Something for cool season speckled trout.

Very nice!

I�m not stacking the material like most of the EP Baitfish ties you will see. The cross sections between most EP Baitfish and the Steve Farrar Blend on are different. I put a bit of Simi seal dubbing on the hook shank first. I�ve done them without anything other than tying thread on the shank. Then I tie in the grizzly hackle. The grizzly is a new addition. If the fish don�t like it, I�ll tear or cut it out. The pattern has worked well in the past without the grizzly tail or any additional tail. I�ve also used a craft fur tail and that works. These are on size 1 Gamakatsu stingers.

Then I make a dubbing loop and lay in a very small amount of ~ 3� of Steve Farrar Blend, white in this case, making a very thin and sparse brush that I then wrap forward. It will be the worst looking brush ever. It won�t matter as long as it is very sparse and not clumpy. The back or top of the fish with the contrasting color is put on straight over the brush formed body. Eyes are CA glued on and I use the CA accelerator to speed up the set. I put a bit of thin UV set over the edge of the eyes and nose area to add a little extra durability. Steve Farrar Blend is very durable. Fish eventually work on pulling off the eyes, but new ones can be glued on.

The finished product then needs almost no trimming like an EP type of Baitfish. There�s usually a wild fiber of two that gets cut. Steve Farrar Blend doesn�t billow in the water like EP would if the fibers were as long. Steve Farrar Blend does not collapse when wet. The wet shape is about the same as the dry. The ones with a little more material sink a little slower. They all sink pretty slowly. I�ve added in little foam strips on the hook shank to make them neutrally buoyant. I prefer a slow sink version most of the time.

I tend to fish them pretty slowly, strip, long pause, various strips and pauses and maybe a drift if the current is favorable. I fish them a lot like I would and have the Paul brown corky lure.

Thank you for the information

I've been tying and fishing these for over three years. I sort of got away from fishing them. It's hard for me to fish the same patterns and spots over and over without trying something new.

I thought I would go back to fishing them more. They work well in the surf and more open areas without shell.

those look awesome! Got sandbass written all over them

Those look great! I'm curious why you went with the dubbing brush approach rather than the more common clumps you usually see in deceiver style patterns?

Dubbing on the Steve Farrar Blend produces a different shape, density and taper that I prefer. I believe it holds its shape better when wet. Some of the other ways to put on material like in a high tie tend to collapse on the strip when wet. The shape in the water changes a lot on the strip and pause. These dubbed on Baitfish look the same whether stripped or on a pause. That seems more like a real baitfish. They are light and airy and easy to cast.

I was partially trying to mimic some of the slow sinking/suspending lures like Paul brown�s corky, softdines, mirrordines, or the Catch 2000s. These lures don�t change shape if they are on the move or pausing. Those lures are proven trout getters.

Nothing wrong with deceivers. These Steve Farrar Blend do look and move differently in the water than deceivers or EP Baitfish. They don�t have that over-clipped hedge look of the typical EP Baitfish. The smoother unclipped sides of the SFB Baitfish look and I believe slide through the water more like real fish. The Steve Farrar Blend Baitfish have better eyes than the deceivers I�ve seen and used.

Some days, just about anything that is roughly the right size and shape or maybe color will work. Other days, the fish seem to be more selective. I�ve certainly seen this play out over and over again. I just try to make some flies that will push into working in that zone when the fish are being more picky. That�s part of the fun for me, tying or modifying patterns that might do it better that what�s already out there. I think for the Texas Inshore Saltwater, there�s a dearth of patterns available for purchase or to copy as a recipe. A lot of saltwater patterns out there have East Coast origins and don�t fit as well to our local environment, that�s my opinion anyway.

I think everyone that�s ever tied a fly has either tried to faithfully reproduce an existing pattern or make an edit or multiple edits that makes it better for their water or situation. I guess I wasn�t completely liking everything about some of the Baitfish patterns I had come across so I tried to make some improvements. The fish really don�t care or know if a pattern has a name or a celebrity creator. I�ll never accept that someone whose main experience is fishing Long Island sound or around cape hatteras or the Florida keys knows what will work best in Galveston bay and nearby water but those far away places are where a lot of the saltwater patterns have originated from. Some of the fish might be the same, but the forage, tides, water, structure, etc. can be and is highly different.