Onion Bag fly — Shane Broadby

sight-fishing. However, while these conditions are ideal, they don’t occur consistently, especially in Tasmania!

It’s still possible to sight-fish under heavy cloud cover and in low light, you just need to work a little harder at it. Move more slowly and look intently for hints like movement and subtle flashes of colour from cruising fish. It can also help to vary your lens colour selection on duller days by choosing tints from the yellow, rose and brown ends of the spectrum, as well as opting for lenses that allow a higher level of light transmission.

When sight fishing, don’t expect to always clearly see your target fish swimming happily about. Wild fish living in natural environments can be extremely hard to spot at first.

Experienced sight fishers become adept at identifying the tiniest clues that often signpost the presence of fish. Subtle movements, suspicious shapes or patterns, shadows, dull flashes, ripples and fin tips momentarily breaking the surface are all key indicators of the presence of fish. Often you’ll home in on Don’t expect fish to always stand out clearly. Can you see the large trout in this image?

You’re an Angler, and no matter how many times you go fishing you’ll want to go again and no matter how many fish you catch (or nearly catch) it will never be enough.

There will be days when the fishing is better than one’s most optimistic forecast, others when it is far worse. Either is a gain over just staying home.

You’re hooked, along with us.

WE ARE TONIC!

just a part of the fish rather than the entire animal. This might be the light-coloured mouth of a trout, or a darker V-shape on the trailing edge of a bream’s tail. Learn to recognize these clues.

SHALLOW THINKING

Finally, remember that some of the finest sight-fishing opportunities encountered in both fresh and saltwater environments occur at extremely shallow depths, often hard up against the bank or shoreline.

Many anglers are surprised to learn that even large fish will swim in water barely deep enough to cover their backs, especially early and late in the day. So don’t be too quick to wade in! Always start by visually scanning the very shallowest margins first, before gradually turning your attentions to deeper water.

Remember these valuable tips and get out there this summer to give sight-fishing a serious crack. I guarantee you’ll be hooked!

Starlo’s website portal www. fishotopia.com offers access to lots of nitty-gritty, how-to information like this, including detailed features on sight-fishing. Jump on, have a good look around and consider signing up for the free monthly newsletter, or taking advantage of the current offer of a month’s free subscription to Fishotopia’s “Inner Circle” membership-only area… You’ll find yourself in some great company!

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Cast these lines at the Tasmanian Flyfishing Expo 10-11 November.

ONION BAG

Commercial fly tyer, Shane Broadby shares his knowledge

The Orange Spinner hatch is well known around Tasmania’s lowland meadow streams and lowland ponds and impoundment with the various hatches made famous, particularly in the writings of David Scholes. There have been many famous fly patterns developed for these spinner hatches such as the Macquarie Red and the Doubled Hackled Cocky just to name a couple. The Orange Spinner is also an occurrence in many highland Lakes, such as Dee Lagoon, Bronte Lagoon and of course Penstock Lagoon.

The Onion Bag is a fly that was developed for the Orange Spinner hatch that occurred in the early days at the now defunct Lagoon of Islands. The hatch was huge and the big fish gorged on them but the weedy conditions and the large fish caused a few problems, notably the quality of the hooks available in Tasmania at the time just wouldn’t cut the mustard and would often straighten during the battle, the problem was solved by Joe Martak, by tying his Onion Bag fly on much stronger, Low Water Atlantic Salmon fly hooks, a big fly for big fish!.

As the name suggests strands of poly propylene string bag that Onions are sold in is used for the fly we call the Onion Bag. Interestingly the original material used in Onion Bags was a much lighter pink colour than I have seen in modern Onion Bags which is brighter reddish pink.

Ken Orr gave me a sample of the original Onion Bag material that was used in the day, I have some low water salmon hooks so I tied one up, thankfully we have superb quality hooks these days so we can get away with more appropriate sized 10, 12 and 14 hooks.

Original Onion Bag

Hook: Size 10, 12 or 14 Partridge L5A Thread: Dark Brown 6/0 or 8/0 Uni Thread Tail: Red Cock hackle fibres Body: A strand from a traditional Onion bag Wings: (Optional) Red hackle tips or speckled hen Hackle: Red Cock

Parachute Onion Bag

I’ve been playing around with a parachute hackle variation of the onion Bag with some success, try it and see how you go Hook: Size 10, 12 or14 Partridge L5A Thread: Dark Brown 6/0 or 8/0 Uni thread Tail: Red cock hackle fibres Body: Strand from a traditional Onion bag Wing post: Dark brown and white poly yarn Thorax: Peacock coloured Glister or similar Parachute hackle: Red Cock Traditional Onion Bag

Method

Lay down a thread base from the eye down to the hook bend and tie in hackle fibres for a tail, then forward the thread and leave it about ¼ hook length from the eye of the hook.

Cut a length each, from the white and dark brown Poly Yarn, split each length in half and then half each again so you have four equal pieces of yarn from each of the white and brown poly yarn lengths.

Place a piece of brown and white poly yarn together measure to the length of the hook shank with the brown piece of yarn laying on the hook shank and extending over the hook eye with the white piece of yarn on top of the brown , tie in with several firm turns, lift the section of the two pieces of yarn that is over the hook eye and wrap several turns of thread hard up and directly in front of the yarn, this will partly stand up what will be your wing post up, you should have the brown yarn on the leading edge facing the eye of the hook with the white yarn facing the bend of the hook you have just created a bi-coloured wing.

Snip off the end of the yarn that is pointing toward the hook bend behind the original tie in point, hold the wing, then wrap the thread in touching turns a third of the way up the wing and then back down the wing which will stand the wing up and form the base of your wing post, cover the cut ends of the poly yarn with the thread and leave it hanging.

Cut out a length of plastic string from your Onion Bag, split it into several thinner bits of string using your dubbing needle, the thinner piece of plastic string wraps and looks better as the body of your fly.

Tie the strand of onion bag in where you covered the cut ends of the Wing Post, then return the thread to the bend of the hook covering the strand as you go, then build a smooth slightly tapering under body with the thread towards, but ending just short of the wing post then leave the thread hanging, wrap the strand of Onion bag string in overlapping turns up towards the wing post and tie it in with firm wraps of thread, snip off the excess. Parachute Onion Bag

Onion Bag tied on a Low Water Salmon hook

Select a hackle a size larger than the hook size, pull some fibres from the base of the hackle stalk and tie the stalk in, in front of the wing base, hold the hackle and the wing together with the dull side of the hackle facing you and bind the wing post and the hackle together by winding up the wing post and back down again, finishing with the thread hanging in front of the wing.

Dub the thorax material to the thread and form a small thorax around the wing post by figure eight wrapping, ending with the thread hanging in front of the wing. With your hackle pliers wind the hackle in five turns, clockwise down the wing post with each wrap of hackle below the previous wrap and ensuring that the underside of the hackle is facing down, ending with the hackle pliers hanging between the thorax and the hook eye on your side of the hook.

Tie in the hackle with a couple of turns of thread being careful not to trap any hackle fibres , snip of the hackle, hold the hackle out of the way with your fingers, whip finish and apply head cement.