In my last fishing experience on the Erriff river, in Ireland, I saw that a greater number of salmon was attracted by a small pattern of Ally’s Shrimp. The fishing situation in that week of August was really good: the abundant rains had produced some spates, so that the fish run was rather intense. Despite the large selection of different flies used by the fishermen on the Erriff, nearly all the salmon recorded on the catching book were victims of shrimp flies, and in particular of the Ally’s Shrimp. An event that left me quite astonished and that induced me to reflect on the high attractive of those flies similar to the animal preyed by the Salmo salar into the sea. The Ally’s Shrimp, in fact, can be confused by the fish for a sea shrimp: a crustacean, in practical, that the salmon feed on during its marine life. In according to this, I started to share the hypothesis that the salmon, even if it does not feed while it go run up the river, can be induced to give free vent to its preying instinct if it intercepts a bait similar to its usual preys.
  The designer of the Ally’s Shrimp is the famous British fisherman Alastair Gowans, who realised this fly for fishing at the end of the season, when are usually required artificials heavy dressed for tempting the fish dulled by the first colds of the autumn. His fly, however, resulted effective in any period of the year and for this reason many anglers learned to consider it one of the best flies for catching the Salmo salar.

INSTRUCTIONS

I start the building process of the Ally’s Shrimp by inserting the hook into the vice jay and securing in, with the black thread, a tuft of orange bucktail hairs over the hook bends. These tails must extend backwards for a length equivalent to nearly the double of the hook shank

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On the fixing point of bucktail hairs, I tie in a piece of fine oval gold tinsel a of orange floss and use this second one to form the first portion of the body, wrapping it around the rear half of hook shank

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In front of the first half of the body, I bind in a piece of black floss and I turn it around the front half of the hook shank, completing the body of the fly

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With wide passages of the oval tinsel over the body, I realise the Ally’s Shrimp ribbing

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I cut off the tinsel surplus and I tie in a tuft of grey squirrel tail hair just behind the hook eye, positioning it all around the body, with the hair tips extended backwards to reach the hook bends

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I cut off the squirrel hairs surplus and I select two golden pheasant tippet feathers of medium size, I join them back to back and I secure them in front of the fly body, positioning them like two wings. These wings have to be extended backwards just a little more than the squirrel hairs

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Next I bind in an orange cock hackle on the fixing point of the golden pheasant feathers

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With the hackle pliers, I repeatedly turn the orange hackle just behind the hook eye, creating the collar of the Ally’s Shrimp

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I realise the head of the fly with some turns of the black thread and then I whip finish it

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Next I complete the head with a pair of red varnish hands, distributed one to some hour from the other

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The Ally’s Shrimp is ready to be used in my next fishing trip, maybe to induce to take a salmon that does not react positively to the traditional hair wing flies

MATERIALS LIST

HOOK: salmon double or treble size 12 to 4
THREAD: black
TAILS (the antennas of the shrimp): orange bucktail
BODY: first half orange floss, second half black floss
RIBBING: small oval gold tinsel
UNDERWINGS: grey squirrel
WINGS: golden pheasant tippet
COLLAR: orange cock hackle
HEAD: red varnish