Martyn White | Thursday, 17 September 2026
Last week's fly inspired me to do a few more simple bonefish and flats patterns. So I'll be doing a little run of flies on the theme, all of them will be easy ties but they'll also be fish catchers. This week I'm going with the Turd.
The turd is a very basic looking pattern, the first time I saw it was when a friend was using one and raving about it. If I'm honest I think he had filled his box with them because it was at the limits of his tying ability (for the avoidance of doubt, I'm not talking about Paul!). His reasoning however, doesn't affect the fly's effectivenes in the least, it's deadly and not just for bones.
Fortunately for us who still fish the turd, it's certainly not fashionable these days. Try finding it on a bonefish lodge's flats list! It's absence from fly catalougues and recommended lists is, I think, firmly rooted in it's unsexiness. It has zero bin appeal, and no long materials list a fly shop is going to make money on. What it does have though, is the right shape and a complete lack of things that could cause a fish to refuse. I'm sure that no matter the target species, we've all experienced fish refusing flashy or complex flies only to have them eat with gusto once you pull some bits off or switch patterns. The turd has nothing to pull off and nothing spooky, it just looks like a little creature on the sand.
Here's the pattern such as it is..
Hook: Your preferred saltwater hook 8-2
Thread: flat waxed nylon
Weight: Bead chain or small dumbbells
Tail: Marabou
Flash (optional): A couple of strands of crystal flash
Body: Suede chenille
Thread colour can either match the body or you can use it to put a little hot spot of orange or pink at the head.
Woolly bugger marabou works well for the tail, tie it between a shank length and a full hook length. It won't matter to the fish but you'll want to like the look of it.
Don't add the bead chain/dumbbells untill you've tied the tail on, this helps with balancing the fly as it drops the extra weight giving more of a keel effect with lighter eyes.
The ususal colours work- tan, white, brown, orange and olive are all good.
I really like flies like this, because they really show that all of the deadly additions to patterns and tiny variants really don't matter. They're also great for driving home a presentation first approach. Some years ago a freind came on an Okinawa trip with me and had a beautiful box of flies, unfortunately he couldn't put them infront of fish so had to content himself with getting a doing every day as I fished the same size 2 turd until it fell apart and replaced it with another for the last couple of days. It doesn't matter how sexy the rubber legs are, how complex the twist in the body or how pretty the eyes are if the fish never get to see them. Even if you don't start with a Turd or a fly like it, they're great to have in your box for days when you get refusals from the normal patterns and need something subtler. If you don't fish the salt, but have accesss to bass, perch or similar the Turd also makes a nice soft shell crayfish pattern for the spring that works well and you won't mind losing on a rock. Turds are for everyone..