Ginger Chickaboo Body Marabou Patch

Ginger Ewing Chickabou Marabou Body Patch

Ginger is a warm, sandy tan, and it’s the number-one bonefish color on the planet. Flats shrimp, small crabs and gobies are all some shade of ginger to blend in with sand. Bonefish eat what blends in.

Ginger Ewing Chickabou gives you soft, warm fibers for shrimp tails, crab claws, and trout soft hackles. On a trout stream, ginger matches PMDs, light Cahills and sulphurs.

Bonefish, permit, redfish, carp and trout.

Recipe 1: Ginger Chickabou Gotcha-Style Bonefish Shrimp

• Hook: Saltwater #4–#6
• Eyes: Small bead-chain or lead, tied on top so it rides hook-up
• Thread: Pink or tan 6/0
• Tail: Ginger Ewing Chickabou, short tuft, plus 2 strands pearl flash
• Body: Pearl braid or Mylar tubing
• Wing: Ginger chickabou plus a few strands of tan craft fur

Tying:

Keep it short — the whole fly about 1.25 inches. The chickabou tail and wing replace the craft-fur wing of the classic Gotcha and give it more motion at rest.

How to fish:

On white-sand flats, lead cruising bonefish by 4–6 feet. Let the fly sink to the bottom. Strip 4 inches, pause, strip 4 inches. When the fish tips down, stop and wait for the line to come tight. Then strip-set. Never lift the rod.

Recipe 2: Ginger Chickabou Sulphur Soft Hackle

• Hook: Wet-fly, #14–#16
• Thread: Orange or yellow 8/0
• Body: Sulphur-orange thread or floss, thin
• Thorax: Ginger Hare’s Ear dubbing
• Hackle: Ginger Ewing Chickabou, 1–2 turns from the tip

Tying:

Sparse is everything. Body, thorax, two turns of chickabou. That’s the fly. The fibers collapse around the body when wet and pulse with every current change.

How to fish:

During evening sulphur hatches, swing it through riffles and let it hang at the bottom of the swing. Trout that ignore duns will eat an emerger rising off the bottom. Fish it on a long, light leader.