The Scarpion — A Carp Fly That Bites Back

One of the first flies I tie on when I am chasing carp in shallow water is the Scarpion. This fly was designed by Chase Smith from Texas and is designed to elicit aggressive takes from even the most discerning carp. For me, this fly, with its buggy profile and enticing movement, has proven to be a winner in various water conditions. My favourite colour combinations are red and black, olive, brown, and cappuccino (brown with a cream tail).

The Scarpion is relatively straightforward to tie. Designed to ride hook point up, you start by tying in a pair of beadchain or dumbbell eyes to the underside of the hook shank. Then, a small clump of rabbit zonker for the tail, followed by a 2mm foam strip or chenille for the body and wrap this down around the hook shank to just behind the eyes. If you like, you can tie in a pair of rubber legs along the sides of the body
to increase the buggyness of the fly, but this is not essential. Finally, tie in a hen hackle and take a few wraps behind the eyes before finishing off the head with some UV epoxy.

The Lift Kit Variation

The Scarpion needs to ride hook point up, which improves the hook-up ratio, so we need to be certain that the fly flips and orients this way. With heavier dumbell eyes, this isn’t normally a problem but when you use lightweight beadchain eyes in shallow water, sometimes the fly doesn’t flip in time. To fix this, you can incorporate a ‘lift kit’ that is described by Jay Zimmerman, in his book The Best Carp Flies.