A New New Zealand Hackle-style fly

[JeffHamm]

Hi,

There are a couple of styles of lures in New Zealand that are quite iconic of the New Zealand fly patterns. The Matuku style streamer being one of them. Another is the Pukeko style, which is a flat wing construction. A third would be the "killer" patterns, which resemble a hornburg without the front hackle. The forth is the Hackle style, or I suppose more appropriately named, Multi-hackle style fly.

The most common construction is a tail (almost universally of squirrel tail), then a rear body segment (usually cheneil on larger sizes, yarn or dubbed wool on the smaller), then there is a hackle, tied sloping back at about 45 degrees like the collar of a wet fly but mid body. This is followed by a 2nd body segment (usually, but not always, the same colour as the rear) and then a 2nd hackle, also tied sloping back at 45.

Some people advocate the two hackles to be of the same length in the fibre, others (like myself) prefer the front one to be longer. Tail length is usually 1 to 1.5 of the body length. On the really large lures, 3 hackles are tied in, and on small sizes only the front. I've tied these down to size 10 or 12, and always include the mid-body hackle. I figure if you can tie a front hackle on a size 16 or 18, you can fit a mid-body hackle on one of these.

This construction pattern was originated by Fred Fletcher, who ran a fishing lodge in the Taupo region back in the 40s. His original tie used black squirrel tail, a red wool body, and a black hackle feather palmered up the body for legs (if he used marabou he would have had a wooly bugger about 20 years before it was "invented"; well, made popular as I suspect most flies were 'invented" many times). This was a night fly which he used to immitate the koura, New Zealand's fresh water crayfish, and he figured the palmered hackle moved like legs. He later changed the construction to the double hackle version. This would be a Red Fuzzy Wuzzy (all the Fuzzy Wuzzies use black tails and hackles, but the body colour varies and sets the name). I've not read of a reason for this change in the hackle construction.

The Red Setter is probably the most famous of this style of fly, and it is quite popular in sizes 2 through 8, though it is effective smaller than that. A step by step of the Red Setter is shown in the FOTW archives, and it's one of the very earliest so scroll way down in the list to find it.

Anyway, I got to playing around and tied up a fly in this basic form, but not based upon any pattern that I know of.

Thread: black
Tail : Fox squirrel tail
Body (rear): wool, stained in onions
Mid hackle: yellow hackle
Body (front): wool, stained in onions
Front hackle: yellow hackle with guinnea fowl in front

I liked the look of it. Who knows, perhaps it will appeal to the fish too?


- Jeff

P.S. I forgot to mention, the onion staining produces a burnt orange colour.