Viking Lars | Saturday, 25 November 2023
I like palmer flies. The are the perfect representation of nothing, yet something that looks alive and edible. They are simple and easy to tie, they are durable, they can be weighted or not and they work equally well small and large. Very small, black palmers are excellent as dries. What is a palmer? Is it any fly with a palmer hackle?
Well, no - if you ask me. A palmer is first and foremost a wingless fly. Is a Wooly Bugger a palmer? Well, yes and then no. It’s such a well established pattern, defined by the long, mobile marabou tail. To me, a palmer fly is a simple fly with a dubbing body (or other material), a tail (not long and made of marabou) and a palmier hackle. As simple as they get!
I prefer a dubbing body. If you remember to cross rib the hackle you can brush out the dubbing. Really dig into with a piece of velcro on an ice cream stick. The Test of a Thousand Sea Trout Teeth, I usually call it.
They can be tied in dull colours, with flashy dubbing, in hot pink and so on. If you brush it out well, it’ll add a lot of life, mobility and translucency to the fly. If you use a flashy dubbing, also some more sparkle (as the fly in the PoD).
Cheap Indian cock hackle is the best, in my opinion. They are softer than genetic cock hackles. You can use hen hackles as well. They can bare hard to find long enough and they also give a denser fly. You can always strip one side if you prefer a cock hackle. The cock hackles act very different in the water than the hen hackles do.
A big black palmer fly is good in coloured water, a flashy one in clearer water and minute, grey ones when the water is gin clear, flat and the fish are picky.
I don’t always fish with a dropper for sea trout, but when I do, a palmer is a good choice. I always oppose the dropper to the point fly, so to speak. Significantly smaller or larger, a pink dropper to a grey point, a small gammarus to a long bait fish or sand eel. And a palmer is always a good choice.
I’ve just tied a batch of these olive, flashy ones and with them I have grey, brown, black, pink and olive. I usually skip a hook size. These I’ve tied in 4 and 8, others I have in 6 and 10, some in 8 and 12. Always 4 of each, so I have spares. Two in the box I carry and two in the spare box. One of the old-timers here in Denmark once taught me to always tie 4 (well, there is no 4, so it’s 3 and one more). He said: “One for fishing, one for a tree, one to give away and one spare!”.
Have a great weekend!
Lars