By Jay High
| Hook: | Fulling Mill #31515 or equivalent #10 |
| Thread: | Black Unithread 8/0 |
| Thorax: | Peacock Herl |
| Body: | Black Thread |
| Tail: | Lemon Wood duck |
The Salmon River in the Pulaski, NY area is noted for 1) big steelhead that eat little flies and 2) a rocky bottom that also eats LOTS of flies! With that thought in mind I tried to get my self a better chance to both hook and HOLD 8-18 LB steelies by tying a SIMPLE #16 fly on a #10 hook. The original version had lemon woodduck fibers for a tail, black 8/0 Uni-Thread for a body and peacock herl for a throax. With the thorax tied in at the middle of the hook, half the hook shank was bare. I didn't like the looks of that! So I decided to tie on another tail over the eye of the hook and cover the exposed shank with thread resulting in a fly with one thorax, two bodies and two tails ... joined at the thorax ... "Siamese". I brought six of these to the river and got three steelies before finally losing the last fly. Next time I'll have a couple of dozen!
This fly works well on the Salmon River for Steelhead. I wanted a small fly on an oversized hook to make it easier to hook and HOLD these big fish. The first ties resulted in using ½ the shank with the other half bare. I didn’t like the looks of that, so I tied on another tail pointing over the eye and covered the rest of the shank with thread. I only brought 6 flies, but they took three steelies before they were all lost on the bottom.