Martyn White | Thursday, 26 March 2026
Here's a great fly; Dan Blanton's Whistler. With or without the flashtail it's a great choice for so many predatory gamefish and certainly not only the stripers it was designed for. I like it for largemouth bass, catfish, seabass,pike and perch. I know others who've used them successfully for tarpon, dorado and barramundi off the top of my head. I'm sure the list is MUCH longer.
It doesn't really look that much like a baitfish to us, especially when fresh off the vice, but it ticks a lot of boxes when it comes to creating a prey image. It makes noise, the bead-chain eyes let water swirl in them just like they do with air to generate the whistle on the cast. Obviously this isn't a whistle under water but vibration. It pushes water thanks to the bulky chenille body that supports the collar, which also creates a turbulent stream to keep everything behind it swimming without collapsing and even theoretically simulates the red flash of pulsing gills when viewed from behind as a following fish would. I'm not sure about the gills, but I think a bit of red near the front of a baitfish fly never does any harm.
Here's the recipe
Hook: Short shank SW hook or something like a B10s- stick to short shank hooks.
Thread: Danville's Fly-Master Plus or equivalent, red.
Weed guard: hard mono or wire-your preference
Weight: Large to extra-large beads chain, If you want more weight you can also add lead wire under the chenille
Tail/wing: White bucktail, soft and crinkly flanked by hackle.
Flashtail: 40 to 50 strands of a 50:50 mix of silver and pearl Flashabou, regular, not saltwater.
Tail/wing topping: Contrasting bucktail
Shoulder flash: Crystal Flash.
Body/collar: Red chenille.
Hackle/collar: Wide webby hackles probably 3, I usually like the front/final hackle to match the back colour.
I usually just tie them following Dan's instructions. Sometimes I don't put the flashtail in because while I think it is generally a good thing, they can be detrimental. A compromise is matte flashabou, I find it a good option to let me keep the movement of the soft mobile tail but not the flash. Is that still a flashtail? If you don't want to tie 2 versions, just put the flash tail on and you can always cut it off or tear it out if you think it's too much when you're on the water. Other variants for bigger flies like the ones I like for pike have an SF blend tail with magnum flash and a long dubbing brush instead of hackle at the front. You can, I suppose switch out the bead-chain for dumbbells too, but I rarely do. Stainless bead-chain from the bathroom department of your local ironmonger runs significantly bigger than anything I've found in a fly shop and being stainless is heavier too.
Tie whislers, tie them in various sizes and colours, tie them on, catch fish.