Shrimp SBS 1.0

Sat down at my vice tonight and couldn't think of anything to tie.. Its a horrible horrible problem. So I sat there a while, and began to tie on an intruder shank. Tied it up and couldnt come up with anything so off the vise it went.

NEXT!! So as Im sitting there I start going through materials and decided on working on a shrimp pattern. I was looking to make one that had would land fairly soft, yet sink quick. Not sure if it'll work just yet but I intend on trying it! No name for it yet. For now Ill just call it shrimp :-)

Materials:

Uni 6/0 Tan Thread

Mustad 34007 1/0

Yearling Elk (could substitute good quality deer hair)

Finn Raccoon-Bonefish Tan

Krystal Flash Black

Shrimp Eyes (mono and glass bead)

Brown Schlappen

Synthetic Hair-tan

Start thread at hook point and work back to the bend.

Cut clump of elk hair about the thickness of a pencil. Lay on top of the shank and while holding firm with your non-bobbin hand do two pinch wraps at the middle point of the hair clump. Pull straight up on the the bobbin while holding the hair firmly. It will flare only on top of the hook shank. If some rolls under, no big deal, you can trim it later.

Pull buts of hair up and stroke them back. Build a small thread dam in front of the hair clump to hold it in place. I like to add a drop of superglue at this point to secure the hair.

Cut mono/glass bead eyes to size. I like them a bit long (about 1-1.5")

Rotate vise and tie in shrimp eyes. Secure with super glue.

Krystal Flash!!

Cut two-three strands of black krystal flash, tie in in front of the hair clump. I generally  tie the krystal flash in at its half way point then reverse it over itself.

Cut a small clump of your finn raccoon of the zonker strip.

Tie in finn raccoon just above your deer hair clump

Cut another clump of elk hair about the same size at the first clump. Tie in the exact same way, allowing it only to flare on the bottom of the hook shank.

Yes I know this thing looks crazy right now, but it will come together!

Reverse elk hair butts just like you did on the previous clump. Build a thread dam in front of it and put a drop of superglue.

This is what it "should" look like at this point.

Cut another clump of finn raccoon off the zonker. Tie it in about 1/2" from the butt end like pictured above.

Reverse the butt ends of the finn raccoon just like you did previously with the elk hair. Build a small thread dam in front of it.

At this point I trim the elk hair as shown above. You could wait till you are finished  but I just find it alot easier to manage at this point.

Schlappen!!

Tie in schlappen.

Prepare your synthetic hair. For this particular fly I used tan congo hair. I cut it into about 1" pieces.

There is a couple different ways to do this step, and to be honest its really hard to show in pictures. Grab a pretty good size clump of synthetic hair (2 pencils thick). I lay the synthetic hair on the shank then roll it between my fingers so it surrounds the hook shank. Tie it in near the middle of the clump, reverse the butts and build a small dam.

Synthetic hair clump reversed with thread dam.

Grab another large clump of synthetic hair and tie it in the same way as the previous.

Tie in lead eyes on top of the shank (you want it to ride hook point up). Drop some superglue over the eyes to help hold them in place.

Tie in final clump of the synthetic hair as described above.

Trim synthetic hair to shape. Do not cut thread yet.

Palmer schlappen and tie off in front of the eyes.

Whip finish thread, cut, and head cement.

Add weedguard (optional).

I did one with the schlappen and one without.

And naturally I couldn't just tie two flies.. I also worked on a couple others: