How to Tie the Fox Fur Baitfish: Step-by-Step Guide

What's up everybody? It's Ryan again at Trident Fly Fishing and today we're going to be tying the fox fur bait fish fly. It's a highly versatile [music] pattern that you can kind of tie in any size. So this is a three aught Gamakatsu BT B10S stinger hook. These are really sticky hooks that penetrate harder mouths like pike and musky, bluefish, things like that. So I'm going to tie in some six aught thread in white right in front of the hook point. The nice thing about this pattern is that you can kind of customize it. I'm going to show you the basic way to tie it, but it's highly customizable as far as, you know, making little tweaks that work for you. Pretty simple. So the first thing I'm going to do is use some This is main bucktail. I'm going to take one of the longest straightest shanks from usually from the around the tip like so and to create my tail. This is going to be about a hook hook shank hook shank length and a half and I'm going to tie it in right above the hook point with a couple of loose wraps. And when I selected that piece, I plucked out the ones that were kind of straying in different ways cuz I want that to be pretty straight cuz this will act not only as the tail and some sort of like bulk at the back of the of the fly, but it also act as a foul guard when we add some saddle hackles later. So you want that to be really straight really straight. That was pretty good. In other words, I don't want to use um fibers from from the base because when I tie it like this, they'll splay out like if you're you know, if you're spinning deer hair. I want these um these ones by the tip which will kind of keep that straight profile which is perfect for the tail on the bait fish fly. Then I'm going to use some simple flash here and I'm going to take two or three strands per side. >> I like to tie it around the thread. Kind of wrap it around my thread, and then I can use my left hand to pull that up, and then I'm just lifting the thread up and over. And I can use that to create a little lateral flash like that. Not too much, but two or three strands per side. Little bit shorter than the length of the tail. This is just basic Flashabou. Has that kind of pearl. Same idea. I'm going to bring that over to the other side. Cut it to length. Easy enough. Now I can advance my thread in front of the tying point. I'm just about at the hook point at this point. And now what I'm going to do is, as I work left to right towards the hook eye, I'm going to hollow tie some bucktail, and then um add a little bit of saddle hackles around here, about the midpoint of the hook shank. And then the last little bit of the hook shank behind the eye I'm going to be adding some fox fur blend, and that's going to create the head and a little bit of bulk to push water. Uh you have all kinds of options here as far as what part of the bucktail you use. I like to start with some white just to sort of add some continuity from the tail. I'm going to hollow tie this, so I make a I make a straight cut. You can use a stacker if you're into that kind of thing. I just like to eyeball it. And I'm going to lay it so the tips are facing the hook eye. Couple loose wraps. Got to be careful with your thread here. If you're using, you know, eight aught thread, it's probably not great to to tie with this fly. You want to You want a thicker thread. Um that's going to withhold some some spinning here. So, I'm going to tie that in like so, and then I can use my fingers or an empty pen cap to pull those fibers back and tie them in. And these stiffer fibers are a little harder to work with, so you really have to use your hands to pull those back like so. And what I'm doing is I'm just tying my thread up onto the bucktail a little bit to really push it back and create a little bit of a dam so that it can't come forward. It's okay if it does a little bit. Oops, not that far back. Good. So, I have that nice veil. There's some sort of continuity in color here. I'm going to advance my thread a little bit in front of my tying point. And now I can add some different color if I want. This is a natural colored bucktail, so I'm going to take some fibers that are sort of on the edge here with the white and the sort of natural color. And I can create a little just a little bit more of a color profile. Same idea, I make a straight cut. I lay the fibers on top of the hook shank, couple loose wraps like so. Then I'm going to firm that down, some tighter wraps. Use that pen or your fingers if you're lazy like me. Pull those back. Tie them in. And you'll kind of see every time you let go, you'll see if it's still kind of kicking forward. You just pull it back and build that little dam with your thread to push that stuff back towards the bend of the hook. Nice. We're not looking for perfection here. Just want to create some bulk for the body. I'm going to tie in a little more flash. This is a pretty flashy attractor fly. What's cool about this pattern is you can use it in the northeast for like a bunker situation for straight bass and bluefish. You can use it as like a small mullet down south for tarpon and snook. And you can absolutely use it >> [clears throat] >> anywhere you find pike and musky. And this larger This is a 3/0 hook. You could tie this up to like a 4 or 5/0. I'm not getting too carried away with the flash. I'm just adding a little bit as I go. And I turn the hook over to kind of eyeball where I want that flash to be so that it's sort of parallel but on the other side as my original tie in point. Great. So now I have some flash. I have two sections of bucktail tied in and I'm going to advance my thread a little bit more. It's a hollow tie in. In other words, there's some space between the tie in points which will get filled by these little pockets of air which will help with some movement on this fly. Same idea here. I'm going to add a little bit of a blend. I'm actually going to go a little bit darker now