Bulkhead deciever

[gpatton]

Here are two slightly different tapers of a fly that is rather new to me called a bulkhead deciever by Bob Popovick. It's tied unweighted and the deer hair causes the pattern to hover in the water column while the bulky head causes the water flowing past it to have some turbulence and add movement to the tail. It is different from many deer hair flies in that the profile of the pattern is unbroken. I believe it was designed for the ocean (I might be wrong about that) but I have had some good success with trout.



Bulkhead deciever 1.jpgBulkhead deciever 3.jpg

Greg

[FishnDave]

Cool, I like it!
What overall length & hook size do you like for trout? (Or maybe the question should be...What size do the TROUT like?)

[gpatton]

These are tied on size 6 short hooks as they were the only ones I had that seemed to fit the bill. The trout that I caught with them were probably in the 12-14 inch range, but hope to get some bigger ones. Larger hooks would probably work, but I'm afraid of harming the smaller fish with a larger hook and I like the shorter shank as it provides less of a lever for the fish to throw the hook. I haven't had all that many "short" bites, but haven't fished them enough to know if the short shank misses too many fish. I have heard a lot of people say that they get short strikes and need the hook towards the back of the fly but I haven't run into it that often and some argue that the larger trout go for the kill and take fish towards the head. Who knows, but these seem to work from what I've used of them.