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The Crazy Dane

The Danish variation of the famous Crazy Charlie


An oldie pattern from GFF

By Martin Joergensen

Anybody can see that the Crazy Dane is really a Crazy Charlie - a very common salt water fly from the U.S. This type of fly is rarely seen in our part of the world, and I know no other fishers that use it. I started out with larger Crazy Charlies used from float tube to imitate small pelagic fish. This is contrary to the American way of using it. The Crazy Charlie is normally a shallow water bottom pattern for flats types of fish. My current version is much smaller and very lightly dressed. When retrieved in small jerks it's the spitting image of a small clear baitfish.
It fishes hook point up which is not really important, as I mostly fish the fly in the free water masses over deeper water.

Hook Size 4 John Holden
Thread White or Dynachord/Bennichi
Body Body Glass or Larva Lace over silver tinsel
False hackle Crystal flash straws over red golden phesant feather
Eyes bead chain eyes
Head Color of thread

  1. Tie in the Body Glass or Larva Lace in front of the hook
  2. Tie it down to form a smooth foundation on the hook shank
  3. Wind the thread back to the hook eye
  4. Tie in a length of silver tinsel (see Tinsel bodies)
  5. Wind tinsel to the hook bend and back to form a smooth silver body
  6. Wind Body Glass or Larva Lace in close turns over the tinsel and tie down
  7. Tie in a pair of bead chain eyes on top of the hook shank just behind the hook eye
  8. Turn the hook upside down
  9. Prepare a red golden phesant body feather by removing short and webby barbs and stroking the rest parallel with moist fingers
  10. Tie in the feather opposite the eyes
  11. Pull the feather to form a false hackle the length of the body
  12. Tie in a small bunch of crystal flash long enough to reach over the hook point

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