Pink wiggly things

I was watching video clips of palolo worm hatch a few days ago. It is hard to believe a big tarpon will chase such a small creature. 

Speaking of the worm hatch, many years ago, I saw a similar hatch of worms on a rive in my home town in Japan. I was surprised not only to see so many of worms swimming in the water, but to see anything alive in the river which looked to be too dirty to sustain any life form (I was a young boy back then, and I honestly thought, those were mutated worms because of pollution in the river). 

Apparently, those hatching worms brings a big number of large sea bass even in the middle of Tokyo. It says they hatch in early spring on the night of full moon (a big tide, a big water movement to carry worms and their eggs to the sea, I guess).

Although I haven't seen such a massive worm hatch in Perth, I have seen a worm swimming at the surface. I am sure that our local worms have to go on their spawning run at some point of time, and fish like bream wouldn't miss a chance to get an easy meal like a worm skating at surface.

So, I decided to tie worm patterns, and keep a couple of them in my fly box just in case I might need them in future.

To tie those pink wiggle things, I needed some pink materials.  Instead of driving down to shops to buy something, I decided to dye some materials I already got. I find dying tying materials is hit and miss, but this time the colour came out alright.

Here is what I tied.

I got an idea from a worm fly that I saw on the Internet.  In stead of using a piece of foam for creating its head as the original, I tied it with deer hair, bit like tying Royal Humpy for showing my trout fishing heritage.

A pink worm designed to swim just under the surface of the water

It is pink underneath

In terms of pink materials, I have also dyed some saddle feathers as an experiment, and I used these to tie a couple of squid patterns as a prototype.  

I put one of them in our kitchen sink to have a tank test. The saddle feathers move just like squid's tentacles, but I have found that the body is not so durable. So it looks like I need to go back to a drawing board.

May be I will modify my old squid fly by adding more feathers instead of using rubber legs.

Squid pattern

Add caption