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Patterns

Brenda

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Brenda - Brenda's Mother - Brenda's Sister

By Martin Joergensen

My attraction to the Brenda lies first and foremost in its color. Rainbow and yellow Golden Pheasant! What's not to like?

The original Brenda was tied by Danish fly angler and tyer Ove Monrad and incorporates a brass bead to give it some weight. We rarely see brass beads on coastal flies, but personally I find that flies with heavy beads and cones do very well on the coast, and the added weight in the front results in a very sexy, jigging motion in the water when the fly is retrieved in small strips. You find the same principle and motion in flies such as Raoul Kempkes's Perfect Woolly Bugger not to mention the renown Jiggy.

There's a variation called Brenda's Mother. Larger, longer and unweighted, using yellow golden pheasant feathers for the hackles, but it's essentially the same pattern. My personal favorite is the weighted version, but I will most likely tie the smaller, weighted flies using GP feathers. Brenda's Sister, maybe?

I will most likely tie the smaller, weighted flies using GP feathers. Brenda's Sister, maybe?

	+ Yellow Omoe Brush Martin Joergensen

I may also break the original pattern by cutting down on the number of hackles. The prescription says hackle fibers for a tail and four body hackles, but I think a tail, a middle hackle and a front one will do.

The fly is said to have been inspired by Ken Bonde Larsen's Omoe Brush, and while I can see the resemblance in the row of hackles, I still find this a distinctly different fly and one that certainly exists in its ow right. Oddly enough I used to tie an Omoe Brush using light dubbing and yellow GP feathers many years ago - not unlike a dull Brenda without a bead. It's been years since I tied and fished this fly, but I still remember catching a few seatrout on it. I only have a small, B/W image of this fly.


Brenda

Type	Cold saltwater fly
Originator	Ove Monrad
Difficulty	Medium
Target species	Sea trout (sea run)

Materials

Hook	Partridge Sea Streamer CS11 #6 or other suitable salt water resistant straight eye hook
Thread	Yellow, tan or red 8/0
Bead	4 mm brass bead
Tail	Tan rooster hackle fibers plus some flash
Hackles	Four tan rooster hackles - two smaller, two larger
Body	Flash dubbing, yellowish rainbow colored