Homemade Flasher

[Bucho]

I bought a couple of steel flashers suitable for trolling flies, but on the kayak I use buoyant divers, namely jet diver and crank bait blanks, that won´t carry the weigth of a steel flasher and hold it out of harm way when I stop over shallow water. I bought some clear plastic and knockend one off by squeezing it between 2 flashers and soften it with a heat gun, but once transferred from steel to plastic, the pattern seemed to lack the weight and didn`t work.

So I took a large plastic dakota flasher I had, measured it down to 60% and made 2 steel dyes that I bent in shape. The first one got a bit dull from overheating from the gun, so I took it slowly with the next one and heated it up carefully in the oven. I´m rather pleased with the result, it runs perfectly.

I took inspiration from the wiggle fin swarm flasher and restricted myself to a few small fry decoys rather than a big ol`flash that might scare the fish in shallow water. After all the main objective is to activate the fly. Its the first time I work with this material so its a bit rough around the edges. Once I got the shape right I will put more effort into smoothening things out. 

 

[eddieb]

I have never used a flasher , how does it look when in use?

 

[Bucho]

The dakota flasher makes a barrel roll when trolled fast enough, otherwise it wobbles like a dodger. Both is said to work. I came across those delta flashers which are even easier to build. Added two more holes for extra leaders with flies or dummies s.a. spinner blades. With the flies tumbling over each other, it looks great in the water.  Perfect swarm, like an alabama rig.

 

[eddieb]

thanks for the info , may have to try this , thanks