February 27, 2008


Clam Before the Storm

hook: size 4 Mustad 34007
thread: 3/0 UNI, dark brown
weight: hourglass eyes, black, large
shell: furry foam, brown (or cream, colored with brown marker)
body: micro chenille, pink

Wrap thread on mid-section of hook and tie in the hourglass eyes on the top of the hook shank. Tie in a 1.5" piece of chenille just past midway on the hook shank. Cut out a piece of furry foam in the shape of an 8 (or hour glass figure). Tie in the foam at the middle of the "8" using a figure eight wrap. Wrap thread forward to the hook eye. Pull the chenille forward over the body between the two clam shells and tie in just behind the hook eye. Lift the chenille up and add a few thread wraps underneath, enabling the chenille to point up, perpendicular to he hook shank. Whip finish and epoxy the thread wraps.


Fish the fly heavy in the stream bed, preferably in an area with a native mussel/clam population. The hourglass eyes will help get the fly down quick and stay on the bottom. Fish with an indicator to detect the often subtle bite of a redhorse, buffalo, carp, and other shellfish eating fish. Credit for the fly pattern goes to Craig Matthew's original bonefish pattern, and to sexyloops for their adaptation of the fly.

5 comments:

  1. Did you tie these up? I know John Montana at Carp on the Fly is toying with these...

    Is it tough to shape the shell? I'm wondering how critical it is to have the shell shaped like a shell... maybe a guy could just tie on a big chunk of dark fur in a roughly circular pattern, and have the pink chenille extendig out from it.

    Cool flies. You have a lot of great patterns here.

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  2. Yeah, I tied these myself. I talked to John and his friend Matt over at sexyloops.com; we're all excited to try out this fly this season. I have a feeling that you guys will get a chance to use them on your SE MN fly tour before I will.

    Shaping the sheel is easy. All I do is cut out a rectangle of furry foam and basically cut two notches in the side and trim the corners to form the "8" shape. Only takes a few seconds to do and the foam cuts real easy. I would imagine that this would be a far quicker fly to tie than tying in fur in a circular pattern, but I'm up for suggestions. As long as it works, that's all I care about. If anything it is a great conversation piece.

    hopefully this pattern will slay the buffalo....

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  3. You guys think it will work in MN? Didn't realize you had freshwater clams. We'll have to try it out in April Wendy...

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  4. yeah, but the native clam/mussel populations are protected because so many are threatened from impaired waters due to development, high intensive ag use, etc. They protect all species due to the fact that they are hard for most people to distinguish one species from another.

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  5. As long as they are not protected from the carp!

    Looking forward to testing the pattern...I have high hopes for it.

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