Martyn White | Thursday, 30 April 2026
This week's fly is a nice, simple saltwater pattern that will do a turn on loads of species: the E-Z body sand eel. A excellent fly for the beach that's worth having anywhere sand eel are found, which is a lot of places.
When I first saw a version of this fly, I wasn't incredibly taken with it, the guy had tied it with resin and it was essentially just a surf candy analogue. I had my usual reaction to people slightly changing flies and claiming to have invented something. It was only later that I discovered that it's supposed to be different, and things feel into place. It's actually very good! Tied with a soft coating, rather than filled with resin the fly is hollow and much lighter than a surf candy which helps for some things. Shallow water applications are an obvious one being lighter and shuttlecocky it’s easy to put in quietly and it obviously doesn’t sink so fast which might be something you want. It’s also pretty handy on beaches with troughs and bars, especially if you can swing/drift it over a bar into a trough, tight to make it swim or with a bit of slack to let it tumble. Either way it offers an easy target to be ambushed from below. It's also good as a dropper or trailer fly if you are into fishing 2. If you use plugs in the surf you'll not regret ting one of these off the back either..
Here's the pattern
- Hook: Saltwater standard shank size 6-1/0
- Thread: Fine clear mono
- Tail: Olive over white craft fur tied long
- Flash: Pearl flashabou, crystal flash or whatever you like
- Body: E-Z body tube pearl size small(2-1/0) mini (6-4)
- Eyes: 2-3mm flat tape eyes
- Olive & red markers for a throat and to colour the back of the tube
- Coating: Softex or TMC soft cement.
When you tie these, keep them long and thin. I like the fly to be about 3 x hooklength or slightly more. Make sure you extend the E-Z body beyond the bend, as this goes a ling way to preventing fouling. If you stop it before the bend you’ll definitely experience tail wrapping. Also, test your pens to make sure the colour doesn’t change when you put the softex over it.One coat of Softex is enough for fishing, but you might find you want to add a second especially around the eyes- trust issues and or aesthetics? It does no harm anyway.
As a bonus you can shorten and thicken the dressing and maybe even change the back colour to imitate other small bait like silversides or anchovies.
This is a good one. Whether you’re targeting stripers in the States, seatrout in Sweden or some other inshore target in temperate waters, it’s probably worth having a couple of these in the box.