Hollow Fleyes

Hollow Fleye

Hollow Fleye

Today I wanted to share one of the most proven fly patterns that I fish in saltwater and in fresh. This is a Bob Popovics creation, one of the most innovative fly tiers in our era. He has two books that you can also purchase that covers all his fly designs. The one I want to show you how to tie today is my favorite, the Hollow Fleye. This fly has the best lifelike action of any fly I have ever fished. There are many variations as well, such as the Popovics deceiver, Hollow Fleye and Beast Fleye.

Starting with the hook selection, there are so many options. It really depends on what you want to do with the fly. I tie this fly on hooks ranging from size 1 to 5/0 normally. But like I said before, it all depends on your quarry. Good hooks to get you started are the Partridge Predator X , Mustad 3407, gamakatsu sp11-3l3h, and B10s.

So lets get started, and tie one up!

I'm going to tie this one today on a 1/0 B10s hook, and will top out at about 7 inches in length when finished. Also you want to use a round thread, so the cone to hold your hollow ties back builds up easily. I like to go with a basic 3/0 uni thread on these. One thing you always want to remember, is that you want to build a taper. On this fly, the first clump of bucktail I tie in will be the longest tie on the fly. As I get closer to the eye, each tie of material will get shorter and shorter to give the fly a good taper. Also, adding more material in each step as you get to the eye will give the fly good movement and good profile. A whispy light tail will get lots of movement with a bulkier head that pushes lots of water over the tail.

The first step after you secure your hook and lay down a good thread wrap is to add a clump of bucktail (white in this case) with a standard tie.

Next, I'm going to add a few white hackles, then some silver angel hair for flash. The hackle gives a great tail movement to the fly. Sometimes I go without them and just like the natural movement of all bucktail for the tail. Or add some extra flash material and give the fly a more flashy tail. I will add some pictures for ideas at the end of this tutorial of other flys I have tied.

After the flash is added, its time to start doing a few hollow ties. After tying the bucktail in reverse (see yellow tie) and then pushing it back with an empty pen case, you then build up a cone of thread to hold the hair back right in front of the bucktail. Below is the steps to make a reverse hollow tie. On this fly, I added a reverse tie of red craft fur to give the fly a good trigger point for predators to key in on. Then I reverse tied in some yellow bucktail  as my next hollow tie and built up a cone of thread in front to hold it in place.

Standard tie of bucktailPush the bucktail back using a pen casing

Create a cone of thread to hold the hair back

After I build up a cone to hold the yellow hair back, I'm adding in a veil of angel hair flash again. If you zoom in on this picture, you can see the cone holding the yellow bucktail back and the tie in of angel hair good.

Next I added a few strands of gold flashabou on the top of the fly. I finished off the head with a reverse tie of olive craft fur and a pair of fish skull living eyes, glued with some liquid fusion. Quick note when tying in craft fur as the final step for the head.... I prefer to tie the craft fur down reverse style and then whip finish the thread. Then push it back with a pen casing and add a small amount of CCG Hydro or Loon Thin to the front of the fly by the eye so the craft fur stays in place.

On most of my hollow flys, I tend to use bucktail as my final step instead of craft fur. In those flys, after the cone is made at the hook eye I like to tie in a set of tab eyes. They are very durable and you can also epoxy some 3d eyes over the tab if wanted. I prefer not to glue the eyes on bucktail, that's just my preference if I'm using eyes.

After the eyes are dried, you wet the fly down with water and hang dry. I like to just hold it under the faucet a few seconds. This will tame all the bucktail and make the fly come together. Here is the finishing fly when dried....

So as promised, here are a few other hollow fly's. These are tied using mostly bucktail, hackles and some flash. Enjoy tying these and if there are any questions id love to help. Happy tying!

Hollow Fleyes