Published Mar 3. 2012 - 12 years ago
Updated or edited Oct 28. 2021

Pinky Pain

Bright, colorful and visible. A perfect fly for slow fish in cold or murky water. It earned its name because the creator hooked his own nose with it on its maiden voyage! Seatrout like it, but other trout will too.

Pinky Pain
Pinky Pain
Martin Joergensen

Henrik Leth is an institution in Danish coastal fly-fishing and has been very active in the community for as long as I remember. He has of course originated several seatrout patterns, but the Pinky Pain surfaces ever so often when the talk falls on his flies.

This pattern

is mentioned in Thomas Vinge's excellent books on Danish seatrout flies, but Henrik also mentions it several times on his own Danish web page. The fly has changed a bit over the years, and Henrik's current version has a hot glue body where the original had a tinsel body. The body color also varies a bit from smooth silver tinsel to gold braid - and the hot glue version, which has some sparkle mixed into the glue.

The name

does actually make sense when you hear Henrik's story from its maiden voyage. On this particularly windy day, the bright fly wound up penetrating his nose!

There's nothing

new about the basic fly, which is a bright, hair winged streamer, but it has proven its worth during many years in the Danish ocean.

On this particularly windy day, the bright fly wound up penetrating his nose!

Pinky Pain
Pattern type: 
Cold saltwater fly
Originator: 
Henrik Leth
Species: 
Materials: 
Hook
Stainless streamer hook, straight eye size 6 or 4
Thread
Black 8/0
Body
Silver braid, silver flash straws or embossed tinsel
False hackle
Clear or pearl Crystal flash
Wing
Pink Arrctic fox topped with smooth, pink flash straws
Head
Tying thread
Skill level/difficulty: 
Easy

Tying instructions

Step 1 - start thread

Step 2 - flash

Step 3 - tie in flash

Step 4 - fold back

Step 5 - tie down flash

Step 6 - wrap flash

Step 7 - tie down

Step 8 - trim

Step 9 - Bug-Bond

Step 10 - cover body

Step 11 - spread out

Step 12 - cure

Step 13 - body ready

Step 14 - false hackle

Step 15 - fold back

Step 16 - trim

Step 17 - pink!

Step 18 - wing

Step 19 - moisten

Step 20 - measure and trim

Step 21 - tie in wing

Stp 22 - cover butts

Step 23 - pink flash

Step 24 - fold back

Step 25 - varnish

Finished Pinky Pain

Bright and murky - In water like this I\'d usually grab a Bloody Butcher. This season I might reach for a Pinky Pain in stead
Mud no problem - Water like this can easily hold good seatrout, and all you need is a bright and visible fly
Cristmas fish - No, not caught at Christmas but with a pink Christmas tree, Pink works well in dirty water
Fish on! - This fish took a pink Christmas Tree. It could quite as well have been a Pinky Pain
Mud, murky water, fish!
Martin Joergensen - Henning Eskol - Ripley Davenport
Pink - The Pinky Pain certainly is pink
A pink fly
Martin Joergensen

Comments

Martin Joergensen's picture

Piker20, This pat...

Piker20,

This pattern is from long time before there were any UV resins available, and it wasn't an option. There was basically epoxy and hot glue, and hot glue isn't bad to work with, sets quickly and doesn't sag nearly as much as epoxy. And you can get sticks with color and/or flash in them.

I used resin for this one and I'm sure Henrik does the same nowadays.

Martin

I'm keen to know why...

I'm keen to know why he went over to hot glue for the body. Tying a couple for yourself is fine but hot glue isn't the easiest to use and dry without sagging. Did the UV resin prove to be too fragile?

This is a great stee...

This is a great steelhead fly,I fish northeast ohio for steelhead,This is the top color for steelhead here,Thanks for showing this fly.

Think this one gonna...

Think this one gonna work at icelandic sea-charr :)

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