Steelhead, trout, and dollies beware! Photos: Stuart Foxall.
Our buddy Stuart Foxall is back with another great step by step! Whether you’re fishing for steelhead, trout, dolly varden, or the like, this is one killer fly whenever spawning salmon are present.
Stu’s Egg Intruder – Tying Instructions
I came up with the idea of the egg intruder 5 or 6 years ago when swinging for monster leopard rainbows at Alaska West. As with most good fly patterns it’s pretty generic. At a quick glance it could imitate eggs or even flesh. The one thing that I didn’t really figure on is how deadly it would be while swinging for steelhead. If you’ve got spawning fish in your river system and steelhead are around, make sure to give this a try!
Step 1: Loop your wire through the hook eye of an octopus style stinger hook and start tying your thread to the shank.Step 2: Catch in some Blob Fritz (Frizzle Chenille) and wrap forward 2-3 times to look like an egg.Step 3: Wrap a couple of wraps of white mini marabou as a hackle, whip finish, and trim.Step 4: Fix your wire to a short waddington shank or hook shank that you can cut off so that the trailer hook rides up. I’ve doubled over the wire and super glued it to secure. If you wanted to fish this pattern deep you could wrap some lead to the shank for weight.Step 5: Tie in some mirage tinsel and wrap forward as a body.Step 6: Wrap on 2-3 more wraps of Blob Fritz (Frizzle Chenille) as a dubbing ball (Once again looking like an egg).Step 7: Tie in some hair all the way around the shank. I’ve used calf tail here as its stiff and will prop the marabou well. However, fox can be used as well.Step 8: Give a wrap of white marabou around the shank followed by a few strands of mirage Flashabou for a touch of flash. Create a nice head, whip finish, and cement. I like to leave a pretty big head on here to add a little hot spot.
While you could certainly dead drift this fly, I prefer to swing it. However, make sure that you swing it right to the bank.. Fish really do have a habit of following this fly until the last minute!
