The Bow Tie Buzzer
Curtis - May, 2021
Iou've probably heard of Frank Sawyer's famous pheasant tail pattern. Well, believe it or not, it's got a cousin used in the stillwater game to imitate chironomid pupa. The Bow Tie Buzzer is definitely not one of his most popular patterns but this variation here is one of my favorite stillwater chironomid pupa patterns. I find it most useful when trout feed closer to the surface on emerging chironomid pupa where you don't need a bead head pattern. I've done really well on the pattern both this year and last year and find myself tying a lot of them for my boxes.
The idea here is to take full advantage of every inch of pheasant tail fibers from head to tail. While I use Melanistic pheasant tail in the video and photo here, you can use gray, black or brown dyed pheasant if you don't want to stick to boring natural colors. It's a great one to have in the box! Also, see the video below for an explanation on how to fish this pattern...
