Ken Bonde Larsen

Here are some general tips on composing a Scandinavian style salmon tube fly - and a bunch of flies to inspire. Learn some basic methods and you can experiment wildly and still get some beautiful flies.

The Killer Shrimp hardly looks like anything. It's gray and translucent, sparsely dressed and inconspicuous. But it catches fish. It's a great fly for those bright and calm days where sea trout seem to be unwilling to take any fly.

A small, soft baitfish imitation that will do a very good job standing in for a sculpin, but can be adapted to look like almost any small fish. Learn to tie it here using easily available materials - 

The White is a stable pattern in originator Rasmus Hansen's coastal sea trout flybox, He uses it as a provocation (read: attractor) or as a shrimp imitation, and prefers it for turbulent water and autumn fishing. The fly is simple, one color only, and one of these universal flies that can catch anything.

No sea trout box should be without a small Gammerus imitation, and the Copper Bully is one of the most efficient and easily tied ones. Consisting of very few materials in this version, it hardly gets any easier. It can also be a scud or a cress bug in a tight spot.

Fished actively over sea weed and its likely to be mistaken for a gammarus. Same thing in a lake. Dead drifted or fished using a lift in a stream, it looks like a tumbling scud or cress bug or even a hatching caddis. What the fish think, I don't know, but it's a fact that they find it edible.

The Charlie Fly was inspired by the underfur from the originator's Chocolate Lab. Ken Bonde Larsen's dog has unwillingly become the material manufacturer for this great sea trout producer. As it often is with Danish with sea trout flies it's a small, generic pattern.

If one particular fly was to be celebrated as the Mother of all the typical Danish, gray, nondescript hackle flies it would have to be The Magnus. Originated in 1973 in Denmark it has become a goto-fly for Many Danish as well as foreign coastal anglers.

A classical pattern originated back in the sixties - here adapted for Scandinavian sea trout fishing, but probably also useful for bass and other species as well as the brownies it was originally tied for. The fly is fairly easy to tie and we have made it even simpler.

This fly is originally meant to be an imitation of a small clamworm like a small Nereis, but can be considered a generic pattern more than an exact imitation of these polychaetes. It takes its outset in the red body feathers of the Golden Pheasant.

The Green Machine is a classic salmon fly from the Eastern part of Canada. It's fished as a wet fly in spite of being tied with deer hair and a hackle like a bomber. This article shows you step by step how to tie it and shows an alternative and easier way to create the green body.

This is another bright tube fly for clear water designed by Danish fly tyer Ken Bonde Larsen. And another one that uses a cone to add weight to the front of the fly. And another one, where the metal cone can be replaced by a common head or a plastic cone.

A small black tube fly inspired by the classical Undertaker and flies like the Green Butt. This small fly shows that tube flies do not have to be large. It's petite, it's black and it's sexy with a small hotspot.

We continue our series of tube flies tied in the Scandinavian style. This fly is another subdued yellow, white and gray fly, well suited for bright light and clear water. It uses a mallard hackle to create a nice, closed shape.

A bright tube fly for salmon in clear water created by Danish Ken Bonde Larsen. Tied in the Scandinavian style with a large and soft hair wing made of several layers. Easy to tie and impressive both in and out of the water.

Originally this was a classic style wet fly with a feather wing, but it's easily transformed into an excellent sea trout fly. Black, red and silver are perfect together and makes the fly very visible. See tying steps and lots of pictures and 

A few early samples of Danish fly tyer Ken Bonde Larsen's cone head flies.