Bantam and have been going back and forth of the subject on intruder patterns. He mentioned one modeled after the green butt skunk. New concept for me, but I figured I would give it a shot.

First drafts are a little rough around the edges, but I kinda like the idea. I am sure steelhead have eaten worse.

Sometimes I find myself envious of you..... stuck up there in the land of snow and darkness with nothing to do but...this.

very nice! I will steal some from you next time we fish.

gayer than stam at a horse show sippin' a Cosmo...............

Pinky out or in?

It is fairly flamboyant. Haven't made up my mind yet. It could grow on me.

out, of course.................thats how stam62 rolls

nice bug though.................artuculated would make it ubercool

I'm liking the deer hair collar more and more each time I comparethe two

Kind of looks like a hybrid between a skunk and pick your pocket fly pattern. It'll fish.

Coley,

I'm reminded of Ed Ward's remark that everything about the Intruder is "engineered" (in his words) on that pattern. Each and every material and the way it is tied in serves a specific purpose. So the salient question is whether each material you used is tied on in a way that provides action and creates the illusion of being large without being bulky.

Bucktail generally doesn't have much action in the water compared to marabou, ostrich, emu, rabbit, and artic fox, for example. Rabbit is great for action, but comes with the cost of quite a bit of bulk and a lot of resistance to sinking.

The colors of the Green Butt Skunk are a proven combination, so that fly will catch fish - as will most any fly. Does it sink like and have Intruder action?

Sg

could be, but....








































still not as gay as KK.

Apu is becoming more like Merg every day. must be thd sun or the water there.

I saw that clip of Ed and another angler discussing the origin and merits of the intruder style a year or two ago. Since then I have been giving each new twist on the style the swim test before I commit to a larger batch.

The action in these flies comes from the ostrich and the rhea. When I first started tying them, I was using longer waddington shanks (45mm) which gave me a fly in the length I wanted, but they didn't swim all that well. More recently I have been using shorter 25mm-35mm shanks while leaving the materials the same length. These flies swim much better. I think one of the key concepts with the intruder is to give the appearance of bulk and mass without actually achieving a bulky fly in the process. Flaring the materials and using fairly stout materials for the collars and underwing features really helps with that.

Leaving the body of these flies pretty sparse help with a number of things. First, a bulked out body doesn't get in the way of the "action" of the fly, letting them move freely and giving a more lifelike appearance. Keeping the fly more on the sparse side lends to a more castable fly that gets into the zone more readily as well.

The test I give them is to dip them in a glass bowl and swish em around a bit. Not exactly scientific, but if they are pretty wiggly, I keep em, if they don't move much, I take them apart and start over.

Science is overrated, thin bodies are always nice. Dec hogans book has a bit on intruders and their development.

Try tying a spin off of Scott Howell's Prom Dress (Flashabou), the Prom Dress Intruder. Howell's Prom Dress is tied in one front stage only and has a Polar dubbing, Polar Bear under collar. Add a rear stage and you have a Prom Dress Intruder. I tie my Prom Dress Intruder out of nothing but synthetics, substituting Lite Bright dubbing, Polar Chenille for the Polar dubbing, Polar Bear. I also substitute New Age Chenille (body), a dub looped Angel Hair finish collar for Howell's flat tinsel (body) and Guinea finish collar. Use all material sparsely, especially for the Prom Dress Intruder. I use a lot less Flashabou that is showed on most of the Prom Dress flies and shorten it up a bit for the Prom Dress Intruder because the Flashabou is in two stages.

In doing so, It soaks up very little water, cast well, sinks well and fishes well.

It has become one of my favorite Intruder patterns and the materials to tie it are fairly cheap.

http://www.flyfishusa.com/flies/stl-prom-dress.htm

http://www.flytyingbug.com/threads/protube-prom-dress-w-step-by-step.452/

http://www.flyfishusa.com/newsletter/022811/

http://oregonflyfishingblog.com/2011/01/24/blue-hoochi-tube-fly-video/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTnLZJIcEFc

GG

Cool fly...

Blingy! I have often thought of putting one of those wobbly reverse coneheady things over a big flash fly and seeing how it gets bit compared to a spoon. The prom dress might be a good one for the experiment.

How does one legally acquire polar bear these days?

Old stock Polar Bear is available in various places, pre ban stuff.

back in the day it was the shizzle, but these days unless you're after the authenticity factor for a specific pattern, the synthetic dubbings and hairs are probably just as good, if not better in many respects.

I like the stuff, have some, but save it only for certain patterns, mostly Coquihalla Specials

nice work coley

Speaking of illegal tying supplies, saw these guys hanging out in the jungle recently. Tried to catch one for KK but they were too quick.


Blue Heron





Bare Throated Tiger Heron


Too bad, they looked like they would make some nice flies.

Gray Ghost,

Nice links! Thanks. A couple weeks ago I tried some larger flies that I tied with 3 or 4 strands of flashabou on each side and was surprized at how much flash that created in water that had about 30" visibility. That same day I found a fly on the beach that my partner told me was a Prom Dress. I don't think I'd noticed that pattern before. With so much flashabou tied on the shank, I wonder how well it would sink were it not for the dumbells also tied on the shank.

Watching the first link and article where the recovering gear angler created the PD to simulate a metalic plug or spoon gets me to thinking about this whole craze among so many newer converts to fly fishing who basically seem to want to gear fish with fly rods. First came the bobber and jig nymphing technique and now plugs and spoons are added to the mix. It does cause me to wonder why they pick up a fly rod.

Coley,

The best way to get pre-ban, legal, polar bear is to find someone selling an old rug. They come up in estate sales. I saw an ad for one a year ago, but it was too far away to go see it in person. The ones to get are wall hangers that haven't been walked on. This one was only 2 or $3,000, but that would be easy to recover by selling off most of it and still having a lifetime supply left over.

I'm getting low and would be interested in going in on a purchase if anyone finds one for sale.

Sg

Got some of that too, pre ban. Also getting low on supply. Used to be pretty easy when the hatcheries would shoot herons that raided their rearing ponds, but that became a no-no in 1979, six years after the ban.