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Peterjay

Old Glory

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25 years ago, I was at a fly-fishing expo at L.L. Bean, where Lefty was signing copies of his new saltwater patterns book. Attendance was sparse and somebody else was speaking at the moment, so I had a chance to chat with him. He asked what I fished for, and when I told him, he pointed out this pattern, which was said to be deadly on bonito. It's called Old Glory, (for obvious reasons) and it didn't look like any baitfish I'd ever seen, but I wasn't about to argue with Lefty Kreh, so I went home and tied a few. When I heard that bonito had been seen at a local breachway, I tied on an Old Glory and gave it a shot. No bonito showed, but when I walked back to the car, there were striped bass all over the place, feeding on silversides. Too excited to change flies, I threw the Old Glory out there, and proceeded to nail one bass right after the other. In fact, it was one of the best days I've ever had. I have no idea why this fly works, but believe me, it does. The only variation from the original pattern is that I've added a marabou tail to replace the shredded silver piping.

post-281-0-61169200-1524348373_thumb.jpg

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Great story and nice fly.

Looks like blue deer hair over white and red maribou.

Have you more success with it as well?

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It's blue calf tail over white calf tail and red calf tail underneath. Tail is white marabou with silver crystal flash. I prefer calf tail because it's less buoyant than bucktail, and I usually tie this one in smaller sizes, (the one pictured is #2) so hair length isn't an issue. Yeah, I've had a lot of luck with it over the years: stripers, albacore, redfish. Still no bonito, but in my home water, they're usually only inshore a week or two before the albacore take over, and catching one of them from the rocks is a very iffy proposition. I caught exactly two on my best day, and rockhounds can go for years without catching even one. Once the albacore show up, the bonito seem to vanish.

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