The Tying Sessions/Jungle series: The Wurgler

With an upcoming trip to French Guyana next November 2020, i'm starting to create a bunch of flies ready to tackle the legendary Airama!
Loud flies are the main game here, flies that makes a splash when they land, flies that move a lot of water and flies that are strong!
I will upload in the next ten months a whole series of these flies, and some other for different types of jungle fish. From small fish to large ones i will try to fill a few boxes that will cover most situation that we might encounter. A light rod ( 6 or 8 weight) and a heavy set up will be in my suitcase ( ten and twelve weight).
So to start of let's have a look at this topwater/weedless fly: the Wurgler.
I'm still not 100% convinced on my hook choice ( this is the Savage gear one designed for the soft 4play) I like the huge amount of space it offers behind the eye, but not sure about its strength...It feels good in hand but if it opens then it's definitely a no go! So i take this fly as a starting point. It will be fine for pike and bass in smaller size.
If you think you know a good strong hook that meets these requirements please feel free to leave a comment on the blog or on the Youtube video.
The trickiest part is the cutting of the foam, you have to match the foam size and shape to your chosen hook, best is to cut a model out of paper first and adjust it  as you go along.

Fine tuning the fibers under the foam will help the foam to sit at the right height to be perfectly weedless.
As usual, feel free to change colours, sizes (depending on your target fish) and tails.
The teddy bear eyes are very easily got on ebay.
Stay tuned as the next flies are far from being discreet....

Chewbacca 2.0

From this angle, you can understand why it's so hard for a pike to resist!

The rebirth of the awesome fly was long due. I tied this fly for the first time 8/10 years ago, it was my pride, the first fly that i fully designed myself.When i started to fly fish and tie my flies for pike, rabbit was on every flies i was tying. You don't need to be a maestro at fly tying to catch pike, and a simple bunny has caught me sooo many fishes.
Chewbacca was an extension to my bunny army, as i got better with my casting i started throwing bigger and heavier flies with ease.So what's better than a bunny? Well two of them!I didn't invent the concept of having two zonkers as a tail, but i wanted a more buoyant fly. So the mix of deer hair and feathers started.At the time i tied this fly with deer hair on the top of the hook and marabou on the bottom.The pikes liked it so much that they were destroyed in no time, so i replaced the marabou for fibres.

The new version is articulated and has dumbbell eyes to give the fly more action during the pauses.
Yes it's a heavy fly , but it's a fly that i usually don't try to cast far and in open waters. I love casting Chewy in rivers with shorter cast close to ambush points. Logs, drains, weed beds and along high banks are all great spots to throw this fly.I faster water i just let it drift along the bank rod tip a little high and just twitching it with sharp wrist pulls. Keeping my eyes on it at all time, from just under the surface until you can barely see it.The takes are just amazing!
As usual feel free to change colours and  sizes, yellow zonkers and a orange head is an other sure bet for me here.