Hi all

The above are 2 very popular South African small stream flies.

The first is the R.A.B. (Red Arsed *******) created by Tony Biggs for the small mountain streams near Cape Town, and the second is the Zak Nymph created by Tom Sutcliffe, who also mostly fishes the Western and Eastern Cape streams. Tom reckons the R.A.B. has English origins going back to the early 1900's but I have yet to see any similar patterns in the UK.

I wondered if you thought they may have any potential in UK waters?

In case you are interested, Tom Sutcliffe has his own website which has the fly tying recipes for these 2 flies, and it also gives a good insight into small stream fishing in the Western and Eastern Cape.

TomSutcliffe.co.za

Check out his fly fishing diary by month (only goes back as far as Feb this year). To give you an idea of the size of streams:

j@m

Those are very interesting dry flies. The hackle appears to be something other than grizzly. What is it?

Bobby

Anyone know of a place that could make up a dozen on order? I'm happy if i can manage to tie my own shoelaces.

I believe it's Coq de Leon saddle hackle in the image but as an alternative you can also use the the larger hackles on any other cock cape in black, red, ginger, cream or dun. The legs are squirrel hair and the wings are grizzly hackle.

If you do tie any up let me know how you get on, they work wonders in SA streams.

Dingbat

E-mail a guy called Murray Pedder - one of South Africa's top tiers - he runs a shop called Flyfishers in SA and custom ties flies to order at R15 a fly (+- £1.30) and also ships internationally if you ask him. If you mail him the image above or link him to Tom Sutcliffe's website he will tie it for you down to the last squirrel hair.

Just so you know, the RAB is tied in a number of commercially convenient ways that differ significantly from the more traditional method shown above - so make sure you send him the image to work from or else you might get something a little different!

Email address is: info@flyfishers.co.za

Hope this helps.