I developed the prototype of this pattern while on an October vacation to Truro, Massachusetts in 1989. My intent then was to develop a large sand eel imitation I could use to capitalize on the striped bass blitzes that are routine during the fall months at the mouth of the Pamet River when, during the ebb of the tide, literally tons of sand eels are flushed into Massachusetts Bay.

The prototype lay-up used a non-descript 3/0 stainless hook, three saddle hackles in the tail construction, an olive over pink bucktail wing and a five minute epoxy head with pearl and red Krystal Flash highlights . The prototype swam and breathed very well, and caught lots of fish.

The current model uses natural hair instead of hackles as a primary tail material (yak, polar bear, or buck tail) The illustrated example (below/top photo) is tied with natural polar bear. Hair is more durable, less prone to fouling and mung accumulation than feathers. The current model also uses an EZ Body head that can be replaced as required without trashing the rest of the fly. I prefer to tie it on 3/0 or 4/0 high carbon steel hooks, like TMC 600s, Owner AKI, Gamakatsu SC15-2H, or Trey Combs Big Game. High carbon hooks are harder than stainless hooks so they will hold a keener cutting point longer.

 

How does the Pamet Special  work?

During the height of a Northeast gale on the morning of August 29, 1997, I used six Pamet Specials similar to the upper image to land and release 10 striped bass over 36" long at the south end of Longnook Beach in Truro. (I bit off the 15 pound tippet and added 3 feet of 30 pound test to the leader as a substitute after losing the first big fish.) The largest measured about 45" and weighed 35-40  pounds (no scale at the point of release). I estimate that I hooked up with 16 fish over 36" that morning. Of those, I lost 4 to bad hookups. The remaining two were too big to land through the 3 to 5 foot swells. It was an astoundingly rare and brutal morning with mature sand eels densely littering the surf rack line.

An older guy bait casting a little to the north of me was hitting even harder than I was . He was using a homemade 12 foot fiberglass rod and a truly non-descript reel. His terminal tackle consisted of a weight that looked like ¼ of a sash cord below an over under rig baited with sand eels. Using a windup like a hammer thrower, he was casting at least 300 feet offshore. I watched him work slack jawed for quite a while. Later he told me that such coincidences of tide, wind, concentrations of bait and big stripers nearshore was commonplace when he was young. Mid-1950’s, I guessed.

Maybe someday, through the concerted conservation efforts of state and federal resource agencies, private alliances such as the Coastal Conservation Association, and individuals like you and me, that abundance will be restored.

As a postscript, I used one Pamet Special to set the only world record I possess: five adult terns caught and released on one outgoing tide, September 11, 1995, mouth of the Pamet River, Truro, Massachusetts.

  
Tying Procedure
  1. Select a 3/0 or 4/0 hook of your choice. I prefer using TMC 600, Owner Aki, Gamakatsu SC15-2H, or Trey Combs Big Game hooks myself. An 3/0 Owner AKI is used in the procedure illustrations. Barrel wrap the hook shank with fine monofilament thread from the base of the hook eye to the beginning of the bend of the hook.

    2.  

  2. Tie in a tail consisting of a 1/8" diameter bunch of light pink bucktail (3 ½ - 5" in length) over seven strands of gray ghost Krystal Flash over a ¼ " diameter bunch of natural yak, polar bear, or white bucktail, 4-8 " in length. Add a drop of super glue to the joint. In Figure 1 and the rest of the illustrations, natural polar bear is used as the primary tail material.

     

    3. Figure 1

     

     
  3. Tie in a wing consisting of a 1/16" diameter bunch olive pale olive bucktail (4-6" in length) over a 1/16" diameter bunch of dark olive bucktail (4-6" in length) over of a 1/16" diameter bunch of pale lavender bucktail (3 ½ - 5 " in length) over the tail assembly as shown in Figure 2. Add a drop of superglue to the joint.

    4. Figure 2

     

     
  4. Add six strands of sand ultravoilet Krystal Flash (new from Hareline Dubbin) over six strands of shrimp pink Krystal Flash (3-5" in length) to both sides, seven strands of peacock Krystal Flash to the top (3-5" in length), and seven strands of red Krystal Flash (1-2" in length to the bottom as color highlights. Add a sparse drop of superglue to the joint. (See Figure 3).

     

    5. Figure 3

     

     
  5. Select a 3" long piece of medium EZ Body and remove the two polyester reinforcing strips from the tubing. Slide the EZ Body over the hook eye and tie down on the hook shank as indicated in Figure 4. Wrap the thread forward towards the hook eye about ¼" to cinch the tubing to the rest of the pattern material . Whip finish and add a drop of Super Glue to the joint.

    6. Figure 4

     

     
  6. Shape the EZ Body into elliptical head shape as shown in Figure 5. (EZ Body is a very cool material in that in has a long term memory for shapes into which it has been manipulated.) Tie off the EZ Body by whip finishing and adding a drop of super glue to the joint.

    7. Figure 5

     

     
  7. Use a soldering iron or a wood burning tool to neatly cut off the excess EZ Body beyond the tie down point. (EZ Body is primarily nylon, a material that is about as strong as steel per unit weight but has a much lower melting point. If sufficient is applied to EZ Body, it will melt like butter.) Melt the remaining thread and EZ Body at the joint into a neat bevel along the base of the head. This eliminates the "bottle-neck" effect that will result from attempting to trim the excess EZ Body from the head mechanically with scissors or a straight razor. In Figure 6, I am using an ancient wood burning tool (putting out about 20 watts) with it’s tip filed flat to do the operation.

