The poor mans frenchie

[mike_richardson]

I bought some different colored beads from Allen, pink, orange. I use them on some BHPT to create a poor mans frenchie. Not the same exact look but same concept. Put the bright colored bead on and create a hot collar on these, and you have a similar pattern to a frenchie. Just a thought.

 

[allan_s]

Egans Frenchie has dubbing with a hot spot behind the bead, but the 'original' french is just a thread hot spot behind the bead. I use them both, more of way to tell between tungsten beads and brass beads being used. But I think using a hot bead would work the same, but I do like using slim thread hot spots on the undubbed version.

I have found pink the be the most successful color for me, but I have used red and yellow as well to some success.

I think the UV pink shrimp dub is the best for 'egans frenchie' and that is probably what his pattern calls for, its been a few years since I have looked to see what his recipe calls for.

 

[mike_richardson]

I have been using small ammounts of ice dub on mine, and they are turning out pretty good

 

[allan_s]

I have tied up 96 in the past two evenings. 48 size 14 and 48 size 16. I am tired of frenchies for the moment!

Most successful 'frenchie' I use, is a little different because it doesn't actually have a hot spot.

Olive Mallard Flank Tail
Olive PT Body
XS Copper wire rib
Hare's Brown Ice Dub (the hares ear included makes it much easy to work with)
Black Tungsten Bead
Olive-dun thread throughout.

Its called the OB, or at least I call it that lol It is just much easier to call it that than an olive/brown frenchie without a hot spot.

That a green weenie and I am set.

 

[InTheMend]

The French have actually been using hot beads for a long time in competitions. They work very well on rainbows, stocked trout, cold water, and off color water situations. However, trust me, on picky browns like we have here in PA, if the water is not milk chocolate they will almost always refuse hot beads in my experience. I like to use slim fluorescent UTC collars on my flies. The point of a hot spot is contrast which is why you can't make a brown hot spot on a PT. One note of the fly below, I don't normally use gold beads, as picky fish see so many of them they tend to reject them.

 

[Dale49]

In my experience, all different patterns as described work well. I've been using pearl Krystal Flash to segment the body instead of wire and it's been successful. I probably have 6 or 7 different patterns of Frenchies that have been successful. I've also been tying a Hares Ear type Frenchie that has also had success. For the hot spots, I use orange and shrimp ice dubbing and fishing with red thread and I tie with and with out a bead.