May FOTM - The spawning shrimp

[Stephen Bradbury]

I’m going to open a can of worms with this Fly of the Month – the Spawning Shrimp, because there are probably more than a hundred versions of this pattern/tie out there, which speaks of its effectiveness and ultimately its popularity as one of the best tropical flats flies around the world.
This versions recipe – in order of tying.
Hook – size 2# Mustad Big Game or S/S O’Shaughnessy for smaller flats species, smaller Trevally, Permit, big Bonefish etc.
Size 1/0# Mustad Big Game or Gamakatsu SL12S for larger flats species, larger Trevally, Permit, Blue Bastards etc.
Thread – Danville’s 210 denier flat waxed nylon in Shrimp pink or Tan colour.
Dumbbell eyes – Medium size brass dumbbells.
Mouth parts – A small tapered bunch of EP fibre in sand or tan colour or some Craft fur.
Egg sack/Hot spot – A small/short tapered tuft of orange egg yarn (this fly), dubbing, rabbit fur, artic fox or craft fur.
Legs – 4 x (2 each side) Grizzly flutter legs or Chicone’s barred regular crusher legs in black/shrimp pink, black/clear or sand/clear (cut one shorter than the other each side).
Eyes – 2 x small or medium sized EP crab & shrimp eyes or Epoxy mono crab eyes (your choice of colour).
Antennae – 2 x (1 each side) strands of black Unique hair or Super hair.
Head/Body/Wing – 1/3rd of an EP 1” Tarantula brush in sand or tan colour (palmered onto hook shank).
This fly should be fished on a full floating line or intermediate tip floating line with a 9 – 12’ leader with 12 – 20lb fluorocarbon tippet and a short/small strip along the bottom (making small puffs of sand preferably). This fly will catch nearly every species that hunts/feeds on a tropical flat, such as Permit, all Trevally species (incl big giant trevs), Yellowfin bream, big Bonefish, Blue Bastards, all Emperor species, Cod, Triggerfish, Tuskfish etc etc.
Along with the Bucktail Clouser and the Crab fly the Spawning Shrimp forms (in my opinion) the three essential flies all fly fishers should have in their box when fishing any tropical flats.

[Martin Kuhn]

Well done! Beautiful tying. and many thanks for sharing.

A brilliant Choice for FOTM.

I reckon an olive over white version would take this to the next level