Thoughts??

Building up a collection of rabbit fur flys that I can use out on the flats this summer. New to saltwater flyfishing, but looking forward to the education!!! Thoughts on this design? It's pretty standard, but suggestions would be appreciated.




Tom

Looks definitely like a fish would eat it. What’s the eye made of? Does the pattern ride hook point up or down?

The trouble I’ve seen with unweighted or lightly weighted Rabbit Zonker patterns is that they tend to float initially. So what can happen is that you see a redfish and take the shot and by the time the fly sinks, the fish has passed by rooting on the bottom and has never seen the fly. And then point down patterns tend to grab whatever is on the bottom, shell, grass, algae. Finally, later on after some casts, rabbit zonker can get pretty water logged and then hard to cast.

My favorite saltwater rabbit zonker pattern is the Avalon Permit fly. It uses two short strips of zonker, rides point up with the dumbbell weight, and makes a clicking noise. It’s pretty compact and easy to cast.

Those are dumbbell eyes so the hook should ride point up in the water. I considered putting on some lead for a bit of extra weight. I did glue the two strips together with some fabric glue. It looks good in the water as it moves around. Just haven't had a chance to give it a try. Work has be tied up for the next two weekends.

Thanks for the reply!

That looks really solid. I like the idea of using rabbit strip for movement but usually when it gets wet it ends up losing size. Gluing the two together looks to have solved that problem.

But like they say, there's only one way to find out just how successful it is...