Jiggy

A great fly in a neat color - tied with stolen hair

By Kasper Mühlbach

Bornholm 2007. The conditions are perfect. The weather shows its nicest side and I am on the ferry with my friend Jens on our way to the Danish island Bornholm to meet Martin, Ken, Henning and Jorgen. It is the annual fishing week for our small group. The fantastic four have been on the island for three days - with no fish to show for it.

That is what they say and what they send us in their text messages.

It cannot be true. Not in this water. Not under this sun at this time of the year.

They must be kidding. When we arrive they will tell us the true stories. There will be slide shows that should never have been showed giving us visual evidence that they have had a great three days. And for dinner tonight? Fresh trout with crispy salad, of course.

But the truth is sad. The fishing has been a disaster so far. Henning is the only one who has had a take – for three days in the peak of the season!
Sadly it's still not a record. Some guys I know, have been fishing for a week without the slightest contact. In the end they actually didn't want to have a take as it would ruin the mystery of that week.

We set up our gear and eagerly enter the water – well, some more eagerly than others. After a few casts a kilo-fish grabs my Grey Fred and jumps immediately. Of course there are fish! It is all about skills…

The fish comes off quickly after the jump. That will be my only take for the next three days.

Thinking back. What did we do wrong or what didn’t we do right? We experimented with the flies. We found the fish. We saw them hunt for sand eels. We cast sand eel imitations at them – even the Epoxy Miracle, which was my most productive fly 2007, did not tempt these strange fish.



Two Norwegian guys were fishing from float tubes some 100 meters from the shore. Their rods bent so we prepared an ambush. We found a car with an “N” on the license plate in the parking lot and stalked it.

	The Norwegian  Martin Joergensen

By coincidence Henning went for a walk along the beach as they paddled in. A streamer with a cone head, white and orange bucktail was the medicine, they said. A Jiggy. Shown in Bob Popovics’ excellent book “Popfleyes”. Martin quickly shot a spy photo of the sample fly in a window sill.

Upon return from the dreaded trip, I wanted to tie some of these killers. I did not like the color combination but wanted a more natural version. I could not find the right olive color tone anywhere so I had one dyed specifically for me. For some reason I was in a hurry and did not pick it up as agreed with the shop owner.

Another fly tier entered the very same shop to pick up some hooks and some flash. He was astonished by this perfectly colored bucktail behind the desk. The owner mentioned something about a Dane, living in Sweden and not to be relied on (who me!?).
The tier said that he knew about that guy, and now that he was here he would like to buy the bucktail and the deal would be done anyway - with a different buyer of course.

Some weeks later I logged on to our internal report site saw that it was my good friend Ken who had bought my bucktail and tied my Jiggy.

It is a poisonous fly and should be in many fly boxes if you fish for large predatory fish no matter if it is in cold or warm water.

About Jiggy

Type	Cold salt water
Originator	Bob Popovics
Difficulty	Easy
Target species	Cod Largemouth bass Perch Pike perch (zander) Sea trout (sea run) Smallmouth bass Steelhead (sea run) Striped bass

Materials

Hook	Stainless streamer, size 6-2, bent to shape
Tying thread	Thin mono
Cone	Silver to fit the hook
Wing	White, olive and black bucktail with a few straws of flash
Eyes	Stick on
Head	Epoxy

Tying instructions
See the images for the tying sequence

The flies are tied by Ken Bonde Larsen.

Prepare the hook. It's a good idea to make several hooks ready at once before tying the flies. And after having tied the fly and added the eyes, set the fly aside, tie some more and epoxy a bunch at a time.


After having prepared the hook, you are ready to tie the fly itself.




When the fly is done, it's ready for epoxy. Set it aside and epoxy several flies at a time. It's easier and is far more economic with the epoxy.






Those of you who can digest Norwegian can read Runar Kabbe's story from the Norwegian trip. The rest of you can enjoy the pictures on Runar's page here.