Cock Robin Palmer

Christmas Day here in Castlebar and I have completed my first list of chores. With a little time on my hands before we launch into full blown Christmas dinner mode, I have been poking about the back alleys of my website and come across a few posts which somehow never saw the light of day. Here is one of them which dates from early this year regarding a fly pattern for use on lough Mask. I have not tried it anywhere else so far but I see no reason why it would not work on all the other western loughs.

I was shown this pattern by a highly experienced local angler who told me he had done well on the Mask with it. He had no idea what the fly was called and I had not seen one like it before, hence my vague nomenclature. It is like a bushy Cock Robin I suppose. Anyway, I liked the look of it, so I made up a few.

Although at first sight this appears to be a very simple fly it is a bit tricky to tie, so you need to watch out for the body hackles. There are two palmered body hackles, meaning you either wind the rear one and leave it hanging while you wind the front one and then rib through them both at the same time, or, you wind the rear hackle, rib it and tie in the rib before dubbing the front half of the body, winding the front body hackle and then ribbing it. Both methods work equally well but you will need two pairs of hackle pliers and preferably three hands if you choose the first option.

The whole concept of a body in two halves with different coloured body hackles can be extended to a huge range of colour combinations of course. Changing the yellow rear body fur and hackle to golden olive makes a lovely fly for example.

Hook: a size 10 or 12 heavy wet fly hook

Tying silk: claret, 8/0

Tail: a few fibres of bronze mallard

Rib: oval silver tinsel

Body: in two halves, rear is dubbed yellow seal’s fur, the front is darkish claret seal’s fur

Body hackles: a yellow cock hackle wound over the rear portion of the body and a dark claret cock hackle wound over the claret seal’s fur

Wing: Bronze mallard

Cheeks: split jungle cock

A fews points to bear in mind. Use a heavy gauge wire hook for this fly. For a start, it will likely be used on Mask or Corrib where large trout are a possibility. Secondly, all those hackles require a bit of weight to pull the fly under. Do not over do the body hackles, it would be easy to wind too many turns and prevent the light from penetrating through to the body. The sample fly I was shown was dressed on a size 10 hook but a size smaller might be a better option on some loughs, but bear in mind you will have to scale everything back to cram all those materials on to the smaller hook.

Now, I had better get off my butt and do some peeling/scraping/boiling etc. Have a great Christmas everyone!