     

    8. Figure 6

     

     
  8. Add color to the completed head using permanent ink markers (dark olive (top edge)over lavender (top quarter) over bronze (top half)) as shown in Figure 7.

     

    9. Figure 7

     

     
  9. Cover the forward quarter of the head with a sparse coat of five minute epoxy that has just begun to gel. Allow the epoxy to set. Apply and align 3.0 mm (excuse the mixing of unit systems) black on silver stick-on prismatic eyes as shown in Figure 8. Apply a sparse finish coat of five minute epoxy and allow to cure before using.

     

Figure 8

 

 

ABOUT RICH MURPHY

by Rich Murphy

I got my first fly rod on my eighth birthday and my first fly tying kit a month later at Christmas. I taught myself to cast the next spring, throwing matchsticks, trying to hit various backyard fixtures. It was pathetic. But I persisted with joyous determined fury.

Unlike fly casting , I could clearly see how truly, dismally pathetic my first fly tying efforts were. My kit had an accompanying book with the pretentious title, How to Tie Flies . For a long time, I wouldn’t show anyone my work, embarrassed that it didn’t look anything like the pictures in that book. I kept on, though, with practice, practice, practice, relentless trial and error. I caught my first trout in the spring of my eighth year on a mayfly spinner pattern I saw in Field and Stream. In that nanosecond, I was hooked for life. What a sucker.

I first fished in salt water with live bait. Over the years learning to set up a station of two or three monster spin or bait casting rods and then wait for something to happen. I always brought along a fly rod, casting and catching near shore fish to fill in the time. As the seasons passed, I discovered that I was having so much fun fly fishing that I began to leave the bait poles at home. An evolution not unlike taking the training wheels off that first two wheeler. A little shaky at first, but then what freedom.

I started tying saltwater flies commercially, part-time, about thirteen years ago, tying my own patterns as well as deceivers and other standards. After about two years, I was producing my patterns exclusively, 7 to 10 gross a year. There is nothing like commercial tying to forge and temper eye-to-hand motor skills. Do something 100 times you learn to do it well. Do something 100,000 times, well, even a perpetual neophyte like me will stumble on to new solutions for old problems, on to a new range of possibilities.

In 1995, the late Bill Peabody watched me tie at a show in Marlborough, Massachusetts and recommended that I submit some work to Umpqua Feather Merchants to see if they were interested in a mass producing/marketing arrangement. In the winter of 1996, I went under contract with Umpqua in their Northeast and recruited me into a Northeast Specialty program to market test four of my pattens. On the basis of the strong customer response, my four Specialty patterns (Conomo Special, Steep Hill Special, RM Shortfin, and RM Flatside) were accepted into Umpqua's 1998-1999 main catalogue.

In 1998, Umpqua picked another main catalogue pattern for their 1999-2000 catalogue (RM Needlefish).

In 1999, Umpqua picked up two more patterns for their 2000-2001 catalogue (250 IS and RM Rattlesnake).

I am presently working on construction procedures instruction and specifications for a couple of patterns for the 2001-2002 catalogue.

Concurrent to my work with Umpqua, I do custom tying for a faithful client base as well as hold down a full time job as a registered professional civil engineer.

I write about fly tying/fly fishing as well as doing the same. I had my first article published in the January/February 1999 issue of Salt Water Flyfishing). My second was published in a Japanese periodical, Flyrodder, in August 1999. The third was published in the June/July issue Salt Water Flyfishing. Others, indeed, will follow.

On the basis of the factory instructional media I have generated for Umpqua and for the above publications I am in the process of assembling a book. The working title is A Year in the Life of a Bad Dog, which will document my 1997 fishing season, and include detailed illustrated tying instructions for about nineteen of my patterns. I expect to have the first draft of this work complete in spring 2001.

Over the last five years, I have taught an average of 15 salt water fly tying classes a year, including free classes for the Massachusetts Chapter of United Fly Tyers . Additionally, I have appeared as a featured tier for Umpqua at industry trade shows in Salt Lake City, Utah and Somerset, New Jersey, as well as the Flyfishing Show in Marlboro, Massachusetts.

I almost forgot to add that I fish a lot. I routinely start a season in the Bahamas in mid-March for bonefish (permit, tarpon, jacks, barracuda, et al) and not quite end it chasing Stripers on the Jersey shore in late December. During the game season in the Northeast (say late March to late November) I get out five times in a bad week. My weapon of choice for inshore fishing in the Northeast is a rod I built myself from a G. Loomis 10’ 10 weight blank (outfitted with all-titanium hardware), an Abel Super 10 reel holding a Scientific Anglers 11 weight Striper intermediate line mounted head first with a 400 grain shooting head blind spliced to the end of the running line. Cosmetically, it is not pretty. But it’s balance and power are deadly effective.

In testimony to that last statement, I have enclosed three scanned images of photos taken on September 24 of me lifting a 45", 40 pound striper from the surf off Crane Beach in Ipswich, Massachusetts. I was using the rod/reel combo described above. The fly was a Conomo Special tied on a TMC 600s 3/0 hook. The fish took about 200 yards of backing in its first run (a lot for a striper of any weight). I took me a little under 20 minutes to finally get the fish through the surf line onto the beach. I felt in complete control throughout. I lucked out in that a couple walking the beach were nearby with a camera so that I could get a few photos and measurements before releasing the fish. It was a great feeling to watch that cow swim away.

 

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