Polar Perch

Deceiver-style flies with a twist

By Steve Schweitzer

Polar Perch & Polar Shad QUICK PATTERN IDEA: I've been tinkering around at the tying bench focusing my efforts on tying flies for warm water lake fishing. I've sampled the bellies of several trout and smallmouth I caught over the past year and overwhelmingly have found shad and perch minnows in their stomachs. This made me stop and think why I aren't fishing more patterns like this. So off I went, down in the dungeon of tying, where all my materials live neatly stored and indexed. I pulled out all kinds of materials to create a perch and shad immitation that can be casted easily without fouling up and would replicate the minnows I found this past summer. Below is the culmination of such a quest; the Polar Perch.     A box of Polar flies and Clousers (standard and G-String versions) are killer warmwater flies to have.     The Polar Perch pattern is nothing more than a Deceiver-style fly with a few key modifications. The simple tying instructions are below. Materials Hook: 3x long streamer hook, size 8-10 Thread: white 6/0 Belly: burnt orange polar bear (or substitute) Midsection: natural white polar bear (or substitute) Top of fly: Chartreuse Krystal Flash on top of Pearlesent Krystal Flash Back of fly: 3 strands of peacock herl Side of fly: Grizzly-dyed pale yellow Eyes: for non G-String style flies, black paint or stick-on eyes Tail Taper: Softex or any other pliable fixative     Polar Perch become G-String Perch with a big obtuse eye made from a guitar string brass nuts. Step 1: Place the hook in the vise with the hook side up. With a rotary vise, clamp the hook as you normally would do and rotate the hook upside down. Step 2: About 1/3 of the way back from the eye, tie in the natural white polar bear hair so that it extends back 2x the entire hook length. Choose enough hair to fill the body of the fly. Not too much though, you'll still have two other sections of long body material to tie in. Step 3: On top of the white polar bear hair, tie a thinner selection of burnt-orange polar bear hair. This will represent the bottom of the perch belly. Remember, when I say "on top of the the white hair", it will really become the bottom of the fly since the hook is inverted in the vise at this point.     A Polar Shad is a variation on the Polar Perch . Use a grizzly hackle instead of a grizzly-dyed yellow and skip tying in the burnt-orange underbelly fur. Step 4: Tie in the pearlesent Krystal Flash so that it flows backward straight with the hook shank, forming the middle of the fly body. Step 5: Tie in the G-String Eye using the techniques described above. Step 6: Rotate the hook in the vise so that it sits as you would tie any other fly, hook point (and G-String Eye) downward. Step 7: Tie in the chartreuse Krystal Flash so that it flows backward on top of the pearl Krystal Flash, forming the top of the fly body. Step 8: Prepare a grizzly-dyed pale yellow feather to the length of the rest of the material and tie it in just forward of the G-String Eye. Step 9: Tie in 3 strands of peacock to form the back of the fly, ensuring they are to the length of the rest of the material. Build up a nicely shaped head to your liking and whip finish off. Apply plenty of thread cement or clear head gloss to secure the materials and thread wraps. Step 10: Using Soft-Tex or any other pliable fixative, work some into the last 1.5 centimeters of all the tail material. Use a bodkin to work it in thorougly. Wet your fingers and work the material in by pinching it somewhat flat to form the "tail" of the fish. Let it dry and trim to a 45-degree angle to give the tail a nice finished look. Notes On Using Polar Bear It isn't readily available nor is it legal in some areas. Not to fear...kid goat is a near perfect substitute. Polar bear has a natural translucency that lends itself well to streamer-style flies. Kid goat hair has this same tendency. And, if you can't get kid goat hair, just use plain old calf tail or buck tail. The fish won't know the difference.