Here at Trident Fly Fishing, we're always looking for patterns that deliver real results on the water without demanding hours at the vise — and Captain Paul Dixon's Cinder Worm checks both boxes. This lightweight saltwater fly was built specifically to imitate the cinder worm, a marine polychaete worm that hatches in massive numbers along the Northeast coast, triggering some of the most explosive striper surface-feeding events of the season. When the hatch is on, striped bass can become laser-focused on these small wriggling creatures, and having a convincing imitation can mean the difference between a memorable night and a frustrating one.
The Cinder Worm hatch typically occurs in estuaries, bays, and harbors from late spring through early summer, often peaking around new and full moons after dark. During these events, bass will key in hard on the naturals and ignore nearly everything else. That's exactly why having a well-tied, realistic cinder worm pattern like this one is so important. The combination of a flowing marabou tail and UV-reactive synthetic dubbing gives this fly the movement and profile that triggers strikes even from lock-jawed fish.
In this tutorial, Ryan breaks down the Cinder Worm tie step by step, sharing tips on preventing marabou fouling, working with synthetic dubbing, and using a dubbing brush to create that natural, tapered worm profile. It's a quick tie once you've got the process down, and its versatility extends beyond stripers — big brown trout, smallmouth bass, and even Palolo worm situations in the Florida Keys are all fair game. Let's get to the vise.
Full Video Transcript
Hey everyone, it's Ryan again at trying to fly fishing. Today we're going to be tying the cinder worm fly and this is a saltwater striped bass fly designed by Captain Paul Dixon. Now, it's a great lightweight [music] easy to tie fly that's fantastic for the cinder worm hatches. And we're going to start by tying it on a B10S stinger hook today. I love these hooks. They're super sticky. It's kind of a thin gauge, penetrates really well. And this is a size four. And I'm going to start with some thread wraps with this red thread uh right by the hook point. And essentially we're going to build the red marabou tail and then work our way forward with some of the dubbing. I'm going to choose one of these marabou quills and I'm going to just use the sort of end here. I'm going to get rid of the most of this stuff here. I can just cut that right off. Want the tail to be about the length of the hook shank. And you can see there's like a natural curve on this marabou. See how it's kind of curved down. I just did it to avoid fouling. I'm going to I'm going to place it so it's riding up like that. And I'll show you a few tricks on how to avoid fouling. So, I'm going to measure that to see it's about the length of the hook shank. It's maybe a little bit longer than that. That looks good. I'll just transfer it to my left hand. Bring it back to the tie in point. Couple loose wraps to position it and really lock it in. Great. And then I'm going to I'm going to trim this a little bit. I like that this will add some bulk if I tie this in that I can wrap the dubbing over. So, I'm just going to kind of capture this marabou here to give the body a little bit of bulk. Notice I kept that eye open. Kept that eye area open for the final tying point. But now you see I have that sort of built-in thicker body that's pretty uniform. So I can use that as a base for my for my dubbing. So you can if you're worried about fouling, you can lift the tail up and do a couple wraps up and under like this. And then I'll just kick that tail up a little bit so that there's less chance of it fouling. Great. So we're going to use some ice dubbing. This is the red UV2 Seal X red dubbing. And if you think about what's left here with the hook shank, which is most of it, I'm going to use about 2/3 of the hook shank with red dubbing. And I'm going to save that last little bit here for black just to have that worm sort of the the head of the worm have that little bit of black dubbing. So I'm going to start by taking a couple of good pieces of this red dubbing. And I'm going to just wrap it. You could add some You could use some dubbing wax if you want. This stuff's a little trickier to deal with than a natural dubbing as it is a synthetic. You can hear that you can probably hear that sound it's making. Um so you have to be careful sometimes it'll kind of come off the thread a little bit and you just need to twist it like that. No big deal. I'm going to use a brush at the end to sweep that material back. And what that does is it'll blend the red and black a little bit and create this nice natural kind of body look that you'd see on a worm. And I am trying to get a pretty uniform body as I wrap forward. I'm not tapering it. Want to keep it pretty uniform. So as I spin here, I'm just going in one direction. And if it gets a little loose, that's okay. The synthetic can be a little bit more difficult to deal with. Good. So, I have this little maybe a half inch space behind the hook eye. And I'm going to use that black dubbing there. So, let's get the black dubbing. This is the STS dubbing black. Same idea, a little bit at a time. Kind of spinning in one direction. This is also a synthetic, so it's a little trickier to work with. A little messy, no big deal. I could spin my thread, but I'm not going to do that. Do it the old-fashioned way. So, when I tied that in, I I made sure that it was touching right up against that red. And it's okay if it gets a little messy. Again, I'm going to use that brush. So, I'm kind of sweeping that material back. Tightening that up on my thread. It's okay. Tie in right behind the eye, just leaving a little bit of space so I can create that little head with this red thread. Like so. You get those little wisps like that, that's not a problem. I'm going to use that brush to sweep the material back. I'm going to show you. I'm going to whip finish now. Pretty simple fly. Once you get this down, you can tie these in a couple minutes. Just going to take this little brush and pull that material really sweep that material back. Really get in there. Oop. As I did that, my knot came out. No big deal. Tie right over it. Take both of those. Cut them. I'm going to try that again with finish. Let's do four this time. There we go. That's better. I would add a little bit of head cement. What I like about this step is you're kind of pulling these fibers back, so you can see it kind of gives this kind of flare. And what I like about the front is it blends, it brings that black back a little bit. So, it has this nice kind of blended look in the water. Gives you a little more movement, a little more life-like quality to the fly. Uh and that's a great That's a great striper fly for the for the cinder worm hatch. But, you know, fish like worms. Fish everywhere eat worms. You could use this on big brown trout. Um smallmouth obviously would eat it. You could tie a a larger version of this for like a Palolo worm down in the Keys. But, that is Paul Dixon's cinder worm fly.
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