The Blood Leech

 

 

 

Trout love leeches, plain and simple. If there are no hatches going on you can do a lot worse than casting or dragging a leech around. Early in the spring and late in the year they are a staple for me, and trout hit them hard. Not sure if it's because they are fairly elusive, I have noticed the same thing with dragon flies, these two flies get hit hard. I will be posting plenty of leech patterns and I think they all work if you follow some basic guidelines. After that, it's just a matter of picking a favorite and having confidence in it. Confidence plays a big part in any fly a person uses, if you don't have faith in your fly it's not going to stay on for very long.

 

Flies that imitate leeches should follow some basic guide lines, they should be weighted in the front, I find this easiest to do with a bead. They should have lots of waving movement, along with a skinny profile. The weight creates imbalance between the front and back of the fly causing the fly to  constantly bob which creates the nice waving of the materials. Using nice soft materials creates the skinny profile and adds to the movement of the fly. I also find using a knot with a loop in it creates more movement to compliment the bead. Here are directions for an Open Clinch Knot. http://alaskaflyfishingonline.com/tips/tip1clinchknot.html   

 

The fly does best when retrieved slowly in six to eight inch pulls. The lakes I fish are fairly shallow so I use a floating or intermediate fly line and give the fly some time to sink to the required depth. Keep a tight line while it sinks as I have had many hits as the fly settles into the fish zone. It works well when slowly trolled as a person looks for fish, but remember to keep the movement sporadic and not a steady pace; it is the stop and go that gives the materials their nice action.

 

Materials I use for this fly are a Daiichi 1760 hook in size 10. I would think any 2X or 3X nymph hook would suffice but the Daiichi has a bit of a nice curve that I like. I tie leeches in size 10, I know others go both bigger and smaller. The lakes that I fish are heavily pressured so I like to stick with a natural size and smaller. The tail is marabou, blood red, claret, burgundy whatever the company you buy from calls the burgundy color. I cannot get Waspi Woolly Bugger Marabou in the correct color so I have to use different marabou than I like. For this reason, this is one of the few times I rip the marabou instead of leaving it natural like I would with the Waspi product. Arizona Simi Seal dubbing in a blood leech color, nice and soft dubbing with a little bit of flash thrown in. Uni 6/0 thread in black and a black 1/8" bead.  

 

 

 

First step is to slide a bead to the front of the hook and lay a base of thread down, then tie in a clump of marabou. If it has long fine ends I leave it long and tear it off later.

 

 

 

Then I make a dubbing loop and loosely fill it with the simi seal. A little goes a long way.

 

 

 

Twist the loop fairly tight and wind the loop towards the eye, get it nice and tight to the eye.

 

 

 

Whip finish.



 

Brush out dubbing, I concentrate more on the front of the fly as I don't want the material coming too far back into the marabou and interfering with the nice action of the feather. Last is to tear the marabou, when we need to shorten marabou we always tear rather than cut it. This ensures that all the ends don't end at the same place giving the fly an unnatural blunt cut look. To do this, wet the marabou and brush it back, grasp at both ends of the length you want and tear it. You should have a nice uneven finish on the fly.  



 

Well that's it for this one, give it a try and hang on.