How To Tie The Apache Fly

This pattern combines marabou and rabbit, which makes it highly mobile even with the slowest of retrieves.
A sinking line often works best. Fish the pattern on its own on a long leader and vary the retrieve until you get a response. With a floating line, stick it on the point with a couple of buzzers taking up position on the droppers and let it drift with the wind. Don’t just stick with these colours, though; use your imagination.

Hook: Standard wet size 8
Thread: Black
Body: Black dubbing (rabbit)
Tail and front wing: Black marabou
Middle wing: Chartreuse rabbit strip

How to tie the fly

1. Clamp the hook in the vice and with touching turns create a base of tying thread, stopping opposite the barb.	2. Take a generous pinch of marabou and secure with a couple of wraps of thread, trim the excess and even up the body.	3. Take a 2in strip of rabbit and strip off the hair from the section that will be secured to the hook. Tie it down, skin side up, so that the hair will be facing towards the rear of the hook when secured behind the eye.
4. Now cover the whole body with the tying thread so that there is no white showing through.	5. Take a generous pinch of black dubbing and form a neat dubbing rope five or six inches in length.	6. Wind the dubbing rope up the length of the body in neat, tight, touching turns to a point just behind the eye of the hook.
7. Bring forward the rabbit strip and secure with your tying thread. Now trim the excess skin tight to the tying thread.	8. Take a generous pinch of marabou and secure that just in front the rabbit. Trim the excess.	9. Tidy up the head with tying thread, whip finish and add a touch of varnish.

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