Day 6 – Peach Palmer

I have been fortunate enough to fish for trout in the Orkney islands a couple of times and can highly recommend them to any stillwater trout angler. The fish can be free rising and the islands are a delight to visit with so much to do and see there. The last time I was there was with my mate Chris and we caught loads of trout. The most successful fly for us was this one, the Peach Palmer.

Local anglers on the islands are very fussy about getting the exact shade of peach; too reddish or too yellow is not going to cut the mustard for these highly skilled anglers. We just happened to be lucky that the peach coloured flies we had with us met with the approval of the fish. Since those far off days I have tried the Peach Palmer and its cousin the Peach Muddler here in Ireland and it works here too! It has caught me trout on Mask and Carra on bright days.

I use a size 10 or 12 wet fly hook and fl. yellow tying silk. Start the silk at the eye of the hook and leaving enough space tie in a cock hackle dyed sunburst. Now tie in another cock hackle, this time a bit shorter in fibre and dyed peach. Run the tying silk to the bend of the hook and catch in a piece of fl. yellow wool to make a tail. Trim the tail off square and tie in a length of fine gold wire.

Dub the tying silk with seals fur dyed peach (I actually have some dyed fl. peach and it works well). Form a tapered body with the seal’s fur then wind the peach hackle down to the bend in open spirals.

Tie in the hackle with the fine gold wire and wind it up through the hackle. Tie in and cut off the waste end of the hackle and the gold wire. Wind plenty of turns of the sunburst hackle at the head, whip finish and varnish to complete the fly.

To make the Peach Muddler simply swap the sunburst hackle for a a muddler head made of natural deer hair.