Strange X-Mas
Minnow, sand eel, fry. This little fly will imitate most small, transparent fish. Based on a now-classical Danish sea trout fly with an added zonker strip, there is little new under the sun. But it does catch fish as pictures in the article will show you.
Small and hungry
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Braid and seal
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This fly is in essence a combination of the now classical Danish fly the Christmas Tree and a generic zonker.
Zonker love
I have always loved zonkers but never really enjoyed fishing with the Christmas Tree in its raw version. But after having added a seal's fur zonker strip to a slightly trimmed down Christmas Tree I have combined my way to a fly, which I'm quite happy with.
One reason for my happiness is the fact that the fly broke my cold spell of 19 fishless trips. The other reason is that it has kept on catching fish for me, which is always good.
Listen up!
Dirty and turbulent
A fly this bright would usually be considered best for dirty or turbulent water - or both. And sure enough, my best success with the fly was in slightly foggy water and waves. But I also used the fly a few times in clear water, and it seemed to work fine there too.
I tied a few flies where I exchanged the shiny mylar body with peacock herl to get a less visible and intrusive fly. I fished it a couple of times, but it still hasn't produced. I think I'll stick to the shiny version.
Newly tied
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Translucent
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With eyes
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Small sand eels
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Another one bites the Strange Christmas Tree
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Unsealed
I know seal's fur can be hard - or even illegal - to obtain for tyers in some countries. Of course you can substitute it with another kind of fur like rabbit, mink or what you can find, but seal does have a very attractive structure with a lot fewer hairs than say rabbit. It also has fairly short hairs, which I usually prefer over the very long hair on some rabbit strips.
Seal's fur is at the same time very shiny, glassy and almost transparent, which blends very nicely with the Mylar body. As an added bonus the skin has a striped structure that gives it the look of something fishy. The stripes stand out even more clearly when the skin strip gets wet.
The result is a zonker wing that doesn't steal away attention like a wing made from far denser and longer fur such as rabbit or mink. The fly would not be the same with these types of hair.
But I will probably have to find an alternative material soon, because I only have little of this material left, and haven't been able to find new supplies. I think light gray mink will be my choice.
Deep bend
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Big kelt
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Etymology
The "Christmas Tree" in the name comes from the original fly tied by Steen Ulnits.
The word "Strange" is a translation of the Danish word sælsom (saelsom), which just means strange, odd or weird. That word came about because seal is sæl (sael) in Danish. Sæl... sælsom... sælsomme... you see? No...? Well, blame it on us Danes.
So the fly is called Det Sælsomme Juletræ in Danish, which translates directly into The Strange Christmas Tree.
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Comments
Martin, thanks for q
Martin, thanks for quick answer. I have seen very interesting muskrat zonker strips too, so I hope it will work.
Pike, I have tie
Pike,
I have tied lots of zonkers with mink, and it's very good for the purpose. But the seal has an extreme translucency compared. The seal is much coarser and has almost no underfur compared to the mink's very fine and dense underfur.
I do have some gray mink tails that reminds me a bit of the seal, but it's still much finer. It has almost the same shine. Seal is very shiny - almost as glass - as you can see from the images, and that might be one of the keys to the flies' success. I have a couple of patches of sealskin, both light and dark, and I intend to cut some zonker strips and tie up some Strange Christmas Trees for this spring, but darker and denser zonkers are on the tab too. But I prefer nutria over mink for those.
Martin
Martin, have you alr
Martin, have you already tried mink instead of seal? Thanks
moin moin nice patt
moin moin
nice pattern. i tied it, when i first read this article a few months ago. today was its day, seatrouts are hunting but no take.... not even my all time favourit "the pattegris" could get their interest. there were thousands of sandeels
in the water and i tried "the strange christmas tree" - second cast, hand over hand stripped - first fish ! two other trouts take it in the next 30min after i fished other patterns for two and a half hour. - nice result.....
greets tom
Thank you for sharin
Thank you for sharing this wonderful little patten. I will try it for Sea-Run Cutthroat Trout here in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Tight lines!
Jaysen Palangio