Best inshore saltwater flies?

[August9999 0]

Hey,

 

I'm new to fly fishing/tying. I fish for mainly Snook, Redfish, Seatrout, and Juvenile Tarpon. I was wondering what are the absolute best flies to use to catch these fish?

 

Thanks,

Augst

[utyer 0]

I am no expert, but you can start with these: Clouser minnows with brown, olive, and gray over white. Then White (or Pearl,)Crystal Schminnows. Seaducers with grizzly hackle. These are easy to tie, and use inexpensive materials. Google videos for the Clouser, and watch Bob Clouser tie his. Many tiers put the eyes too far forward so watch his eye placement and follow that.

 

In any and all of your flies, use bead chain or dumbbell eyes. In shallow water use bead chain, and for slightly deeper water use small lead or brass dumbbell eyes. Different weight eyes will allow you to control the depth your flies run.

 

Once your comfortable with these three patterns, move on to bait fish patterns. Many options to choose from here. Again, most bait fish have light cream bellies, and darker backs in various shades. Use Congo hair from Fly Tiers Dundeon for your bait fish flies. You will want WHITE, Gray, Brown, Tan and Olive (light and dark shade of each,) then Black and Purple and Blue. Get 5 or 6 bunches of white, and one bunch of the other colors.

 

Shrimp patterns can also be made using Congo hair, rubber legs, and some UV glue. Learn to melt 30 or 50# mono for eyes. You can then paint these with nail polish and glue.

 

Finally search for videos of crab patterns. Wool or other coarse yarn will work for most of these. Rubber legs, and something to make claws with. I use pheasant breast and back feathers coated with glue for my claws. Use the heavier mono eyes on crab flies, and Weight both the shrimp and crabs with dumbbell eyes or lead wire.

 

Other materials you need would be Buck Tails for the Clousers, Large size crystal chenille, and marabou for the Schminnows, And large strung saddle hackle for the Seaducers. Crystal flash and Flashabou or similar products from Fly Tiers Dungeon, to add a little flash to your Clousers and bait fish flies.

[tidewaterfly 0]

I saw in the other post you made, that you're both new to tying & quite young. There are no "best" but there are many patterns that will work well. Much of the time anglers select flies based on personal preferences, so on any given day there could be dozens of patterns that will catch the same fish species.

 

However, I believe flytire gave you a good suggestion to limit the number of patterns to get you started, since you've stated your budget it limited.

 

Here's a list of flies that are generally considered the "best" styles for saltwater, but they're as good in freshwater as well.

 

Lefty's Deceiver - can be tied in any color or combination you like. All white, white & chartreuse, and all black are good. I also like them with a gray back & shades of olive backs with the rest of the fly being white. Basically strung rooster saddle or neck hackle, bucktail & some flash is all you need to tie them, plus of course tying thread. Lefty has written many books, but his "Saltwater Fly Patterns" is a good one to have for reference.

 

Clouser Minnow, another all around fly that can be tied in many colors or combo's. Primarily tied with bucktail, but can be tied with other hairs depending on the sizes you wish to tie. Add a bit of flash to them, or none, works either way. Same colors as above are great to have. If you can swing it, get the book "Clousers Flies" which has tying information & Bob's other patterns.

 

Seaducer- and old pattern, that also can be tied in many colors. It's simply a feather tail, with a body of wrapped (palmered) feathers. Tie it with both the saddle & neck hackle tails, as each feather type provides a slightly different appearance & profile. Can be weighted with bead chain eyes, barbell eyes or lead wire along the hook shank and is a good pattern un-weighted for situations where you want a slow sinking fly. It's a fine bass fly as well.

Rabbit Strip flies- keep them simple, a strip of rabbit (Zonker strip) tail, a few strands of flash material, with a wrapped body of cross cur rabbit strip. Many colors again can be tied. Barbell eyes will invert them to aid in preventing snagging, plus weed guards can be added.

 

Bendback- These are simple patterns often tied with bucktail, and tied in a manner that inverts the hook point (point is up) to help prevent snagging the bottom. Good pattern for Redfish, Flounder & most anything else. Again, many colors can be tied. I tie one with the natural brown/tan/black hair from the back of a bucktail that makes a very good shrimp pattern.

