Published Apr 18. 2013 - 10 years ago
Updated or edited Mar 5. 2019

Genner Bug

There's absolute nothing original or innovative about this fly. On the contrary: it's super simple and has probably been tied in a gazillion variations before. It was inspired by some nice mallard feathers brought to one of our fly-tying and fishing trips.

A Genner Bug trio - Three Genner Bugs with varying colors of heads and bodies
Genner Bug fish - The first fish on the Genner Bug, not big, but beautiful. Very suitably caught in the Genner Bay
Genner Bugs
Martin Joergensen

The name of this fly comes from the name of its birthplace, Genner Bugt or Genner Bay, in the southern part of Denmark. It was obvious to just shorten the name to become a bug.
There's absolute nothing original or innovative about it. On the contrary: it's super simple and has probably been tied in a gazillion variations before. Actually, when I posted a picture of it on our common internal web site where we put in all our trip reports and images, another good friend and GFF contributor, Ken Bonde Larsen, immediately commented that he had seen this fly on the web just days before.

No, when in comes to fly tying as so much else, there isn't much new under the sun.

Nevertheless this fly was invented, uninspired by anything I had seen, during a nights fly tying session after a fishing day at exactly Genner Bay. A good steak dinner, wine, coffee and a Tallisker or two, set the fantasy off, and the beautiful mallard feathers that Paul brought had to be used for something.
I remembered the Kevin Kleinman's Double K Reverse Spider, a radically different fly, sporting a dubbed body and a couple of forward pointing hackles, one of them mallard, and thought I'd do something as simple but a little more streamlined. I always loved mallard feathers, and Paul's stock of large and regular feathers called out for something with a long and sweeping hackle.

...as with so much else, there isn't much new under the sun.

So hook in the vise, a little weight, dubbing and a hackle, and voila! I actually liked what I saw. A few more tied with different colors of dubbing and thread, and I had a whole collection.

Step 1 - weight

Step 2 - secure

Step 3 - dub

Step 4 - body

Step 5 - mallard feather

Step 6 - prepare the feather

Step 7 - tie in the feather

Step 8 - feather ready

Step 9 - prepare for wrapping

Step 10 - hackled

Step 11 - pull back the barbs

Step 12 - head

Step 13 - a rough treatment

Step 14 - varnish

Step 15 - ready

Genner Bug
Pattern type: 
Cold saltwater fly
Originator: 
Martin Joergensen
Species: 
Materials: 
Hook
Stinger hook size 8-10-12
Weight
Heavy wire, lead substitute
Thread
8/0 to suit dubbing (or simply black)
Body
Flash dubbing (green, red, copper, peacock or what color suits you)
Hackle
Natural mallard, long fibers
Head
Tying thread
Skill level/difficulty: 
Very easy

The next day I was fishing from the beach casting over a deep part of Genner Bay, and lo and behold! A fish liked the green variation, and the fly was baptized.

As I said: nothing that will shatter the fly tying community and nothing that will go down in history as a classic, but a fly that I have already produced more of and will happily tie on my tippet on many coming coastal trips. I have done a number of variations with different colors, and keeping the natural mallard and varying the thread and dubbing gives you an endless but very simple way of subtly changing the appearance of this fly.

The crime scene - An environment like this inspires new fly patterns
View over Genner Bay - The nice view from the house where the fly was born
Inspired by...
Martin Joergensen

Varying the color

It's not exactly rocket science, but here's an example of a copper/red variation.

Red thread

Red dubbing

And mallard

The red variation

Comments

THANKS A GREAT FLY, ...

THANKS A GREAT FLY, I just picked up some of These feathers on my riverbank and used them to bind a handfull of variations . They look great they jigg great and I will try them as perch flies

thight lines

pit

Kalby64's picture

Thanks Martin:-)...

Thanks Martin:-)

.

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