Fluorescent Blue Mallard Flank

Fluorescent Blue Mallard Flank Feathers

Blue is the color of open water, and everything that lives out there has some of it on its back. Mackerel, flying fish, ballyhoo. Fluorescent blue flank puts that color on a fly with barring that looks like scales in the sun. It’s also a nod to the old Atlantic salmon guys, who knew a touch of blue at the throat made a fly fish better. They weren’t wrong.

What you get: About 60 feathers in a 2 gram bag, mixed sizes. Hand-sorted, junk out.

Recipe 1: Blue Charm Flank Hairwing

• Hook: Salmon/steelhead hook, #4–#8
• Thread: Black 6/0
• Tag: Oval silver tinsel and yellow floss
• Tail: Golden pheasant crest
• Body: Black floss
• Rib: Oval silver tinsel
• Throat: Fl. Blue mallard flank fibers, tied as a beard
• Wing: Gray squirrel tail, sparse

How to fish it: Swing it in summer for Atlantic salmon and steelhead in clear, low water. Go smaller when the water drops. A riffling hitch (a half hitch behind the head so the fly skates in the surface film) can bring up fish that ignore a sunk fly. Slow swing, short leader.

Recipe 2: Blue Water Flank Teaser Fly

• Hook: Saltwater hook, 2/0–4/0
• Thread: White 3/0
• Tail: White saddle hackles, 4, splayed, with blue Flashabou
• Belly: White bucktail, long
• Back: Blue bucktail, topped with peacock herl
• Cheeks: Fl. Blue mallard flank, one feather each side, flat
• Eyes: Large 3D eyes, set in UV resin

How to fish it: Offshore for mahi, bonito, false albacore and small tuna. Tease the fish to the boat with a hookless teaser, pull it, and drop this fly in its place. Strip fast. Then faster. Blue-water fish don’t chase slow things.