THE BUNNY LEECH WORM - FLY OF THE WEEK - October 5, 2009

[hugefish_80]

OK. I tried to tie it with the weight on the top of the shank, so it rides 'hook-up'. It won't work, because the hook bend interferes with the free movement of the tail. And if you tie the tail to the top of the shank, you have to invert the Zonker strip, or the skin side will be 'up', and it looks awful. If you invert the Zonker strip, the hook shank interferes with the hackle portion's movement, and it looks awful.

There may be a way to make it work, but I believe it falls under the heading of 'diminishing returns'. I don't think it's worth the extra effort. (IMHO)

I have tied a very similar fly to this for quite a awhile, and have some solutions to your issues. First, I like to tie mine on a Gamakatsu B10S style hook (usually sizes 2-6). This is a fairly light wire, wide gap, nickle plated hook. This solves any issue with hook gap and drastically improves my hookup rate. Personally I really like to tie the eyes on clouser style, so that the hook rides up and found that the best option for allowing the tail to move freely was to actually poke the hook through the center of the zonker so that the hair will ride faceing up on the fly. From there I just tie the zonker down in the back and wrap it forward and tie it off just in front of the eyes. I used this fly on lake Taneycomo over New years to catch several decent sized trout. but thats another post...

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