calicasiu pigboat fly

[Guest rich mc]

i tied my first two a few days ago. i like the way they move in the water. stuart did a recipe in one of the past newsletter. i wanted to know what size and color work if you fish them. does having a tail improve it? rich

[Stuart_Van_Dorn]

Hi Rich,

The Calcasieu pig boat can be tied in a number of sizes and ways. A couple of tricks...when you put the legs on, use the ones that come in bunches and strip a section that is 5-8 strands wide but don't separate the strands. Cut your tie in part to a point and then tie them in, top, bottom, left, right etc...to wrap around the hook. Also I use gsp and it holds the rubber to the hook. I tie them in a number of sizes on either 8089's or a similar bass hook. The smallest I tie is a size 10 up to a 2/0 stinger hook.

You can do a number of things for a tail and here's a short list of stuff that I have strapped o the back: long hackles, rubber legs, fly twister tails, flashabou, or nothing. So almost any kind of tail material can be added.

 

Best colors have been all over the board. White works, black works, black and white works...yellow is pretty, what I do use is large red chenille for the color behind the legs, Kind of a gill thing. I also like to put eyes on mine and coat the head with flexament or something similar.

 

So there's a number of things that can be done with the pigboat. The trick is to remember to make a good collar of chenille so that it flares the legs out and when you strip it in the water it has a lot of movement.

 

If you can get a copy of Tom Nixon's book, Flies for Bass and Panfish, he's got a number of variations on this fly.

 

Hope this helps...

Stuart

[Guest rich mc]

the shad at shabbona will be hitting3 1/2 inches soon. thinking of multi colored strands like white and gray for the bottom and side and purple or black for the top. and some flash about for the tail. lord knows i have enough chenille. stuart, do you put on the 4 groups of rubber strands in any certain order such as the top last? thanks

[Stuart_Van_Dorn]

Best way I've found to tie this is to tie in top, bottom, left and then right. The term, do not crowd the eye, has never been more true than with this fly. So allow a lot of room for the head and if you move your tying thread to just behind the hook eye and wrap backwards, you'll find that the rubber legs will not spread forward. I then use a marker to color the GSP and then you can paint eyes on like Tom Nixon did, or use stick on eyes, like I do. I then hit it with a coating of softex or epoxy if you want.

 

Hope this helps..

[Guest rich mc]

im hosting a pigboat variation swap on flytyingforum.com i need a few more tyers. tyers will tie 8 of the same pigboats with their variation, such as tails, dumbell eyes, other material even small flies. all flies do need to have the spinnerbait skirt look. flies are due end of october you will get back 8 different flies.

stuart has joined in with a size 10 8089 hook , color to be determined later. rich

[Guest rich mc]

fly swap is filled .some may end up in a fly box at the blowout . rich