White Foxabou
A hairwing version of my all time favorite marabou streamer. Maybe I'm too critical, but I have a hard time finding really good marabou for streamer flies. It's either too "stringy" and lacking motion, or the tips of the barbs seem overly blunt and broken. I have switched to arctic fox for this fly and haven't regretted the change in one bit. Caution must be taken in preparing the wing, as it is very easy to overdress this fly. The arctic fox doesn't slim down in water like some other materials, so what it looks like when dry is very similar to how it looks when wet. I've added a couple strands of pearl flashabou in the wing to add a twinkling flash. I like it.
Tying instructions:
- Attach black thread behind the eye and wrap to the bend in smooth touching turns (it helps to untwist the thread occasionally to keep everything as flat as possible).
- Tie in your ribbing tinsel on the far underside of the hook shank and return your thread to the hook eye.
- Tie in a length of mylar tinsel, gold side down (so silver shows when wrapped), and wrap "down and back" forming a double layer of tinsel. Keep this smooth - make the wraps touching but not overlapping.
- Wind the ribbing tinsel forward in evenly spaced turns.
- Tie in a short length of red sparkle yarn underneath the hook shank (about a gap width or so) to serve as the throat.
- Tie in a few strands of pearl flashabou (don't go crazy here - two or three will do) and trim them to the length of the hook shank or so.
- Clip a section of arctic fox tail and comb out much of the short fluff and underfur, and pluck out any long hairs. You should be left with a pretty sparse bunch of hair. Tie this in right at the head.
- Tie in a herl topping. I've been taking to using the very fine herls that form the "eye" of a tail for the toppings on my small streamers. They seem to have a nice irridescent green shine to them and are very mobile in the water..
- Form a neat head and whip finish.
- Optionally, paint eyes on the sides of the head.