Native Flies List

Cypress trees in lakes and bayous are common home to bee and wasp nests. When these insects fall into the water, bream gobble them up voraciously. Back in 1996, while fishing the Bayou Corne area in south Louisiana, Leonpacher had great success on stumpknocker bluegills using a tiny bee-like grub. He began looking for a matching fly. Unable to find one, he began researching materials to create one. The jitterbee was born.

Today the jitterbee is one of the most popular submergent bream flies in America. Not only because it’s so effective, but also because it’s very easy to tie. Best colors are black/chartreuse, black/yellow, black/orange, and black/red.

Leonpacher states, “This bug is my first line of offense for bream. When they nibble on the rubber leg or the soft chenille, it feels organic so they often hit it again but for keeps. It can be fished deep or under a strike indicator. In either case don’t set your rod down ’cause once the bream get sight of this bug its gone pecan…”.

Materials:

hook: Eagle Claw Baitholder #080 or #181 size 8 or 10
head: 1/8 or 4mm bead, gold or copper
body: fine chenille or ultra chenille (vernille)
tail: black rubber legs, or black metalflake sili-legs

You will also need a pair of pliers to bend the hook point enough to slide the bead on. Also, if using the #181 hook, there are two very tiny barbs on top the hook that need to be crushed down.

1. Bend the hook point end so that the bead can be inserted onto the hook shank and then bend it back into normal position.
2. Tie on the rubber/silicon leg material at the hook bend so that it is slightly on the bend part of the hook. Be sure the tail has an aggressive wide forked tail. This can be accomplished by tying a tiny thread ball at the shank bend before tying in the legs.
3. Next tie in the chenille material starting just behind the bead head and thread wrap back to the bend of shank.
4. There are 2 items to remember when tying in the banded chenille body. First, when tying back to the forked tail try to have the chenille end up on opposites sides of the hook This helps in having even bands when wrapping the chenille. Second, make sure to stop tying the chenille just before getting to the forked rubber legs. Doing this will prevent the wrapped chenille from collapsing the forked tail.
5. After securing the chenille to the hook shank, wrap the thread back
towards the back side of the bead head.
6. Place the two chenille materials together and wrap around the hook
shank to make the chenille bands. You should wind up with paired bands and on the last wrap the tag end of the chenille will be pointing downward just behind the bead head.
7. Secure the chenille by making about 5 or so wraps around the chenille ends just behind the bead head and whip finish. Clip off the tag ends of the chenille.
8. Add a tiny amount of adhesive on the back of the bead and let it drip into the thread behind the bead. This will prevent adhesive from getting on the chenille.