The Church Lady

Brad Sprinkle is the Fred Sanford of the fly tying world. He’ll dig through your garbage, take your broken headphones, make a fly with the wire, and out fish you the next day with something you could’ve had in your box if you hadn’t thrown it in the trash like a dumbass. In a world where material prices only seem to be rising, Brad’s building an ark… made out of trash.

Growing up in the country at winter time all the ladies wore mink collars or wraps to church. They use to be high fashion before PETA. In recent years a lot of those mink pieces have shown up at yard sales and flea markets and cheap. The chip idea occurred to me one day when I was finishing a small bag of bar b que potato chips at school where I teach. What if?That has spurred a lot of ideas. This fly is wildly erratic and no two look exactly a like. They catch loads of fish. They have caught for me to date crappie, large-mouth bass, small-mouth bass, bluegill, yellow breasted sunfish, trout, and carp. Great fly on the French Broad River.

Brad Sprinkle

Trash Flies

Materials List:

Hook: Mustad 2x Nymph Hook #12-#10

Tail: Mink guard hairs from a ‘old’ mink collard

Rib: Copper medium wire. The wire in a lamp cord works great

Abdomen: Mink underfur and guard hair.

Thorax: Mink underfur and guard hair.

Wing: Wingcase material. I use a strip of a recycled chip bag.

Thread: 8/0 Tan1. Create a thread base on a 2x nymph hook (#12-#6). This is a #10.

2. From your mink skin fin a patch with lots of guard hair. Tie these guard hairs in as a tail.

3. Tail should be 1/3 the hook length. Leave the underfur. The underfur will create a buggy clump at roughly half way on the hook.

4. Tie in a piece of copper wire

5. Dub mink guard hairs in and Palmer forward.

6. Let the guard hairs stay and protrude erratically. Counter wrap the wire forward to the Thorax or 1/3 from the hook eye and tie it down.7. Using idea from a fellow on YouTube for making a Zonker cutter I spaced the double edged razor blades with a 1/64” washer per blade. Pull the cutter through the ‘chip bag’ of choice. There are a spectrum colors from vibrant to muted in this material.

8. Tie in a piece of wing-case material (chip bag).

9. Dub a clump of underfur and guard hairs to make a plump Thorax.

10. Pull the wing-case materialover and tie it down.

11. Whip finish. Add a drop of head cement, Zappa-Gap, or Superglue