The Beaded Boatman
I'm not one to usually hand out tying instructions and often times you will find me looking through
blogs and YouTube videos for direction for myself but the other day I stumbled upon on idea for a
great little water bug. The idea came from reading about the little water-bug called the boatman. I
have never really given them much of a shot when I have fished these little guys before but after
doing a little research I may have found out why. What I discovered was that these little guys
frequently rise to the surface to gather air under their bodies and then dive down to the bottom of
slow moving parts of rivers and lakes. It struck me that this 'air pocket' has been missing from
nearly ever pattern I have ever seen. For a time I forgot about this tidbit until I was at the craft
store with my wife the other day and I saw these tiny glass beads that looked just like water / air
drop-lips. They were the perfect size for small hooks and 'Bonus' they were half off.
I started off with centering three small beads on the hook - building up material in front and in the
back of the beads.
I then took a small bundle of pheasant tail fibers and secured them behind the last bead. I allowed
a small amount of fibers to spray out hoping that it will give the insect a bit more life. After tying
off the black tread in the back I moved to the front of the bug.
The rest of the bug is simple made pulling the fibers forward to the eye, splitting the fibers, and
then tying them in the boatman leg style. I finished this little bug with a layer of clear varnish to
hold the fibers together.
Not a hard bug to tie at all. In fact, I whipped out quite a few in a very short amount of time. If
you look at an actual boatman, this fly is almost spot on and I believe that the beads will pay off
while fishing these bugs. Of course this all depends on the fish but I figure if the trout don't like
them then the bluegills will eat them up.
Boom...Morgan
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