Light Dun Grizzly Chickabou Body Marabou Patch

Light Dun Grizzly Ewing Chickabou Marabou Body Patch

Light Dun Grizzly is pale gray with fine bars, which happens to be what a grass shrimp looks like in the marsh and what a swimming mayfly nymph looks like in a riffle. It’s translucent, subtle and very buggy.

Light Dun Grizzly Ewing Chickabou gives you barred gray fibers for shrimp tails, nymph gills and legs, and baitfish backs. Use it when you want the fly to disappear into the background until the fish is close enough to eat.

Redfish, speckled trout, snook, river trout and steelhead.

Recipe 1: Light Dun Grizzly Chickabou Grass Shrimp

• Hook: Saltwater #4–#6
• Eyes: Small burnt-mono or black bead-chain eyes
• Thread: Clear mono or gray 6/0
• Tail/feelers: Light Dun Grizzly Ewing Chickabou, short tuft, plus 2 strands clear Krystal Flash
• Body: Pearl-gray Ice Dub, palmered with a light dun grizzly saddle trimmed short
• Back: Clear Scud Back or Thin Skin, ribbed with mono

Tying: Keep the shrimp translucent and slim, about 1 inch long. Tie the eyes out past the bend with the chickabou tuft between them as feelers.

How to fish: Grass shrimp live along marsh edges and around oyster bars. Under a popping cork or on a slow sink, fish it near grass edges on a moving tide. Use 2-inch twitches. Redfish and speckled trout both eat it hard.

Recipe 2: Light Dun Grizzly Chickabou Swimming Mayfly Nymph

• Hook: 2XL nymph, #10–#12
• Bead: Gold tungsten
• Thread: Brown 8/0
• Tail: Light Dun Grizzly Ewing Chickabou, short tuft
• Abdomen: Dark brown-gray dubbing, with chickabou gill fibers along both sides
• Thorax: Peacock herl or dark Ice Dub
• Legs: Light Dun Grizzly chickabou, a few fibers each side

Tying: This copies the Isonychia and other swimming mayfly nymphs. They swim like tiny minnows, so the chickabou gills and tail are what sell it.

How to fish: Fish it on a tight line across riffles and let it swing up at the end of the drift. You can also strip it back with short, quick 2-inch strips. Swimming nymphs dart; your retrieve should too.