 

Basic Bucktails - a simple baitfish pattern tied with bucktail & some flash. Any colors you like, and can imitate many things that fish eat.

 

Gurgler - a topwater fly tied with sheet foam that you can get at any craft store. They're very light weight, so are easy to cast & they're easy to make. Most any size you like too.

The original Jack Gartside pattern was tied with hair for the tail, which is still good to use, but try some with feather tails as well.

 

Get some Mason Hard Mono too, perhaps 30 lb test for weed guard material, which can be added to any of these.

[ditz2 0]

Tidewater has presented you with a group of flies that will catch many fish and cover most conditions. Sizes from 8 to 4/0 and sometimes even bigger if you have the rod to throw them. 4 to 2/0 will cover the bulk of conditions. Above was mentioned a Schminnow and I concur but try other colors such as tan and olive. They are easy and fast to tie and they work. I also have caught a lot of trout on a variation of Lefty's craft fur shrimp in tan and brown in a size 4 and 2. Congo hair, wig hair, any longer hair as well as craft fur can be used.

[Peterjay 0]

Yeah, what Tidewater Jim said. You can make yourself crazy trying to cover too many bases. What works for one species will work for most if you modify them a bit to imitate local forage. A half-dozen patterns are probably all you need for any species, and there's absolutely no need to get fancy. Everybody has their own arsenal of favorites, and no two are exactly alike. Time spent on the water studying fish habits, etc. is 100 times more important than time spent at the vise trying to find the perfect fly. That said, you can do yourself a favor by picking up a copy of Lefty's saltwater pattern book. Every fly in there has been time-tested by skilled anglers. Pick out a few and go for it.

[Guest]

Some posted in the past...

[Fisherboy0301 0]

^^^ I think with that lineup you'll catch a just about anything from fresh to salt.

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

Den and Tide great looking flies! Wish my box had those flies in it, would look a lot nicer than it does now.

 

Kirk

[Jont 0]

Clouser. Master it.

[fshng2 0]

Excellent advise Tidewater.

[FlaFly 0]

Yes Tidewater... those are beautiful. I really especially like that top deceiver. If I was a fish, I'd sure go for it.

 

August, maybe someone already said it and I missed it, but you're probably overwhelmed by now. Don't try to tie everything all at once. Just pick a couple, and only buy what you need to tie them, and go fishing. You can add more later.

 

Also you'll want to get stainless steel hooks for saltwater flies. Eventually you might get into tube flies, which allow you to keep the hook separate (hence disposable).

 

For snook, that deceiver looks prime! If you're fishing from shore, fish in the offshore longshore channel. Snooks like to cruise those channels.

[saltydancindave 0]

Back in '96 purchased a book that stated a small number of flies: poppers, Lefty's Deceiver, Seaducer, Bendback & the Clouser Minnow are consistently productive for the harbors waters local angler. Adding a few newer modern ties for specific fish as shrimp & crab ups the catch ratio.

[tidewaterfly 0]

Thanks for the comments!

 

 

 

Also you'll want to get stainless steel hooks for saltwater flies.

 

If you need to keep cost down, don't overlook tinned hooks. I tie on stainless hooks, but also tie on the tin plated hooks. Frankly, I prefer the tinned hooks because the metal is usually harder than the stainless & they hold a point better. The only down side is they rust more readily & some of the older styles, like the Mustad O'Shaughnessy 3407 are not very sharp out of the package. They're easy to sharpen however.

 

One of my favorite hooks is the VMC/Rapala 9255 O'Shaughnessy, which is sharp & the tinned plating holds up very well. Much less costly than stainless hooks too.

 

If you decide to go with stainless, take a look at the saltwater hooks that Allen has (http://www.allenflyfishing.com/). They have 2 styles, both of which can be useful & I've been very pleased with the hooks I've gotten from them!

[agn54 0]

Ditto to what Tidewater said, I actually prefer the 3407's to the 34007's. Their much cheaper and you can keep the rust down by rinsing them well. One tip I picked here on the board (I think it was Kirk D but could be mistaken) is to put your used flies in the cooler when you hang them out. This gives them a freshwater bath right away and does help keep the rusting down

[Kirk Dietrich 0]

AGN, probably me. The guide I used to work for, Capt Bubby Rodriguez, told me that one about the fly in the freshwater ice chest; kind of stuck being so simple.