Sandeels are long, slim and super fast swimming baitfish. The name is used for a considerable number of saline species. These baitfish are popular with a lot of different predatory fish. And since they live and feed on sandy or gravelly bottom along the coastline – often they find themselves in need of a place to hide in a hurry.
So these baitfish have developed the ability to dig down and hide in the sand. In this position only the head is visible. But when they are up in the free water to feed, they often swim in large shoals – attracting hungry predators.
Fly tiers have come up with many different patterns trying to imitate these baitfish, and a style that naturally seems to match the profile of the sandeel is the flatwing streamer fly.
Back in the late 1970’s Kenney Abrames, a Rhode Island fisherman, fly tier, artist and writer, created a series of saltwater streamers, that quite literally had flat hackle wings. These flies were made to imitate sandeels… and catch striped bass.
Abrames shared his flatwing streamer patterns with Rhode Island’s Rhody Fly Rodders in the 1980’s. The patterns were first popularized in the May 1990 issue of the group’s newsletter, in an article written by Ray Bondorew about Abrames’s Razzle Dazzle pattern. The rest as they say… is all history.
Henrik Kure ties the Ice Breaker Sandeel and the Olive Craft Fur Sandeel
Since then a lot of tiers has taken the flatwing design and tweaked to suit their own fishing situations. One of these is Henrik Kure Nielsen. Henrik is one of the most talented and dedicated fly tiers I know. He is always tinkering with some new ideas and tweaks he needs to try out. And he loves tying and fishing flatwings. Take a look on these 2 brand new tying videos right here:
If you wanna know more about sandeels, check out this link from earlier blogs on Ahrex hooks. Lots of stuff including tying videos from Daniel D Holm, Lars Christian Bentsen and Morten (Coastfly) Hansen.
And we have a small video portrait of Henrik as well. You find that on this link…
Have a nice weekend :0)
Michael