Fur - Skin, zonker strips, hair wings, dubbing - Keywords - The words we use - Words, tags, taxonomy - Fly fishing tag cloud - Global FlyFisher

Fur
Skin, zonker strips, hair wings, dubbing

Steaming your materials

Material handling: Steaming materials has a fantastic effect! Feathers, fur, hair deserves some steam. You will be amazed what a little vaporized water can do.
Put on the kettle here

Dyeing and Bleaching

Review: This is a real classic written by the renown fly tyer and tying book author AK Best. The book was overhauled in 2004 and reprinted in a second edition with color images. It's the bible when it comes to dying fly tying materials, and is extremely thorough and useful - even for those that have no plans of dying, but just want to treat their materials as well as possible.
Read the review here

Go to "Washing your materials"

Washing your materials

Material handling: If you never tried washing a newly bought saddle, neck or bucktail, it's about time you try! Proper treatment can transform the useless to useful and the mediocre to sublime.
Start your laundry here

"The Ronker" is found here

The Ronker

Zonker: Rubber legs and a zonker... in orange. The Ronker is a fly for deep dwelling trout, featuring some weight bright colors, mobile materials and not least rubber legs.
See the pattern here

"Zonker patterns" is found here

Zonker patterns

Zonker: This article features a handful of zonker patterns, which we cover in connection with our thorough theme on tying zonker flies and cutting or buying zonker strips.
See the patterns here

Directly to "Cutting and buying zonker strips"

Cutting and buying zonker strips

Zonker: Here's a description of how to cut zonker strips yourself and some advice on getting the best store bought material - both as strips and whole skins.
Get the tips on zonker strips here

Jump to "Zonker strips and zonker tying"

Zonker tying

Zonker: Zonkers are great looking flies with a lot of volume and motion, and the zonker style lends itself well to many types of small fish and worm imitations.
Read about zonker flies and zonker strips here.

Proceed to "Squirrel Zonker" here

Squirrel Zonker

Zonker: This is an update to one of the first patterns ever featured on the Global FlyFisher. The old article about this fly is from 1996, and has been in the site with its scanned B/W picture since then.
It was about time for an update

Click to see "Upgrading the Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear"

Upgrading the Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear

Buggy: It might seem futile to try to improve one of the world's most proven patterns, but there's room for improvement. Trevor Morgan gives some classics an overhaul.
Se them here

Go to the article "The Bloody Zonker"

The Bloody Zonker

Variation: This fly is a bright and tasty looking bite of feathers and fur that can sometimes be the key to luring a big trout. It's a variation of a variation of the Bloody Butcher.
Lots of tying steps and tips here

Go to the article "Hare's Ear Bug"

Hare's Ear Bug

Bugger: Fished actively over sea weed and its likely to be mistaken for a gammarus. Same thing in a lake. Dead drifted or fished using a lift in a stream, it looks like a tumbling scud or cress bug or even a hatching caddis. What the fish think, I don't know, but it's a fact that they find it edible.
The simplest fly here

Click to see "The Mango"

The Mango

A Mickey Finnish zonker: The Mickey Finn is one of the first streamers many beginning fly tyers learn to tie. Kasper Mühlbach never used it and for years a yellow and orange fly was missing in his fly box. Last year he was inspired to tie a replacement.
Get the fruity pattern for The Mango here.

Jump to "Strange X-Mas"

Strange X-Mas

Imitation: Minnow, sand eel, fry. This little fly will imitate most small, transparent fish. Based on a now-classical Danish sea trout fly with an added zonker strip, there is little new under the sun. But it does catch fish as pictures in the article will show you.
Learn how to tie it here.

Proceed to "Material shopping podcast" here

Material shopping

Listen up!: Another podcast featuring GFF partner Martin Joergensen, this time pondering about the absurd prices of some fly tying materials - particularly synthetics, which can often be found on doll's heads, in craft stores and other places at a lot less than in your local flyshop.
Listen here.

Videos with "Fur - Skin, zonker strips, hair wings, dubbing" - More videos

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The ant is a delicacy for trout rarely do they let them pass. give them a try you'll be glad you did.

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Hook: Partridge Barbless Ideal Nymph #8, Thread: Benecchi 12/0, black, Rib: Copper wire, Body: Pine squirrel underfur, dyed chestnut, Wing: Pine squirrel 'zonker' strip, dyed olive-brown, Collar: Pine squirrel guard hairs, dyed chestnut - in split thread Note: The Squonker is a generic 'zonker' pattern - vary color and size as desired. Pattern and fly: Hans Weilenmann

Grey Ghost bunny streamer

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This fly comes from Flies that Catch Fish, but this version has dumbbell eyes to weigh it and keep the hook riding point up. I nicknamed it the grey ghost because of the grey bunny strip. It comes pretty close to imitating a striped finger mullet. I have caught redfish, spotted sea trout, snook, and flounder on this fly. It rarely fouls because the bunny strip is impaled on the hook. You can change the color of the bunny strip and flash to imitate your local baitfish. I use chartreuse and black barred olive versions too.

Life of a Zonker

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A super great video about a sea trout fly and its fate. That last fish is close to 4 lbs. Nice!

Go to Spotless fly

Spotless fly
The two spots in the name of this fly comes from the bait, which it is supposed to imitate: the twospotted goby. Gobies - which are much like sculpins - are an extremely common kind of fish in the shallow parts of all bodies of water - fresh and salt, still and running.

Go to Baby Buggers

Baby Buggers
Wooly buggers are one of the all time most effective fish catching flies. However, if you think you need heavy tackle and lots of lead to get them to work - think again. Peter Frailey tells about his "Baby Buggers", and how well they cast and fish.

Go to Woodchuck

Woodchuck
Now is the time of year to experiment with new materials. If you haven't had the pleasure of using groundhog/woodchuck, I recommend you give it a try.

Go to The Fair Fly

The Fair Fly
This fly is a larger and more imitative variation of the Squirrel Zonker. The addition of the eyes and the heavy hair hackle makes the fly more fishlike and the Fair Fly is a good imitation of a sculpin.

Go to The Red Fly

The Red Fly
A large colorful fly for cod fishing.

Go to Cleaning fly tying material

Cleaning fly tying material
Cleaning tying material Why bother to clean your materials? Bugs, dirt and chemicals are likely on the material By Wayne Luallen

Go to Squirrel zonker

Squirrel zonker
I used to hate zonkers; those pre cut rabbit strips were like hell to tie with: too thick skin, too long hair, too wide strips. I stopped tying them until someone told me how to cut my own strips.

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