The Renaissance of the Mini Bird

[Gerrit Viljoen]

Hook: Gamakatsu B10S #2.
Thread: UTC 140 White.
Underbody: 2x cut outs of 2mm fly foam white (I had a mould costumed by my good friends from River Road Creations in the States Tony & Kathi) See pic.
Legs: Medium Sili legs hot orange.
Overbody: Mallard fluff. (The fly rides flush so the feathers can suggest wings too)
Backside marker: Orange.
Beak: Pink UTC 70 denier.
Weed guard: 57lb Mono.

I made a few changes to the original Mini Bird. I dropped the head,eyes and changed the beak.The pink thread head together with the hook eye now forms the beak. Also new is the addition of rubber legs and a weed guard. The fly is much simpler to tie now and dare I say it's got better triggers to suggest a lil duckling that went for a "surf".

Mould.



Original.



The new fly is based on this lil rascal.



New and improved Mini Bird.





And a pooper to cheer Jules up.

[wernerm]

Gerrit, sal jy omgee om 'n paar SBS'e te doen van daai flies wat jy ons nou die dag by strome gewys het?

[troutmaster]

G, I haven't researched this fly yet; what species is it primarily used for? Barbel?

[Gerrit Viljoen]

Gerrit, sal jy omgee om 'n paar SBS'e te doen van daai flies wat jy ons nou die dag by strome gewys het?

Werner I don't really do SBS anymore best bet is to search the "Freshwater Flies and Fly Tying" section. I posted quite a few dressings and foto's there.

G, I haven't researched this fly yet; what species is it primarily used for? Barbel?

My Mini Bird concept is about 4 years old taking in consideration R&D, tying and fishing it. I haven't wrote much about it but I see the ff folk caught on cause since posting it here 3.5 odd years ago, I've seen some great looking flies surface on the web and in magazines. Duckling imitations can be used for any "meat grabbing" scavenger fish in my opinion. From Bass to Muskies to Taimen (although they prefer Poodles ) to Barbel. For local success look no further than Oosthuizens in open water and wait to see a cat surface and wham.

Getting back to *this* fly, it's about 13 weeks old the results of which you are only seeing now.

[Gerrit Viljoen]

Here are some additional snaps of how the underbody looks plus the coupe de grace of the surfing duck. The pic below is to illustrate how I got rid of the neck,head and beak. I only use the body now.

Prep work.







A farter!

[poppernel]

G...Thats a real ''quacker'' of a fly. I like it.
DAVE

[wernerm]

Regtig awesome Gerrit

[gkieser]

It's too cute! I would feel seriously bad if i fished with that and something ate it. hehehe - i dunno why, but i would feel like i am swimming puppies as live bait for sharks and taking pleasure at seeing the shark nail the puppy on the surface!

[Gerrit Viljoen]

Thanks guys, my sister said I should've named this one Turkish Delight. The pink and white colour of the sweets.....