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Tie the Q Calamari Squid Fly

Squid are a popular food source for fish all across our oceans.
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Lay out ostrich herl and saddle feathers and add dots to each feather with orange and purple sharpies. Tie in tan ostrich herls on bend of hook. Tie in some orange flashabou. Add a small ball of orange chenille over herl.
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Tie tan saddle hackles over the small ball of orange chenille. Lay in the saddles at 180 degrees to each other until they rotate 360 degrees and completely cover the chenille.
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I custom blend the following four materials to get the desired color of choice by bunching all four colors together: SF Redfish, SF rainbow, white wig hair & tan wig hair. Continue to break apart the bunch and redistribute so the colors mix together. The materials should be all the same length. Use the custom blend and tie in small tapered bunches, rotating 360 degrees around shank. Continue to tie in sections until you come to 1/8 behind the hook eye. Finish with some synthetic salmon pink fox hair. Tie off and coat with tuffleye or epoxy.
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Trim materials and goop in your eyes. Allow them to dry before attaching this section of the fly to your articulated shank.
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Attach head of squid to your articulated shank, Using Kevlar thread, close the opening and coat with head cement or tuffleye. Add lead wraps towards the front end and bind down bringing the thread back to the closed opening to begin building body.
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Begin tying the body of the squid with synthetic salmon fox hair. Continue the same technique of tying in small bunches of tapered custom blend. Each section should rotate around the shank before beginning the next section. Overlap each section slightly as you move forward towards the eye of the hook.
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Once you complete all your tapered sections and are 1/8 of an inch behind the hook eye, whip finish and coat with Tuffleye or epoxy.
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Trim the wild hairs to a desired tapered shape and dot the mantle with purple and orange sharpies to finish the fly.
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A completed squid fly, taken from the vice and ready to use.
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Make sure that jointed connection on the articulated shank is clean, able to swivel back and forth.
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Striped bass, above, will be chomping on this squid fly in no time. And maybe, they haven’t seen this squid imitation yet.
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