how to make the gartside gurgler

Hook: Depends on what you want to fish for, i like to use size 6 for bass. 8-10 for bluegill

Thread: Black 6/0
Tail: Marabou
Underbody: Medium Chenille
Foam: Medium Foam
Legs: Wiggle Legs or Krystal Flash
Colors are your choice but try to make it imitate a frogs natural color

Wrap thread to end of hook, and then add your chenille at the end also

Then add the marabou and foam to the end

Wrap chenille up the shank and wrap off

Bend foam to eye and wrap off

Then ether tie off or if desired add wiggle legs to tied neck area and round head

Imitation frog works like a charm

Hi, this is the first post of the Michigan fly fisher an online fly fishing column to help you become a better fisherman

This is the being our first post, we thought we should do the fly that is first in our fly boxes the infamous Gartside Gurgler (a floating frog imitation) this is the fly for fishing lakes or ponds, streams or rivers and most fish will bite it. The different fish you can catch are manly bass but also pan fish, trout , rock bass, crappie and any thing stupid enough to eat a frog ( which is most fish) this frog pattern can be altered as necessary(as you will see from photos) because you obviously need to switch flies going from huge L.M. bass to bluegill. They have been changed in color, size, shape, and even were they are fished. When this imitation make many, becuase the fish tear the foam apart or rip off the tail.

This is an example of the diversity of the gartside gurgler

This is the original gartside gurgler

A variation of the frog in yellow(black also works)

This shows how the hooks vary with different species of fish you want to catch(black one is for panfish, and yellow is for L.M and S.M bass)although they can be swiched

one day I was fishing and could see fish below my
fly but they would not bite so I swiched to a wet fly and got some results but not as good as I usualy got so I thought that the fish did not want
to come up to get it so I made this gartside gurglerwith out the foam

same pattern as above but yellow (black also works)

this is the latest variation we made up and has not yet been tryed out (it is november and fishing season is done in michigan) but the theary is that the hook is on top and it will float up wards. we know that the hook floats up but we don't know if it will be weedless or if it will even hook the fish.

have fun fly fishing! directions for Gartside will be in next post.