The Golden Coyote Crazy Charlie

One of my favorite flies is the Crazy Charlie.  It's my favorite because of its versatility.  It's has so many variations and applications that variations are virtually limitless.  Not only does it represent different foods withing the food chains, but it represents food in both salt and fresh water.  It is a unique creation because the same design and color scheme can draw strikes in both waters.  This is truly matching the hatch at its best, because if your not sure of what is swimming around.  You can try to match the body color, or hair color to the bottom of the water column.  You can sit and watch types of bait fish and where they swim in the water column and and choose your pattern accordingly. 

The fly goes back to a gentleman in the Bahamas that created it named Charlie Smith.  He was the original tier according to fly fishing lore.  Since then it has been tied on all shapes, sizes and kinds of hooks with no limit to color or panache.  The simple originals with a little flash on a stainless hook, wrapped up and overlaid with with a little calf tail for some action.  Simple, clean, able to be dropped on a bone-fish's nose without spooking him down the flats.  The small presentation but big profile make these a deadly variety of fly.

This one is tied on a Size 4, Mustad.  I like the size of the 4 for bass as well as saltwater fishing.

After I put the hook in the vice, I bend it slightly up.  I do this because it rides upside down, barb facing up because of the barbell eyes.  When the hook is bent up slightly it allows for an easier strip-set.  I only bend it a little, a mm and that's about it, nothing drastic.

The lower hook is the one that's bent.  You can see it is barely perceptible but it is enough to give me a better strip-set.

I like to wrap the length of my fly with a tinted Mono line.  I like mono because it sinks pretty quick, it's translucent to light, and it adds durability to the fly.  It gives the fly a natural looking segmentation as well.

Wrap the hook back to the barb and stop.

Add in 4 or 5 pieces  of crystal flash, that's it.  Keep them semi-short and trim them off later.

Wrap down the tag ends.  Run the thread back to the barb again. Lay in the tinsel, I like gold this time of year and on clear days.   Gold is just a good base color anyway for anything lure related.  Fish and men can't seem to be able to resist it.

Put a couple wraps around the tinsel and cinch it down. Run the thread back to the barb again.

Lay down the Mono so it is about 2/3 the length of the shaft. Get about 10 wraps on the mono and then thrown 2 under it.  I'll repeat that process of 10/2 until I get to the end of the mono.

When I get to the end of the mono, I cover it and throw in a half hitch.  This is when you want to inspect to wrap job and make sure everything looks even and nice.

 When everything looks good, put a drop of crazy glue on the threads over the mono.  Smooth in the crazy glue and let it dry.  You want your base to be tough and able to withstand the rigors of saltwater fishing.

I have a string of bead-chain and nip my own eyes.  I bought 9 feet of it on Ebay and paid about 4 dollars for it.

The eyes go right in front of the Mono. They get lashed in with figure 8 loops.

Here's an overview, but you can't really tell.

After you lash the eyes in, bring the thread forward to the eye and throw in a half hitch.

Grab the tinsel start wrapping.  Don't be concerned about having everything perfect.  If the tinsel bunches up in one area and is sparse in another, but is still covered, leave it.  It may throw some good flash?  It may be that little something different.  This is all going to be covered with the 25 pound Mono, which is going to add another dimension on top of this, so don't worry if it's not perfect.  I don't.

Bring the tinsel past the eyes, I figure eight wrap it around the eyes to keep the flashy nature from tip to tail.  I wrap the tinsel to the eye to make it reinforced by thread on the back wrap.  Wrap off the tinsel and secure it with a half hitch.

Wrap back from the eye to the eyes in preparation for the Mono.

Begin wrapping the mono the same way you wrapped the tinsel.  Keep a pretty steady tension on the mono as it is being wrapped.  The idea is to make tight, concentric, wraps around the hook to suggest a segmented body.  The tinted mono suggests pink over gold and adds depth to thin body.

Bring the mono around the eyes once.  Make a single figure eight around the eyes with the mono.

When the mono is on the top of the hook, by the eyes, tie it in.  Since that is the side that will be riding down and wont be seen for the most part, it makes sense to cut and tie it off there.

 You can see the segments running the length of the body creating depth.

Turn your fly upside down, so the barb is facing up.  In front of the eyes, towards the eye is where I tie in my fur for the movement of the fly.  Run the thread back to the eyes and throw in a half hitch to keep everything in place.

I use coyote hair, fox hair, or buffalo for the movement part of the fly.  Here I am using coyote and have to comb out the under-fur, which makes fantastic dubbing for other flies.  Synthetics are great, they work really, really well.  I have tons of them, I just prefer the natural furs.  There is something in the motion and undulation of the natural hairs that the synthetics lack.  This is merely my humble perspective, of course.

Here are the long hairs I combed out.  There aren't a lot of them, maybe 50 or 60, it's just enough for some good motion.

Pinch the ends and cut them square.

Pinch the ends down on the shaft and put in a couple of light wraps.  Gently, pull back on the hair, away from the eye, to get it away from the eye.  It saves trimming later and makes the overall appearance neater and cleaner.

When the ends are clear of the eye and everything looks good, lock down the fur.  Make as many wraps as necessary to make sure it is good and snug.  It should take about 9 or 10.  After the fur is secure, make a nice neat head.  Make the wraps deliberate and precise, the neater the head the better it'll fish later.

Once the head is done being wrapped, lightly paint the thread with crazy glue to make sure everything is as strong as possible.  Put a little of the crazy glue on and around the eyes to make sure the mono secure as well.  Use the glue sparingly, it is used to make sure everything is strong, don't go overboard.