How to Tie the Cruiser Fly Sardina Pattern

Learn how to tie the Cruiser Fly Sardina pattern including step-by-step instructions, a video tutorial, pictures, and much more. Improve your fly tying skills here.

Trident Fly Fishing is a full-service fly shop. We spend a lot of time testing gear and writing reviews to give you all of the tools to make your next trip a success. We are not a blog or a review site. 100% of our funding comes from your gear purchases, so if this blog post helps you on your next fly fishing adventure, please support us by buying your gear from us.

Designed by Morgan Thalken, the Cruiser Fly is a versatile and easy pattern that can be tied to match a long list of baitfish profiles. With a rattle and non-fouling spine, this fly works wonders when pursuing fish that feed off of their lateral line, while its flexible spine prevents you from dealing with a fouled at those times when presentation is crucial. Use the Cruiser whether you're pursuing striped bass off of rocky ledges, pike in a weedbed, bluefish crushing herring, and much more

Recipe

• Hook: Tiemco TMC 600SP (Size: 2/0)
• Thread: Danville .006 Mono Thread
• Flash: Hedron Lateral Scale (Color Pearl)
• Adhesive: Liquid Fusion Clear Urethane and Loon UV Clear Finish
• Rattle: Hairline Plastic Rattle (Size: Small)
• Hairline Extra Select Craft Fur (Color: White)
• JUST ADD H20 STEVE FARRAR SF BLEND (Color: Cream, Olive)
• Eyes: Hairline Adhesive Eyes (Color: Pearl; Size: ¼ in.)

Video Transcript

Hey guys, Levi here with Trident Fly Fishing and today we're going to be tying a Cruiser Fly. This is a streamer pattern developed by Morgan Thalken and it's one of those things that really catches fish no matter what. Anything that eats fish that are smaller than it, any sort of predatory fish will probably eat this fly. Whether you're after pike, smallmouth bass, saltwater species like striped bass, jack crevalle will eat it, you can probably feed it to a tarpon without any trouble. It has a rattle in it, so it has a little bit of audio going on. We're tying it on a Tiemco 600SP hook, which is just a brute of a hook - super sharp, super strong, has a nice return point for really good penetration. For the body, we're going to be using some SF fibers, craft fur, that sort of thing. You'll see all of that in the video.

The color that we're tying today is going to be olive over white, which is just a classic baitfish color pattern. But the color possibilities here are really endless - whether you want to go all white, all black, pink under white, you can really come up with anything that you want to match the baitfish you're trying to imitate. It does have a wide body profile, so it's a real good pattern for sea herring, pilchards down in Florida, anything that looks like that. If you're looking for a complete material list, that's going to be down below, but you might have to hit the show more button to see all of that. If you need materials for this fly, we have everything you need at TridentFlyFishing.com, as well as probably 10,000 or so other materials. Orders over $49 ship for free, so go ahead and capitalize on that offer for any of your tying needs.

Let's go ahead and get started. We're going to get a Tiemco 600SP in size 2/0 in the vise and wrap some Danville .006 monofilament thread on there. You don't have to have a super neat thread base, but get it on there and clip off the excess. From there, we're going to get rolling right into some Lateral Scale. I don't know the exact size off the top of my head, but it's the skinnier of the two - they make a really wide one and this is the skinnier of the two. It gives a really good bit of flash to this fly and a nice lateral line effect. We're also going to be making a little flexible spine out of this. It's an idea from Dave Skok - it prevents fouling whenever you're casting and it is quite helpful.

Pull off about 20 of these fibers and wrap them around your thread so that you get double the amount and they're right in place. Get those secured and hit a thread wrap or two behind it. You can do that after you glue it or before, whatever works. Once you do that, we're going to move into some Liquid Fusion. This is a real sweet adhesive and it provides that flexibility to the spine that will prevent fouling and keep everything nice and neat, as opposed to super glue or something that would make this really stiff. Come in with some Liquid Fusion and just saturate the first 30 to 40% of this. You want it to be at least the length of the hook shank and you want to really work this into those fibers. You don't want to just coat the outside, because once this dries it's going to have some flex to it yet it's going to maintain some rigidity, and it's going to prevent that tail from fouling - or the rest of your fly fouling as well.

Once we get that glue in, I'm going to get in here with some 80-pound mono. I need just about maybe a quarter of an inch - you don't need a lot. This is just going to provide some stabilization to the rattle that we're going to tie in. It's a Gunnar Brammer technique I got off of him and it's pretty sweet. What that's going to do is let you tie this cylindrical rattle right onto the hook shank without it moving or rolling to either side. It's a nice way to remedy that problem of tying a circular object onto another circular object.

