Flies for pinks
Does anyone know which patterns are effective for catching pink salmon in freshwater.

Thanks Pat

Pinks have an affinity for flies that feature a lot of hot pinks, reds, oranges, and greens.
If you tie your own, the try this oh-so-easy 3-parter. If not, pass the pattern over to the dresser of your choice. Tail: Hot pink marabou blood plume. The whole feather tied in so the tail is about 2 inches long. Lash the remaining stem along the hook shank, bending back the butt to add bulk to the hook. Use red thread. Body: hot fuschia large cactus chenille, about 5 wraps to the body. (Hence the bulk-up earlier to give a full body with little chenille.) Eyes: large bead chain. And that's it. Vary the pattern to include purples, blacks, reds, greens, for chums, steelhead, sockeye, and even the odd spring.
You will get from 35-41 flies per 3 yards of cactus chenille. This is not a creativity enforcer, or a challenge in design... but it **does** the job !! Cheers.

PS....if marabou won't float your boat, then use a section of "magnum" rabbit strip for the tail...building up the underbody with a bit of red wool. The underbody just makes the cactus chenille go further, and is un-necessary if you want to use more chenille.

Just make sure to tie the "bead-chain eyes" to the UNDERSIDE of the hook shank, otherwise the fly will float upside down...unless that's the effect you're going for!

My favourites are:

the Pink Fizz -#6 to #8 Mustad 38960,body of silver angle hair (dubbed) or diamond braid, Wing of hot pink fibres (I use spooled antron) paint the head with hot pink laquer.

The Egg head Muddler. - #8 to #10 3xl Streame hook like a mustad 9672, tail of cerise dyed mallard fland. Silver tinsel body. Wing the same as the tail and an egg head (like a egg sucking leech) of cerise glo-bug yarn.

Both are deadly on the Fraser and Harrison as well as the beaches of Vancouver Island.

In '99 I also did well on a soft hackle streamer called a yehti. Green flourescent tag, long tail of white poly or antron. Dubbed white body. A hackle of folded teal and a jungle •••• eye. The pinks in the harrison really whacked this the afternoon I fished it.

Yup.... eyes on top, making the fly eventually flip over, so the hook is riding up..pinks seem to like the shallows, so the upturned hook makes less contact with the bottom.

No fly beats the PINK EVE for pinks!!

i found that the pink eve is not as efective as a sparse mariboo tie in hot pink.
it may work good on the beaches on vancouver island but in the fraser or the harrison i found that sparse mariboo fly's work wonders.

heres my favorite

#4 teimco saltwater fly hook
body - pink frost bite
wing - small amount of mariboo and some pink crystal flash and thats all you need in the fraser valley for pinks.

Thanks for the link, Cadd-ster.... they look like a good 'un all right. :-) I think I like it they are easy to make.
I've had to trade in my coke-bottle bottom glasses for mason jar bottoms .... *grin*....

Just got back from fishing the Bella Coola for pinks, and we found the hot patterns were (in order of efficacy): dead-drifted Glo-Bugs hottest by far (sz 4-8, cerise, peach, flame orange), hot pink Squamish Poacher (sz 4), minnow imitation (sz 4-8), egg-sucking leech
(sz 8), pink/cerise Dean River Lantern (sz 4).
We found that using smaller flies and setting VERY gently resulted in fewer foul-hooks. The minnow imitations were fun to fish, as the pinks seemed to take them more aggressively. Colour preference of the Glo-Bugs seemed to vary throughout the day, but overall cerise was the most productive.
FWIW the Pink Eve didn't work well at all.
Perhaps the low visibility of the milky water was a factor? The Pink Eve is quite a sparse
fly.

HTH, KW

Ken the Pink eve is meant mainly for beach fishing in the chuck.

Dave's Pinkie is my fly of choice. I tie it with a body of braided pearl, and a strip of hot pink rabbit fur across the back tied down at the bend and at the eye. A tuff of pink hackle to finish it off. First used this fly in Naden Harbour on the Haida Gwaii, and had some recent fun with it in Indian Arm last week.

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