Claret Chickabou-Marabou Body Patch

Claret Ewing Chickabou Marabou Body Patch

Claret is a deep wine red, and it’s one of the oldest fish-catching colors in fly fishing. Irish and Scottish anglers have hung claret flies over salmon and sea trout for generations. It glows a dark ruby in peat-stained water and turns almost black in low light.

Claret Ewing Chickabou brings that color to spey collars, steelhead flies and stillwater leeches. It looks like a bloodworm, a leech, or nothing in particular — which is sometimes exactly what an aggressive steelhead wants.

Steelhead, Atlantic salmon, sea trout, stillwater rainbows and browns.

Recipe 1: Claret Chickabou Spey Fly

• Hook: Spey or salmon hook, #2–#4 (or a tube with a trailing #4 hook)
• Thread: Claret or black 8/0
• Tag: Fine oval gold tinsel
• Body: Claret seal’s fur or substitute, rear half; claret Ice Dub, front half
• Rib: Medium oval gold tinsel
• Hackle: Claret Ewing Chickabou, wrapped as a long, soft collar
• Wing: Bronze mallard or a few strands of black flash

Tying:

Wrap the chickabou as the collar by tying it in by the tip and taking 2–3 turns, stroking the fibers back between each turn. It should flow past the hook bend.

How to fish:

On a sink-tip or floating line in tea-colored water, cast at 45 degrees down and across. Mend once to slow the fly, then let it swing. Hold the rod still and let the steelhead turn and hook itself. Don’t set; let it come tight.

Recipe 2: Claret Chickabou Mini Leech

• Hook: 2XL nymph, #10–#12
• Bead: Black or copper tungsten
• Thread: Claret 8/0
• Tail: Claret Ewing Chickabou, short tuft, shank length
• Body: The same chickabou fibers twisted and wrapped, picked out
• Rib: Fine copper wire

Tying:

Use one plume for the tail and body. Twist the remaining fibers into a rope, wrap forward, and rib with wire to keep it durable.

How to fish:

In lakes and slow rivers, fish it on a floating line with a long leader. Use a slow, steady hand-twist retrieve near weed beds. In early spring, fish it under an indicator in 4–8 feet of water.