The Dali Llama is one of those streamers you can just look at and immediately recognize that it's going to catch fish. Rabbit, flash, a sharp stinger hook and a big old weighted nose to drop it deep into the zone as it's screaming, "Eat me! Eat me!" If you spend much time around the Confluence you know we sell a lot of them and recommend them often for everything from Skagit bull trout to Pass Lake browns. The reason? They flat out work time and time again.
If you tie, they're a deceptively simple and fairly inexpensive fly to produce and you get a ton of bang for your buck. My one and only complaint over many years of fishing Dali Llamas all over the west is that they aren't exactly fun to cast. All that sexy bunny pulsates and swims seductively but also soaks up a lot of water and makes the whole business of fishing akin to lobbing a drowned rat into a distant bathtub. I find tungsten beads pull out of the water more cleanly than the gigantic cones that so often adorn the Dali Llama. And since I think I use Polar Chenille in some capacity on just about every streamer I tie, why not replace some of that sopping rabbit with a synthetic that sheds water, adds a bit of flash and still breathes with life in the water? This is a work horse streamer that seldom disappoints. The featured color is one of my absolute favorites, but black/white, grey/white, and grizzly barred/white take up a lot of space in my box, not to mention all the wild and wacky fluorescent-hued options that work so well for coho salmon.
Polar Llama Recipe:
Hook/Shank: #2 Gamakatsu B10S
Bead: 3/16" Nickel Tungsten
Underbody: .030 Lead Free Wire
Trailing Hook: #4 Owner SSW
Connector: #30 Powerpro
Thread: 140 Denier Red Ultra Thread
Tail: Black Barred Olive Rabbit Strip
Body: UV Silver Polar Chenille
Bottom Wing: White Rabbit Strip
Flash: Pearl Saltwater Flashabou
The Confluence Beer Pairing: It's been awhile since we've featured a beer from Wander so we're going to give a shout out to their Right Here, Right Now Hazy IPA which is now available in 4-packs of 16 oz. cans. It's one of the better citrusy grapefruit-noted hazy IPA's I've had in a bit and though we're well into the season of darker beers, in my mind I'm still clinging to the taste of summer. Crank up the heat, don your board shorts and flip flops, tie a few Polar Llamas and pretend it's still August with a Right Here, Right Now. Cheers!