Description
Bright Purple Grizzly Sugar Momma: The Purple Streamer That Moves When You Don’t
Some flies need you to work them. The Sugar Momma works on her own. Bright purple grizzly marabou, a sparse wine-colored body you can see light through, and a mallard flank and chickabou collar that pulse with every change in current. Hang her in a seam and she keeps breathing. Strip her past a cutbank and she flares, collapses, and flares again. That’s what gets eaten.
Purple is one of the best-contrast colors in the water. It holds a hard silhouette at first light, at last light, under cloud, and in stained or tannic water where brighter colors wash out. The grizzly barring adds the broken, lifelike pattern that makes a fish commit instead of follow.
Built to fish, not to sit in a box. Every Sugar Momma is tied on a Partridge Ideal SUJ hook with Semperfli 6/0 Classic red thread. The red shows through at the head and throat for a subtle trigger point. The body is kept deliberately sparse: an inch and a quarter of Nature’s Spirit Predator Dub in Steelhead Wine, folded around the hook and back over itself so it stays translucent in the water instead of turning into a solid lump. Sparse flies sink better, cast easier, and look alive.
Two marabou styles, two jobs. The grizzly marabou is tied in on each side of the hook, either bent toward each other or splayed out. Bent in gives a slimmer profile that cuts through heavy current, sinks faster and darts on the strip. Splayed out pushes more water and throws a bigger silhouette for slower runs, softer swings and fish that need to feel the fly before they see it. Choose the one that fits your water.
Target species: steelhead, sea-run brown trout, large resident browns and rainbows, Atlantic salmon, bull trout, and anything else that eats a swung or stripped streamer.
Target species: steelhead, sea-run brown trout, large resident browns and rainbows, Atlantic salmon, bull trout, and anything else that eats a swung or stripped streamer.
Recipe
- Hook: Partridge Ideal SUJ
- Thread: Semperfli Classic Waxed Thread 6/0, red
- Underbody/Flash: Flash mix, Krystal Flash Purple, Peral, Semperfli Rio Grande Gold and Angel Hair, tied down the center of the hook and folded over, creates a great base for feather tie in.
- Body: Ewing Bright Purple Grizzly Marabou Body Patch, one feather on each side, bent toward each other or splayed
- Overbody: Nature’s Spirit Predator Dub, Steelhead Wine, an inch-and-a-quarter sparse cluster folded around the hook and back over itself
- Hackle: Mallard flank feather, dyed purple duck
- Collar: Ewing Bright Purple Grizzly Chickabou
- Finish: Whip finish
Tying Notes
- Start your thread and tie in a flash mix down the center of the hook. Keep it light; you want a few flashes of light, not a disco ball.
- Tie in one Ewing Bright Purple Grizzly marabou feather on each side of the hook. Bend the tips toward each other for a narrow, fast-sinking profile, or splay them out for maximum push and movement.
- Pull an inch-and-a-quarter cluster of Predator Dub. Spread it out until you can see through it. If you can’t, it’s too thick. Fold it around the hook, take one very loose wrap of thread and on the second wrap start loose and pull tight, then fold it back over itself and tie it down.
- Tie in the purple mallard flank and take a couple of wraps so the fibers sweep back over the body.
- Finish with a Ewing Bright Purple Grizzly chickabou collar, whip finish, and you’re done.
How to Fish the Bright Purple Grizzly Sugar Momma
The classic swing (steelhead, sea-run browns, Atlantic salmon). Cast quartering down and across, throw an upstream mend to slow the fly, and let the current carry it through the run. Keep your rod tip low and follow the line. The grab usually comes as the fly slows and begins to turn toward your side of the river, so don’t rush it. Let the fly hang straight downstream for a few seconds at the end of every swing before stripping in. Take two steps and repeat. On a take, don’t set the hook like you’re trout fishing. Let the fish turn and load the rod.
Strip and pause (big browns and rainbows). From the drift boat or the bank, put it tight to the structure: cutbanks, logjams, rock ledges, and the soft water behind boulders. Strip twice, pause, then strip once and pause again. On the pause the marabou and chickabou open up and breathe, and that is when most eats happen. Vary your cadence until the fish tell you what they want. Fish splayed marabou when you want the fly to hover and flare, and bent-in marabou when you want sharp, darting moves.
Hang and twitch. In a deep slot or at the tailout of a run, let the fly swing to the dangle and hold it there. Give it small twitches of the rod tip. Fish that follow a swung fly and refuse it will often eat it when it hangs and pulses in front of them.
Getting it down. The Sugar Momma is not weighted, so the depth is controlled by your line. Use a sink tip or a sinking polyleader on the swing, and a sink tip or full-sinking line when stripping deeper holes. A short leader (3 to 4 feet) keeps the fly down with the tip. Suggested tippet: 0X to 2X fluorocarbon for trout, and 10 to 15 lb for steelhead and salmon.
When to use purple. Use it at dawn, dusk, on overcast days, in off-color or tannic water, and during spring runoff and in the fall when big browns are aggressive. If the water is clear and the sun is high, go with the slimmer bent-in version and fish it deeper.
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