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Glossary
fly

Zonker

A weighted streamer with a rabbit-strip wing that pulses and breathes like a real baitfish. The rabbit strip — thin tanned hide with fur attached — gives it more action per inch than almost any synthetic.

Also calledzonker strip · rabbit strip zonker

The Zonker's defining ingredient is the rabbit strip: a quarter-inch-wide ribbon of tanned rabbit hide with the fur still attached, lashed along the top of the hook from a bead-chain or lead-eyed head. The fur fibers undulate at any retrieve speed, even when the fly is sitting still in current.

The body underneath is usually pearl mylar tubing or a similar flash material; the head is wrapped lead or a heavy cone for sink rate. Sizes 4-8 cover most trout water; size 2 articulated versions are big-fish food.

Best fished on the swing or with a slow strip-and-pause — the rabbit needs water moving past it to come alive. In stained water and low light, black or olive Zonkers consistently outfish flashier patterns.