uv-resin, which makes the fly very durable.
Finished fly from underneath, or „the fish view“. ;-)
tight lines
Holger Lachmann