Fiery Brown Beetle            

Hook:   Mustad 9980 or 94838 or Tiemco 3761 # 10 - 16

Thread: Black 6/0 Uni Thread

Back: Crow or Cormorant

Body: Fiery Brown Seals Fur (Veniard's Fiery Brown Dye)

1/ First off wrap a nice even base of thread starting from near the front of the hook and extending to the point where you are going to tie in your first part of the fly, the wing case. This point should be roughly level with the barb on the hook. Once this is completed and you have a good bed of thread proceed to step two.
2/ Now take the crow or cormorant and select a few fibres. Tie in at the rear of the hook with the feather extending out and to the back. This not only moves it out of the way of the next step but also allows for the correct appearance of the back/wingcase that is so prominent on this particular pattern. Remove excess feather fibres with scissors and add a couple of thread turns to strengthen.
3/ Next pinch off a bit of dubbing. Apply it to the thread to form a small rope. This material is not the easiest to dub but you really want that shaggy look so don't despair and especially don't use dubbing wax. Apply dubbing to about a four inch section of the thread before you start to wind forward and construct the body of the fly.
4/ Build up a nice body as seen in the accompanying photo with it tapering from thin at the rear to thicker in the middle and again to thin at the front of the fly. Do this by winding the rope of dubbing forward, each turn in front of the previous one adding more turns in the same plane in the middle of the fly to get the required beetle shape. Use you own judgement here adding as much as necessary to get the proportions right.
5/ The fly is almost done. Remove the excess dubbing from the thread and place back in your valuable Fiery Brown Seal's Fur packet..(hard to get these days). Take the back/wingcase between your thumb and fore fingers of your right hand and gently and evenly pull it forward and over the dubbed body. Transfer holding it in place to your left hand and tie in. Trim the excess feather and add a couple of half hitches to finish.

The Pattern

I thought I would leave you with the words of it's creator as published in Australia's Best Trout Flies.......

Next up I offer you the simplest and, in my experience, most effective 'hoodwinker' fly of them all - the Fiery Brown Beetle. Nothing more than a chubby seal's fur body, with crow or cormorant wing fibres across the back to make a simple beetle wet fly. This still remains my favourite wind-laning fly when the trout are taking midge pupae, and it is my first choice on tailing fish if snails or amphipods are likely to be on the menu.

Fished inert in essentially the same manner as the Fur Fly, this plain little fly has, over the years, accounted for embarrassing numbers of trout. In the wind-lanes we cast well in front of an approaching fish, let the fly sink on a degreased leader, then draw it back in arm length firm pulls, with a short hesitation in between. This raises the fly up towards the surface right in the path of the fish. If the trout are in the mood, they won't just nibble at it, you'll feel them alright! 

This is an instance where colour is critical. Many commercial reproductions are orange, claret or scarlet- these can only be improved by bending the hook right around to ensure there is no gape. Yes, you have my permission to throw them away! I insist that you use the correct colour, a genuine fiery brown. The Veniard dye in this colour works a treat. If the orange, or claret, or scarlet work for you, then hang all I've just said! 

Rob Sloane, Australia's Best Trout Flies, FlyLife Publishing, 1997. 

www.flylife.com.au

There you have it from Australia's foremost Flyfishing author and he's not a bad fisherman as well! For the record we have also had some success in Goulburn Backwaters fishing this pattern inert to cruising trout just like they do to tailers in Tassie. Also Geoff has been known to 'Gink' them up and use it in the film. I was going to lie and say in the smaller sizes but you know Geoff. This phenomenon has been limited mostly to running water !

See you next week.

Antony, David and Geoff.