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This articulated fly tied by Danish Sune Andersen was inspired by the European water vole

Some 25 years ago, I experimented with what I back then referred to as "linked flies". Today they’d be called articulated, and I have taken the tying method up again.

I have been making my own intruder shanks from straight hair pins for a while, and they are easy to make, inexpensive and work really well.

The Rattlesnake Streamer is a large, articulated fly originated by US tyer and guide Ray Schmidt.

The major difference between almost any fly and an Intruder is the use of a shank and a trailing hook. This is about shanks, wires and stinger hooks.

Greg Senyo's book on modern salmon and steelhead flies is a tour de force in goudy and flashy materials composed into large flies

This is not an article about a pattern called The Big Fly, but some general advice on tying big flies, running through several methods of growing your flies into something that can lure a large predator.

Tube fly tyer Tony Pagliei explains his Convertible Tube Flies - a modular system that combines a set of tube tied front parts and a set of dressed hooks into as many different flies as you can imagine in a versatile, modular system.

Classics in a classic way. These flies may look like something of today, but the concept of Wadington shanks is old as Methusalem. Danish fly tyer Niels Have has converted four classics to effective flies for early salmon and sea trout fishing. See the pictures and patterns.

The flies on this page all have one thing in common: they have a linked body. Many of us strive to add life to our flies - the sense of something living. This can be done by using soft materials or adding long tails like on zonkers. These are all fine techniques that work well. But something urged me to try something different.