From there, we're going to get these plastic fly rattles in size small. This fly will have a rattle and it's a nice addition for those fish that tend to feed off of their lateral line. I did cut off the little tie-in point there just because I don't need it for this fly. Measure that so it can extend over the tail just a bit. Get that tightly tied right on top of the hook shank - you want to really get this in there well. We'll coat it with the Liquid Fusion. You can use super glue too, whatever you have available, to protect those thread wraps. Get that secured on there and just hit it with a bit of Liquid Fusion real quick. You don't have to go too crazy because they're going to be well protected by the SF fibers, but you do want to add a little bit of extra insurance.

Now we'll get ready to move into some craft fur. I believe it's the extra select - it's the nicest stuff out there. Just the color white. This is a fly that you can tie in any random assortment of colors that you might like, but white and olive is just always a good bet. Clip yourself off a decent chunk, get rid of the shorts, even up the tips just a little bit, and get rid of those small fuzzy fibers down at the base that won't contribute too much to your overall profile. Measure this to be probably about 30% beyond the hook shank, maybe even more. Cut the butts nice and flush and fold that right over the hook. Get it tied in and make sure those fibers are all on the bottom of the hook shank - you don't want any rolling over to the top. If you need to add some thumb pressure there, you can.

I'm going to go ahead and add a second bunch here just because I want a little fuller profile on the underbody. I tend to do this on any fly that's larger than maybe a size 1 or 1/0 - it might even require it. It's just easier to build taper when you put two clumps in instead of one really big chunky clump. Again, remove those underfur fibers and reposition your hair as needed. Measure that to be just a bit shorter than the previous bunch and get that tied in. Hit it with a loose wrap first, then a few tighter securing ones. That's going to create the belly of this fly.

Now we're going to get into some SF Blend in color cream. I've pulled probably about 40 fibers out of here for the start of our wing. We're going to let this be just a little shorter than the flash tail - we want to let that maintain its look. Trim this up just a little bit and create some taper to it so it doesn't look paintbrush straight. Tie this right on top and distribute it directly on top of the hook shank - make sure it's not angled off to one side or the other. We'll reverse that and tie it right in again, which will add durability and increase the bulk and profile of this fly. This is probably about 6.5 inches in total.

We're going to top this off with some olive SF Blend. You can tie any color you like, but this is just a nice standard baitfish that tends to work everywhere. Measure that out, clip off the extra, and work a little bit of taper to those fibers so they're not just super straight. Measure that wing to be about the same amount of fibers as the one below it, just a little shorter than the white. You can trim these synthetics up - it's not like bucktail, so there's a little bit of room for forgiveness. Tie that on right on top. You'll see how that rattle sort of acts as a spreader for these fibers as well, which helps the profile. Just like we did with the cream, we're going to pull this back and tie it down. You'll see the nice profile of this fly coming together.

Hit this with a whip finish before we form our resin head - two whip finishes for this larger diameter thread. From here, we'll move right into some UV Clear Finish from Loon. This is the thick viscosity. I took the cap off because we're applying quite a bit to form this head - it's just easier. Get that on there and then come in with your bodkin to distribute it and get a nice baitfish-looking head on there. Hit it with a red marker below if you want to add a sort of gill line. Once you've got it evenly distributed and looking nice and natural, go ahead and hit it with the light.

I forgot to mention the eyes in the intro, so I want to go over them real quick now. These are the flat adhesive eyes in color pearl, size quarter inch. I do prefer these to the dome eyes for this fly because I don't want any extra weight up there, and they also just tend to make a cleaner head. Pop one off at a time and bend them right down the middle - it's a Bob Popovics sort of idea. If you bend them in the middle and crease them, they don't look like hubcaps on the side of your fly and they tend to get a nice clean look to them. Creasing them on the paper is sometimes easier. Do the same thing on the other side of the fly and coat it with another bit of UV.

If that eye is sagging, make a quick adjustment before you come in with your final coat of UV resin. Distribute it with the bodkin again - you'll see the eye can shift a bit, which is a pain, but you kind of just have to work around it and fill in the gaps. Another thing you can do to combat that eye sag - if you're using mono thread, you can just go ahead and tie these eyes directly in and then UV cure over that, and that'll keep them nice and secure. But if you want the bigger head, it's best to do it in two coats like I did. You can trim any of these fibers up front, but I'm pretty okay with the taper that we have on this fly so I'm going to let it go as is.

The last thing you're going to want to do, if you really are one to pamper your flies - take this, run it under some water, and just let it hang dry. You'll see that it takes on just a cleaner shape. It won't do it like it would with bucktail, but it will enhance the look of that fly. That is a Cruiser Fly. I want to thank you guys for watching, and don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. I will see you next time.