Fat Head Beetle
Recipe - Fathead Beetle
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View the Step by Step Instructions
- Hook
- TMC 9300 1X heavy dry fly hook #6-#16 (I use #12 most often) (The 1X heavy hook is very important on this type of pattern as it helps orient the fly ?hook down? in the water.
- Thread
- 8/0 black
- Underbody
- Peacock
- Body or Shell
- Fly Foam, 1/8 inch, black
- Wings
- EP Fibers, slate (the wings in the photo are not slate and thus too light)
- Legs
- X-small or mini round rubber legs, black
- Indicator
- fluorescent orange or flame Egg Yarn - A note on indicator color: The most visual color for day time angling is hot fluorescent pink. A good second choice is the same in orange or flame red. It must be fluorescent. Stay away from yellow or chartreuse for day time indicators. These are your dusk to dark colors and look white in the sun.
In the early 90s Rusty Gates, of Gates AuSable Lodge, developed a little foam and peacock fly simply known as the Rubber Bug. It was tied with a peacock underbody, fly foam back or shell, grizzly hen wings and a few turns of grizzly dry fly hackle. It was, and still is, a very popular fly on the AuSable and surrounding waters. It was our first deer fly pattern. What a great fly.
I was looking for something more durable and highly visible. I have never been known to be much of a traditionalist when it came to tying materials and I love tying with synthetics. More often than not, replacing a natural material with a synthetic produces a better fly, one that still produces and is always more durable. What a great combination. I replaced the feather wings with EP Fibers in slate, added mini round rubber legs and a fluorescent egg yarn indicator on the top. You can’t cast this fly far enough that you can’t see it.
Of all my Riverhouse Fly Company patterns, the Fathead Beetle is perhaps the most important to trout chasers everywhere. I get more positive comments and rave reviews on this fly than any other. It has been fished extensively throughout the USA, West, Midwest, and East and has been well tested in New Zealand.
Why is the Fathead Beetle so effective? I use the name beetle because it looks like one, but there is far more to the story. There are approximately 350 species of beetles in the Midwest and over 3,000 in the lower 48 states. Consider this too, there are literally thousands of species of flies and bees. They all have one thing in common, regardless of size or color. SHAPE! The Fathead has that general ovoid shape. This is a shape that the fish see often during the warmer weather of summer and fall. Who cares what the fish are eating, fly, beetle or whatever. We just want the fish to eat our bug. And eat this fly they do.
