Something to charm the ladies, sir?

Neil Patterson says a fly designed for trout can be just as effective for the lady of the stream.

It’s December. The close season. Trout are doing other things. Time to consider a fly designed to charm the pants off ladies of the stream everywhere, who are grubbing around on the bottom feeding on what puts trout off the agenda. Procreation.

It’s a fly design fly-fishermen know only too well on three streams I once knew only too well, too. The Lower and the Upper Talarik and the Copper River in Iliamna, west of Anchorage, Alaska. Cold water streams I fished in the mid-1980’s.

At that time, I had the place to myself. These days, I’m told fishermen stand shoulder to shoulder. The rainbows that come up out of Iliamna Lake following the sockeye salmon to their spawning grounds, have to look for gaps between waders. But it’s worth the squeeze, for nothing is sweeter than smell of salmon eggs. Ask the trout. More importantly, ask the Arctic grayling.
Arctic or European, point of contention, or not - when they can, grayling eat trout eggs. We can debate this, if you like. But I have photographic evidence I can present in the High Court. So I say, unless you have Paul McCartney’s brief, I’d stay clear and read on, for there’s even more contention to follow.

Like I’m going to suggest fly-fishing chalkstreams … with split shot. (I say! Is this a split-cane rod that someone’s got shot of?) Either way, I could get shot over this one. But let’s see.
At first, you don’t want to fish the Eggstacy, you want to cuddle it. Or stroke it. It looks like it’s been bought at Hamley’s. All pink, marshmallow and blancmange-like (with a cherry in the middle), you want to sink you’re teeth into it.

Aha, those of you who read my column last month about the Red Spot Shrimp, are saying: “You just like flies with acne”. That may be true, but it’s not just me that likes them. Pimples, plukes, zits, spots, call them what you like, anything with a red or orange glow somewhere on the fly, seem to set grayling on fire.

Back in the High Court again, I’d pull out a hundred years of grayling flies to prove this. The Treacle Parkin, Red Tag, The Grayling Witch, Terry’s Terror, The Fire Bug. Ever since they started fly-fishing for grayling, the most productive flies have had red in them. Usually at the rear end.
In my egg fly, the red is in the middle, representing the ova’s ‘eye’, as the eggsperts call it. Middle, rear – what’s the difference? There isn’t any. It’s still red.

Now I’m beginning to make my egg pattern appear a little dumb here. But in actual fact, fishing any egg pattern is a highly specialised and demanding sort of wet-fly fishing. Without room to build weight into the pattern, you have to get your imitation right down to where it belongs: on the riverbed. Just like in your kitchen, flies may fly about around your head, eggs don’t.
Having tied my Egg onto a light gauge point, 3lb maximum, I snip on a small shot, about four inches up from the Egg. BB is fine. If you have a pack of those ‘Water Gremlins’, with little wings you squeeze to pinch them on and off, all the better.

Read how Neil ties and fishes the Eggstacy fly in the December 2008 issue of Fly Fishing & Fly Tying magazine.