The Hamill's killer invented by Bill Hamill of Rotorua sometime in the 1960's and is just a brilliant fly. However it needs to be tied correctly or it will not swim and because of this we reject a lot of flies we cant sell, this is why the price is up a bit. The colour is also very important and many get this wrong.
The fly works best on lakes and while some say it represents damsil nymphs or small fish I have found it best represents a lot of other different lake life such as tadpoles, small frogs or dragon fly lava. It is especially deadly at night when the large dragon (Odonata) fly lava/nymph are coming ashore to shed their skins to become adult dragon flies. You can tell this is happening by looking for shucked skins hanging on the vertical steps of banks close to the water. When you see this get the Hamills killer flies out and fish them on a floating line, right on evening or in the dark, stripping back towards you as that is the direction the Odonata swim in ...they also can cause a small wake so fish the fly in short strips and vary a bit.
It comes with a red or yellow body and I'm not sure this matters as much as overall colour and uniformity. We stock the red body.