The Chicken Foot

A nyone familiar with flats fishing for GTs will have seen many nervous baitfish swimming in the shallows. When viewed from afar, the key features are generally the eye, a baitfish-like silhouette and black tipped fins — features that are well imitated by the GT Brush Fly previously featured in FlyLife.

A recent trip to Kiribati has led to some wildly modified fly patterns being used to varying degrees of success. During covid, my own close group of tying friends got into using emu for a number of flies, ranging from those for estuary perch to Murray cod. In amongst all the emu feathers, bought by the kilo and meticulously selected, were some long, open barbed feathers with prominent black tips over the last centimetre or two —somewhat like the fish skeleton from a Looney Tunes cartoon. Google it.

I started experimenting with these long emu feathers in the tail of a GT Brush Fly. Because my mate Dave and I were planning to take 10-weights to Kiribati, I was keen for some lighter weight but large GT flies that would be easy to cast with the outfits we had.

GT Brush Fly tails have previously been tied with a variety of materials ranging from bucktail to saddle feathers to Slinky Fibers, or a widely varying combination of these plus more. I settled for a sparse spine of bucktail shrouded by two of these special emu feathers on each side. The bucktail is there largely to stop the emu feathers from tangling and does not contribute to the profile of the fly.

I wanted to keep flash to a minimum, so only one strand of Flashabou was doubled up on each side, sandwiched between the bucktail and emu. All of the tail materials are essentially tied in above the hook point of a Gamakatsu SL12S and treated to a drop of Super Glue once happy with the end result.

With most of the hook shank left to ponder, I didn’t want to add much wind resistance or water absorbent material. Several turns of lead substitute wire were added before palmering two tan marabou feathers up to around 2/3 of the shank length. After that, my preferred 3" EP Foxy Brush was put to use to finalise the collar with 4 to 8 turns completing the fly. Tying off and sealing the head with UV resin completes the tying stage.

Combing the collar with a Velcro pad results in a veil which flows into the marabou, which then flows into the long tail featuring a lateral line and black tips. The end result is a very lightweight fly that exhibits some of the key attributes of what you see in baitfish on the flats.

I had some 3D Dome Eyes in 3/8" and 1/2" size in a Super Pearl colour. I applied a drop of Soudal Fix All (a waterproof contact adhesive) and worked it into the EP Brush collar before fixing the eyes in place. I used the smaller size on the #4/0 and the larger size on the #6/0 flies and was mighty pleased with the result. Once the eyes were in place, a wooden clothes peg was used to clamp them in position until the glue set. The flies were done, and packed ready for our trip in August.

Walking the flats, Dave was first to get a good chance at a lagoon GT. Naturally, he asked the guide to pick the fly. Opening his fly box, the guide’s eyes widened and the new fly was picked out of the bunch. With confidence, Dave went on to land several GTs.

I tied a couple of different coloured versions. All have white bucktail, natural black tipped emu tails and pearl Flashabou, with either a white and a tan, or two tan marabou feathers, and either tan or ‘spring grass’ 3" EP Foxy Brush. I didn’t experiment with larger versions, but try the 4.5" EP Invader Brush if you want to have a crack at some flies in the 8/0 to 10/0 range.

What to call it? Back at the lodge with an incoming group of anglers, we loudly proclaimed that you won’t catch a GT without using a Chicken Foot fly. Of course, we were messing with them. But an emu is kind of a big chicken, right? The name stuck, and here we are.

Grab yourself some materials from our Coat of Arms and tie a few up for your next GT adventure. They present a large profile, are a bit lighter to cast than your average Brush Fly, and they work a treat.