How to Tie a Belly Bumper Bunker

Producer: Kelly Galloup

The Belly Bumper Bunker is a new streamer series that Kelly has been working on using the new keel style hooks that he developed with Montana Fly Company. The hook he is tying on is very similar to the old Mustad 79666 that went out of production many years ago, but is a little different in two respects: First off, it has a little deeper gap than the original so you have some more room to play with. The second, and probably the most important, is that it features a vertical ring eye so that your flies always track the way you intended them to. This baitfish series is a blast to tie, and the sky is the limit on forage/color combinations.

“Today we’re going to do a new fly that most of you have not seen—a few of you might have—but it’s kind of exciting because it’s a new hook style. It’s a variation of the old keel hook. I’ve been working with Montana Fly Company on this hook for a couple years now. Basically it’s like the keel; if you remember my Stacked Blond that was always tied and all that Blond series are done on keels, and it’s it’s just a it’s a slight variation. It’s a little bit longer shank in the head.  It’s got a ring that’s flat instead of down eye or up eye.  This is the old style and which is still a down eye. And so it’s just a really cool deal because it’s a really fast fly, but it’s the number of things you can do with it that makes it so fun.

…I started doing this style of head when back in the 80s or early 90s we stacked the stuff on the original T&A bunkers and all that stuff. But over the last few years you’re seeing a lot of sculpting coming in and a lot more different materials that we didn’t use in the old days. And the fun thing about this fly is that you can just like go crazy with this thing. You can do whatever you want….”