"...love marabou and all of the possible uses of this terrific material.. ."

Written Joe Branham

In case some of you are not aware, I love marabou and all of the possible uses of this terrific material in the tying of my saltwater patterns.

Quite some years back, I was aware of using marabou on various warm and cold water flies but when I got actively involved in the saltwater area of tying, about the only pattern that I saw with any regularity that used marabou was the Bonefish Special and it used orange marabou for the tail.

I was in Capt. Harry’s Fishing Supply in Miami, Fl taking an order for some flies and Bob Kay was there. Bob Kay was one of the very old time tyers and he worked in the fly fishing/tying section of Capt. Harry’s. Bob and I got to be very good friends over the years.

Bob was tying up some tarpon flies and as I watched him, he used marabou as the collar. This interested me because it was the first time that I had seen marabou used on tarpon flies. When I questioned Bob about this I got a strange look and he asked me if I was serious. Eventually, Bob understood that if I asked a question, I was very serious, no matter how simple the question was. I wanted to know everything about tying flies for saltwater.

Bob then told me that marabou had a terrific motion in the water and that it readily absorbed water, causing the fly to sink faster. That was the start of me learning about the various uses of different materials and the actual dynamics of flies and fly tying. Since that time, I have spent many hours studying the dynamics of various materials and their uses on various patterns.

Over the years at various shows and demonstrations, numerous people have asked me how I got the marabou collars of my tarpon flies to look so nice, neat and uniform. At first, this really surprised me but I have learned that there was never that much about how to use the various materials so I have a little lesson that I teach at that time.

To achieve this is really very simple – you pinch out the tip of the marabou and tie in a full plume on each side of the fly. I like to use the long and very fluffy plumes. I would imagine that all of you have seen flies tied with marabou and have seen the tip. While I do not imagine that this makes any difference to the fish and in some cases the person purchasing or tying the fly, it looked unprofessional to me and I could not see a purpose in leaving in the tip.

Several other uses for marabou are tailing and wings on some of the smaller bonefish flies.

For tailing I just strip off some of the barbs from a plume and tie them in or tie in a full plume.

For the wings, I take the piece of marabou, hold it between my forefingers and thumb and tie in the tips of the marabou.





Some years aback, I saw some tarpon flies that had a marabou collar that was palmered. Now, at that time, I thought that was a complete waste of time as it was easier to tie in the full plumes on each side. Today I still feel the same way about palmered marabou on tarpon flies but I have studied the palmering and have come to the conclusion that there is a place for palmered marabou in tying flies for the salt.

While I am sure that a lot of you are familiar with palmering marabou, I really never paid it much attention until recently when I was trying to tie up some (new) flies using marabou as both the tail and wing.



I tied up several of these flies using the full plumes that were tied on each side of the hooks shank and while they looked nice and neat, they abruptly ended and did not look natural. I have never seen a minnow or baitfish that was squared off. They all seemed to be tapered and the squared off marabou was just not what I was looking for.

I then decided to palmer some marabou and see what happened. Well, guess what? I got a tapered look and when wet, it looked more like a natural. Who says that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks?

If you palmer a piece of marabou and look at it closely, you will notice that it is very thick where it is wrapped around the hook shank but tapers and thins out the further away from the hook shank that you get.

If you back wrap the marabou to cause it to lie towards the rear, then you have a material that will not only impart terrific action in the water but will give a much better profile I found, at first, that palmering marabou was a bit tricky and caused me untold problems. I kept over wrapping the bards and had to use a bodkin to pull them out and several other problems. Now, I pretty well have this down pat and here is how I do it.

I try and get marabou that has a very thin stem and is very fluffy. I tie it in by the stem with the shinny side towards the front of the hook. For this, I do use hackle pliers – I grasp the plume by the very tips and start to wrap the marabou around the hook shank. For each wrap, I push the barbs to the rear to keep them from getting over wrapped. I continue palmering the marabou until just the tip is left. I tie this off and cut off the tip.

By using the thin stemmed plumes, you have better control of the plume and do not take a chance on the stem breaking.

I only palmer one plume at a time while with neck hackles I can do 2 and maybe 3 at a time and can do 3 or 4 saddle hackles.

To add effects to this, I palmer one color then a second color and then the first color again.

In Lefty’s book on saltwater patterns, there is a pattern he calls the Marabou Seducer. It is palmered marabou and is a great looking fly and has great action in the water.

I am now a firm believer in palmered marabou in certain applications.

If you have never done this before, be patient and practice and you will be surprised with the results. You might want to take your blood pressure medicine or a Valium prior to attempting this the first time though.

Enjoy and happy tying.