Martyn White | Thursday, 21 May 2026
As I continue to demonstrate that I carry more flies than Paul's 2, I'm going with one of the best top-water choices this week. The Gartside Gurgler, a simple pattern that just works.
Gurglers are rightfully popular and deserve a place in your box almost irrespective of where you are in the world. There's a lot to like about gurglers: they're easy to tie, easy to fish, and they can imitate different prey items. There's loads of variants that might imitate fish, shrimp, frogs, mice or spawning worms! They land softly, and are easier to cast than poppers of similar sizes and perhaps most importantly the same fly can be subtle or almost as loud as you want it to be.
Nowadays a lot of the gurglers people seem to be tying have folded foam loops over the back, I suspect this came about because people were tying them without foam body/underbody and needed extra buoyancy. It has the added effect of giving more bloop on the strip This might be something that is desirable sometimes, but I sometimes think it defeats the purpose a bit. I usually don't want my gurgler to be too bloopy, I prefer it to wake and... well.. gurgle. There are other flies that do bloopy bubble trails really well, but if you like the fold put it in. Carry both styles, why not?
Here's Jack Gartside's original pattern
Hook: Saltwater or stinger of your choice.
Thread: Flat waxed nylon
Tail: Sparse Bucktail or full marabou with a few strands of flash
Body, back & lip: Foam, at least 3mm thick
Hackle: Strung saddle
In his book Jack suggested glimmer, but any flash will do. Ordinary flashabou is hard to beat.
I do leave the tags long and pull it over the foam back, not for the fish but it's surprisingly good at helping you pick out the fly in difficult light. You don't have to if you don't want to.
There are lots of things you can change or substitute.
Tan craft fur tail and dubbed body with optional shrimp eyes makes a great shrimp.
If you want more bulk add cactus chenille on the body.
Flashy dubbing velcroed roughly into the hackle gives you more flash with less bulk than fritz.
Mice? What's a morrish if not a gurgler variant & don't get me started on the Master Splinter! The audacity to claim invention of that pattern..
I even have some vague memory of meeting a guy fisihing a soldier palmer with a gurgler back on a loch sometimes in the 90s. He didn't like tying muddlers and according to him the gurgler worked better than the deer hair head, which will be a hard pill for many traditionalists to swallow.
So whether you fish for bluegill, bass, seatrout, tarpon, or anything else that predates off the top make sure you give gurglers a go when there's a topwater bite to be had.