The Global FlyFisher - A Good Place to go for Online Fly Fishing and Fly Tying

Patterns

The Ronker

---

Rubber legs and a zonker... in orange. A fly for deep dwelling trout. It's the Ronker.

By Martin Joergensen

In a couple of days I'm off to Sweden to fish in Hökensås, a collection of nice fishing lakes in the central part of the country.

I was there last year with my friend Hans Jakob and we had a great time. I fished various flies and teams of flies as I have already written about in my article from last year's trip. We had a lot of fun on the surface in the evening, and during the day I used my "emerging monster" technique and harling streamers.
But Hans Jakob used a technique that is often used by the locals: dredging a heavy Woolly Bugger on a sinking line, fishing close to the bottom. This can be a make or break method during warm days where the fish stay in the depth in many lakes. I tried it a couple of times and it worked. So I wanted to tie up some flies to use with this method, and since I'm currently writing a very thorough article series on zonkers for this site, I found it obvious to tie a zonker.

I wanted weight and color, so my brown zonker strip was combined with an orange cone head for weight as well as color, and orange hackle and rubber legs for color and action.
There's no big deal in tying this fly as long as you are a little careful with the material sequence. I tend to sometimes leave a bit too much space behind the cone. The hackle and the rubber legs should ideally "spring" from behind the cone, the base being invisible. I actually like the fly more "compressed", but it doesn't do a big difference fishing-wise.
You can see both styles in my images of the fly.

Fishing the fly is no big deal either. The fly goes down. That's the whole idea. It's meant to be fished on a sinking line close to the bottom, and the colors and moveable materials should be able to entice a lazy trout. I'm sure the fly would be able to lure a bass too, and I wouldn't be afraid of casting this fly to a coastal trout in my home waters.
Fished from a boat or a float tube, you simply cast out the line, let the rig sink and start retrieving slowly or even just drifting or sailing slowly while pulling the fly over the bottom.


The Ronker

Type	Wet fly
Originator	Martin Joergensen
Year of origin	2012
Difficulty	Easy

Materials

Hook	Down eye, long shank wet fly hook, size 4-6
Thread	Orange 6/0
Cone	Bright orange 3-4 millimeters
Rib	Copper wire
Body	Bright orange dubbing of your choice
Wing	Pine squirrel zonker strip, brown or black
Hackle	Bright orange hen
Rubber legs	Bright orange

Orange Ronker with feather hackle


Green Ronker with yarn hackle

Green Ronker

Materials

Hook	Down eye, long shank wet fly hook, size 4-6
Cone	Bright green 3-4 millimeters
Tying thread	Green or black 6/0
Rib	Copper wire
Body	Bright green dubbing of your choice
Wing	Pine squirrel zonker strip, black
Hackle	Tindra fuzzy yarn
Rubber legs	Bright green, mottled/striped

Read about the Tindra yarn in the article about the GYMF