The Redfish Intruder

For August’s fly of the month, Blake shows us how to tie up the intruder pattern that I caught a few fish on last time out in the marsh. Supposedly, having an articulating point lessens the leverage that a fish normally has using long shanked hooks, thus the experiment with an intruder fly in the marsh. It caught a few different species too, including the normally tough to hook sheepshead, so it may have it’s place in the inshore fly box.

Materials:

-Hook – size 1 octupus hook tied using 65# braid to a long shank eagle claw hook (make this one a cheap -hook as it will be cut off directly behind the fly)

-Estaz chenille

-Brown feather from a pheasant

-Brown craft fur

-Gold body braid

-Black ostrich herl (or something like it)

-Ice dubbing

-Dumbbell eyes

1. Mount front hook in vise. Using your choice of string, tie in the back hook onto the shank of the front hook. Wrap the string down all the way to the eye of the front hook. Insert the string tags through the eye, then wrap them back towards the bend. The fold through the eye just adds a little strength to the connection.

2. Tie in dumbbell eyes about one eye length back. Here, I run a line of superglue on the eye tie in and down the shank of the hook to further strengthen the back hook connection.

3. Tie in the estaz and create a bump at the rear end of the fly. This helps keep the materials from collapsing. I also tie everything down all the way to the dumbbell eyes so that I don’t get a lumpy body.

4. Tie in a brown feather off a pheasant skin. Any feather can be used here. I like this feather because it is soft enough to move in the water, but stiff enough not to collapse. Tie in by the tip, palmer, and tie off. Don’t cut the excess as we will tie it in along the shank to avoid a bump.

5. Using your favorite method (split thread, loop, brush …) spin up some craft fur and palmer it right in front, and up against the feather. I used the split thread method used here in these videos. http://www.theweeklyfly.com/TWF/tyer/marcpetitjean/ . I split the thread, insert the craft fur though the split while still attached to the backing, then cut off the backing, then spin as seen in the video.

6. Tie in the body braid  and tidy up the hood shank by wrapping down all the extra materials.

7. Lay down a layer of hard as nails, then wrap the body braid to a spot behind the dumbbells that will give you enough room to finish the head.

8. Tie in estaz and create a bump. Tie off.

9. Again, tie in a pheasant feather and palmer.

10. Again, spin some craft fur in a loop of some sort and palmer.

11. Next, spin some herl in a loop. I again use the method seen in the petitjean video. Wrap this right up against the craft fur.

12. Next, dub the head. I tie a clump of dubbing behind the eyes on the bottom and top of the hook and then dub around the dumbbell eyes using figure 8 wraps. Part off thread.

13. Cut off the front hook right at the rear of the fly. Finished Fly, so far it has caught reds, drum, and sheepshead.