Old time FLASHTaILS

[high tide]

Hey guys and gals,
Any of you out there ever still like to troll the ol FLashtails any more. Use to be one of our favorite go too's in times gone by for springs off Pt. Roberts, Coal Port, and Fraser mouth. Old go too were the Grey Ghost, Green and White, plain White ..... All with inner silver Mylar. Going to bring back some golden oldies . I have a collection of several colors and going to fire em up again.

H T

 

[Dogbreath]

The ones I've seen look pretty rough after all that time-the bucktail doesn't hold up well even on units that have never been in the water.

 

[high tide]

I always rinsed all my Flashtails and Bucktails in fresh water when arriving back home. Mine still look great, they even include old home made hand tied combinations that used to hammer em. Some are a little frayed from catching, like any fly gets. Funny how we put old lures etc away and always go with the some thing new thing ....... they are a great Needlefish and Small herring imitator.

HT

 

[Kildonan]

My old man and I used them all the time, we made our own. I haven't made any of the flashtails in years but I have made a few bucktails.

When making the flashtails we would use the plastic casing from fairly thick gauge wiring for the tubes to tie them on. In the early days of doing it, we would buy dye and dye the polar bear hair we made them with to the colours we wanted. Later we started tying them all in white and carried different coloured felt pens with us in the boat, we would just colour them to what was hot at the time. The eyes were painted onto the heads with paint that was used to paint plastic models.

I've been wanting to make some again for a few years now but just never seem to find the time.

As you mentioned, Grey Ghost was a fav, as was green, blue, red and sometimes yellow over white.

Mostly we used them to fish large Fall Coho around Swale Rock in Barkley Sound or ECVI out of Deep Bay around Chrome Island. Those were good times.