| A little while ago, there was a post about articulated flies, which I had mostly avoided until recently. I found the process of wiring up two shanks not worth the trouble, especially since hinged flies don't necessarily wiggle any better unless there is some other feature of the fly that causes either the head or tail to move side-to-side or up and down. But ... the articulated shanks sold by the Fish Skull people have changed my mind, because it's now so simple to tie hinged flies. I figured I'd post some here, because the shanks give you lots of weighting options, and would be of particular interest to those who like to rear-weighting flies. In the following pix, the rear hook has either a Zonker or Woolly Bugger style tie on it, while the shank has a Kinky Muddler head, tied per the instructions Dan has on this site. The differences are the weight. Some are weighted on the rear HOOK, topside, so the point flips the whole thing up. In others, the weight is on the front SHANK, for more of a jigging action, with the hook point down. Endless variations are possible. I tied these up for big trout on the Delaware and smallies, but they should be fine in the salt too. Check these shanks out -- one of my favorite flytying doohickies in a while. [click here to display pictures] |