towards the natural stuff. As I get closer to the hook eye, I want the length of my bucktail to get a little bit shorter. In other words, I don't want these tie in points of bucktail closer to the eye to go out and extend beyond the original bucktail tie in. So I'm I'm just eyeing that as I get closer to the hook point. These tie in points with the um bucktail are getting a little bit shorter. That'll create a nice taper as you get closer to the hook eye. I can kind of move that around to make it so it's pretty equal around the shank of the hook. Same idea. I'm pulling that sweeping that material back. Tying in front of it. Again, that stiffer material is hard to work with sometimes. You just have to be consistent. >> And now I have that nice taper. As you can see these fibers in the original tying point are longer. Gets a little shorter, a little bit shorter as we go. So now I have some gray saddle hackles and I'm going to tie them in to give me a little bit of movement and profile on the top of the fly. This one is about the length of the top from the tying point to the end of the tail. I'm going to place it right on top like that. Not in the center, but sort of like between the top of the hook shank and the and the sort of center line, somewhere in the middle of that. Great. The same idea on the other side. Eyeballing this. So it's the same length. There we go. Great. And that gives that nice movement, but also sort of in the water this will look like the top sort of line or edge of the baitfish fly. So now I'm going to add a few more pieces of bucktail. Same idea. I'm going to keep going kind of darker here. And before I add the EP, I'm going to add one more little piece here. Same idea, a straight cut. >> Really lock that in. Pull those fibers back. And these will do some work in kind of supporting the saddle hackles that you just tied in. I'm going to have to build up a bit of a thread down here. And you're really thinking about wrapping up onto that material a little bit. And you'll notice when those when you release the thread, you'll get to a certain point where the bucktail fibers will sort of stay right in place. They're not going to move too far forward. That looks pretty good. I could probably have made these a little bit shorter, but I kind of like that longer length for as far as the movement and the action in the water. Cool. So, the last thing is to add my fox fur. And what I've done is I simply took white fox fur and cut off um a good bit of it, pulled out most of the guard the black guard hairs, and then I put it into a food processor with some flash. So, I just cut up some of this Flashabou. I put a little bit of blue flash in there as well. You can The nice thing about this is you can do this by hand as well and just make kind of any blend color that you want. So, this is kind of like whitish gray and it has some accents of that pearl color and also some blue. So, what I'm going to do is just take a good size chunk, like so. Kind of pull it apart so that the fibers are like long and straight. Like that. I'm going to lay it on top of the hook shank, so about half of it is up into the bucktail and half of it is pointed over towards the hook eye. And I'm going to do a couple loose wraps, like so. And then I can pull that material backwards like that. Wrap my thread, advance my thread in front. And I'm seeing pulling back with my left hand so that I can add some like a thread down there so it doesn't push forward. It's going to keep that in place. Same idea, obviously I made a little bit too much, but better to have too much. Notice I'm just kind of pulling that apart to kind of straighten the fibers, and I can kind of get rid of the the long ones that don't don't really fit in. Same idea, I'm going going right in front of my last tie-in point, couple loose wraps. And then I'm pulling that back. I probably have room for a one more tie-in point. Loose wraps. Pulling that back so I can expose that space behind the eye. And I'm going to build up a pretty good head here with the thread. Really sweeping that material back with my left hand. Cool, now I can whip finish. Great. Now, the last step is to add eyes, but I'm going to take a comb. You can use a brush, a wire brush, anything you have. You could use the tips of your scissors. I'm basically going to try to pull out some of the material that didn't really lock in. I can see there's quite a bit that comes out when I do that. I'm using like these really narrow bristles to do that. Notice that gives it a nice sort of bulky head to the fly. I'm going to use my scissors just to kind of cut it cut that down a little bit to shape. I'm just using the natural angle of the scissors, my rotary vise to do that. Great. I like that cuz it creates a nice bulky head to the fly. That's going to push some water for you. And the last step is to add eyes. I'm going to cut just a little bit of a flat space here for my eye to go. And I'm using some of this E6000 um transparent adhesive. You can find this anywhere any type of like Walgreens or Walmart. Stuff is really good for for eyes. I'm going to add a little dab here. It's probably a little too much, but I can position my eye there. That was a little too much, but that's all right. I can use the tips of my scissors to press that eye into place and kind of hold it there for a second. Really pressing down. Same idea on the other side. I'm going to create just a little space flat space for the eye. Thinking about I want it to be like exactly parallel to to that one there. >> Little dab of glue. And before I lock it in, I can kind of press this one back down to really make sure it's where I want it to be. Now, that's in the same spot. Pressing that in. There you have it. Sweet. It's a pretty light fly with the hollow tie like that. But, it also pushes water with this nice fox fur head. And you can make that a little bit slimmer if you want. The profile will be a little slimmer. But, that is the basic fox fur bay fish fly.