The Fiberglass Manifesto: PANTHER BRANCH BUGS

1 View

The other week, I made a trip up to North Carolina to carp fish with Dave Fason (T.F.M. post) and the only fly that we fished that day was the Carp Kwan from Brandon Bailes of Panther Branch Bugs. Dave has long been sold on this fly for his local carp lakes and he has a fly box full of this pattern in various colors and sizes. I quickly became a believer on it’s effectiveness when we found a carp mudding on a shallow flat, I made a misguided cast a bit too far to the left, and it still lunged out of the slit to slurp in the fly from several feet away. Who says that carp have bad eyesight? This one sure didn’t.

When I got back from the trip, I asked Brandon if he’d put together a step-by-step post on how to tie the Carp Kwan and he not only provided the information and images for the post below, but we’ll follow this with a how to fish the Carp Kwan post in a few days, which should not be missed.

Break out your vise and tie you up a few dozen of the Carp Kwan.

Brandon wrote… “Over the past few years I have become quite addicted to carp fishing for several reasons but mostly because I love redfish. I’m 6 hours from the salt and need a regular fix! Naturally carp fill that void since they tail, fight hard, and feed very similar to their salty cousins.

My dear friend and mentor, the late Dave Whitlock, described these fish as having some of the best attributes from permit, bonefish, redfish and cutthroat…on top of being a “Super Fish” by their ability to thrive in all kinds of environments. What’s not to love about them?

So when I sat at the vise to come up with a pattern I immediately drew my ideas from my redfish fly box…Kwan flies specifically. I knew I needed to downsize and add a few things to make it “carp-worthy” and I can honestly say that this is the only pattern that I got right on the first try without a thousand tweaks. It’s honestly what I fish 99% of the time and has worked in a variety of conditions because it looks like lots of different forage but not one specifically.”

DESIGN FEATURES AND RECIPE:
The EP fibers provides a light weight body, good silhouette, and makes a more noticeable mud cloud when crawled on the bottom due to the wide shape. Skworm tail material is used because it doesn’t collapse like regular chenille but also a dirty little trick, the tail being elastic makes for a good slingshot when a bow and arrow cast is needed when fishing heavy cover into exact spots.

HOOK – Tiemco 2457 size 8

THREAD – UTC 140
EYES – Medium Dumbell or Large Bead Chain Eyes
DUBBING – Cohen Carp Dub
BODY – EP Fibers
HACKLE – Hen Saddle
TAIL – Nash Flyworks Skworm Chenille

STEP 1: Attach bead chain eyes using UTC 140 thread and space the eyes back about a hook eye length.

STEP 2 – Cut and singe a piece of Skworm chenille that is 1.5 times as long as the hook shank. Attach the tail and secure it to the halfway point of the hook bend.

STEP 3 – Take a small amount of Cohen Carp dub, preen it to align fibers and cut into thirds.

STEP 4 – Take the dubbing and create a dubbing loop, spin it up, wrap the loop until just before being even with the hook point.

STEP 5 – Tie in a hen saddle feather and palmer forward, including a turn or two of the “fluff”. Wrap back on the feather until just short of the hook point.

STEP 6 – Begin tying in sparse amounts of EP fibers. “X” wrapping each stack, one right next to the other until there’s no more room.

STEP 7 – Finally for the trim job, I make a straight cut on each side that’s roughly double the length of the bead chain on each side. After that I trim the top and bottom the fly to be as flat as possible. Finally with a pair of curved scissors, I round the front and back to create the desired shape.