Over my long and varied angling career I have caught lots and lots of game fish on copper coloured metal lures. In the long past days of my youth spinning a tiny copper Mepp or Droppen was a sure fire way of bagging brownies on the river. Copper Toby spoons in the 10grm size used to be a deadly bait for sea trout in the brackish waters of the Ythan estuary in Scotland years ago, often out-fishing the more usual silver ones. Larger copper Toby’s, the 12 and 18 gram sizes, are very effective when trolling for salmon here in the west of Ireland. So copper is an attractive colour to salmonoids, but we virtually never used copper when constructing flies. Why is this? Here are some old and new patterns, all of which incorporate some copper in their dressings.
- Cinnamon and copper – I first tied this fly when I lived in Aberdeen and it caught a few sea trout on the Ythan. At the time the Cinnamon and Gold was probably the most popular fly in the area so it was not a huge effort to make a small change and tie the same fly with a copper tinsel body. I can remember that copper tinsel was very hard to come by back them and when I did find some it was very thin lurex. This material was incredibly fragile and the copper body did not last very long in use. GP tippet tails, copper tinsel body ribbed with fine copper wire, light red game hackle and cinnamon hen quills for the wings. These days I tie this pattern on size 12 hooks and make the body from copper Mylar which is much tougher. I also tie a variation with the wings made from matching slips of swan dyed claret.
2. Copper Bumble. Nobody is going to be greatly surprised that I have made a bumble using copper colours! A body formed of flat copper mylar and ribbed with red wire. A tail of GP tippets dyed orange over a globrite no. 4 tag. Body hackle is a natural chocolate genetic cock. I then added 2 or 3 strands of copper crinkle flash to pep things up a bit. The head hackle is guinea fowl dyed orange. Untried so far it looks like it should work for both trout and salmon in sizes 8 and 10.
3. I also tie a variation of the Claret Bumble by simply switching the normal claret fur body for one of flat copper mylar. You can go a step further and add some legs made from cock pheasant tail fibres dyed claret and knotted if you feel this will add to the attractiveness of the fly.
4. The Copper Ally’s is an old pattern now, a simple variation on the ever-popular shrimp pattern. I tie it with a tail made of orange, yellow and red bucktail plus a few strands of copper flash. The body is copper tinsel with a red wire rib and the wing is short brown squirrel hair. Some copper flash can be added to the wing if so desired. The hackle is hot orange, either cock or hen depending on what your personal taste is. Tied very small this can be a good fly for the grilse especially if there is a wee touch of colour in the river.
5. Now for a fly I would not use normally here in Ireland but is a good one for the big Scottish rivers. Like many other anglers I rate the Gold-bodied Willie Gunn as possibly the best all round pattern for spring salmon on rivers like the Dee and Spey. By changing the body to flat copper mylar with a silver rib you have a subtle variation which might just make the difference some days. Tied on a waddie or tubes or different weights this gives you a few more options in the box for those days when the fish are hard to tempt (ie most days).
Claretbumbler 