When you look at these smelts really none of the traditional smelt flies comes close.     Back to the drawing board for some new samples.

That would be an easy fly to make Rainbow.

Basic little salt fly pattern baitfish.
There's nothing to indicate size, but I'm guessing - what.......6cm?

Look at SF blend (possibly anchovy) with a hint of mullet blended in and a smattering of flash and that's it.

Prismatic eyes and go fish it.

Drop me a PM if you need help mate.

They are definitely darker on top when looked from above and light or silver when looked from below.     This is the typical camouflage against predators from above and from below.    I am trying darker tan or olive for the top wing instead of grey.   Need to find a smart way to build in the silver streak all the way to the tail.    We need to bear in mind that jigging flies move differently to a smelt streamer fished from fly tackle.   They may need to be constructed differently to hold a desired shape but still retain some intrinsic movement.    The joy of fly tying is to investigate the subject more deeply and try to come up with something that comes closer to one's ideas of a solution.    Just buying a set of proven flies deprives one of the mental stimulation that only grows bigger with repeated failure.Rainbow 

Redfinger,   I have a large glass vessel filled with water and look at my flies when submerged: how they move, how they hold shape and how they sink.    I also want to know how the colour changes and how translucent some materials become when wet.    Rotoiti is really an opaque nutrient soup where visibility at 25m would be quite low.   Uv, flash, Fluoro maybe even a touch of lumo might add a bit of attraction to a smelt fly when fished in these conditions?    Has anybody fished with a lumo smelt fly (and I don't mean a doll fly) during the day?    Here I am thinking of a normal smelt fly with thin lumo body.    Daylight would be enough to give it a bit of a glow.  

My original smelt flies were tied with fluoro chartreuse thread which shows through the pearl Mylar body.     However, when exposed to a UV torch it glows.    Hard to say if UV makes a difference at 25m in murky water.     Have just managed to find a way to pay for the US order and expect the assorted fibres in about 2 weeks.    Plenty of time to ply around over winter.     Today got a request from the Trout Centre to hold another Roll Casting Clinic this winter.     Probably in August.