Egg Sucking Leach (Traditional Chenille)

Black & Chartruese Egg-Sucking Leach

The Egg Sucking Leach is a pattern you MUST carry at all times; it accounted for 50% of the fly-caught fish in my "trophy gallery" by the end of 2002. I typically fished this pattern on the swing or a dead drift, but the most productive method to induce strikes was to drift the fly down to the fish from above, and then slowly retrieve a few inches and then let it drift back. This semi-jigging action always got the male Cohos really mad and produced spectacular strikes.

The formula for an Egg Sucking Leach (ESL) is simple; it is basically a wolley bugger with the hackle and body stopping about 3/4 of the shank, the last 1/4 being the head in a different color chenille.

Hook - Streamer, typically sizes 4-8
Tail - Marabou
Body - Chenille & Hackle
Head - Chenille

I have seen MANY color variations; the most common either utilize a black or purple body, hackle & tail with flourescent heads in shades such as red, yellow, chartruese, orange, salmon & peach.

Some Further Examples of the Egg Sucking Leach:

Black & Red Egg-Sucking Leach

Black & Yellow Egg-Sucking Leach

MP's Inverse ESL (Chartruese & Black Egg Sucking Leach)