Chris Silverthorne’s Craft Fur Baitfish Fly has a passport that would fool the most senior of saltwater fishes as qualifying prey
By Skip Clement
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]oday’s tying materials like craft fur with a dash of flash teased around a # 1 saltwater hook will do the trick. Tie it down with 140 denier thread, and UV anchored gold edge eyes. Then no self-respecting tarpon, roosterfish, dolphinfish, tripletail, or other dinner be so rude as to forego such an offering.
I picked this fly because the tyer makes fast work of simple and made excellent materials choices. For me, and perhaps you, the colors, hook size, type, and construction could be modified either as a mere tweak or majorly like a string tied to make it an articulated fly or as a tube fly – for example.
Keeping it simple with the craft fur makes it possible for any level of tier to have good homemade flies. A top-tier veteran tyer can tie more flies faster and prettier than me, and maybe you, but catching is what flies are about, not pretty.
It always boils down to how to present the fly. With saltwater animals, there is no such thing a sitting in a deep pool so, you have to know how to swim the fly
For example, swimming the fly has to be in the natural order of things. You cannot swim a #1 hook tied fly “at” a 130-pound tarpon. It will bolt as in “escape.” A baitfish does not attack a tarpon in real-time. It is unnatural.
The point of this fly video is to show how simple it is to have an effective fly. You can use any color craft fur you have on hand – the stuff is cheap, so get a lot of colors. Always have a craft fur inventory – it will never go to waste.
