Redfish Are Widely Known for Their Propensity To Eat a Wide Variety of Lures and Flies

Through years of guiding, I’m finding the more I fish for redfish, the more likely I am to use a natural-colored fly that looks “shrimpy.” Most of the time I’m fishing  clear water or pressured fish and they won't always respond to a fly that looks like it’s dressed for a music festival. Recently, I developed a pattern that has proven to be successful, is natural looking, and can be fished in the mid to lower sections of the water column.

The Pheasant Drum Bugger is simple and extremely effective. A tail of marabou and few strands of crystal flash. A collar of ringneck pheasant, four legs to each side, Shrimp eyes, and then multiple more ringneck pheasant feathers make up the entire body. It is difficult to get more than three wraps of “hackle” out of a ringneck pheasant feather, but the variety of feathers on a ringneck skin and the gorgeous variation they provide more than makes up for it. I’ll use seven or eight feathers per fly, tied on a size two saltwater hook.

A medium gold Fish-Skull Shrimp & Cray Tail provides just enough weight to get it down in the middle of the water column and a weed guard post can be added if necessary.

Cast this fly to cruising or tailing fish, watch the eat, strip set, and hang on!

Check out Chris's full redfish blog post: Redfish Kayak Fly Fishing

Check out Chris's recent episode on the NEW Flymen Fishing Co. Show: 
Ep. 13 | Redfish And More With Chris Siess

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About Chris Siess:

Capt. Chris Siess is the owner and head guide of Knot the Reel World Fly Fishing. Chris has been fly fishing since the age of nine, when his mother booked him lessons with well known fly fisherman, fly tyer, and bamboo rod builder Hank Woolman. That lesson led to a pretty bad obsession for chasing fish with the long rod. Chris spent his childhood catching bass in local Virginia farm ponds and saltwater species on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Big time college football and family tradition drew Chris to Blacksburg, Virginia for his college years at Virginia Tech. There he fell in love with southwest Virginia; specifically its hikes, views, and of course the New River and local trout waters.

Post college, Chris spent several seasons playing in the mountains of Colorado as a ski bum and fly fishing guide. Working for Aspen Outfitting Company, he was able to fine tune his trout skills on the extremely technical Roaring Fork River. Chris has since returned to Virginia to chase the multitude of species available in the Old Dominion. Chris spends nearly as much time tying as he does fishing. From first tying simple flies with the hair off the family pet Border Collies, he now designs flies for fish all over the world.

You can contact Knot the Reel World Fly Fishing at 571-334-4721 or knotthereelworld@gmail.com.