The fly box · No. 36 of 36
Muddler Minnow
Sculpins and bullheads, the broad-headed little fish of the river bed; greased and fished on top, a grasshopper or a large sedge.
- Kind
- Streamer
- Hook sizes
- 6–10
- Season
- Summer, autumn
- For
- Trout
- At the vice
- An involved tie
The dressing
| Hook | 3X-long streamer hook, barbless or with the barb flattened, sizes 6–10 |
|---|---|
| Thread | Brown or black, 6/0, or a stronger thread for spinning the hair |
| Tail | A slip of mottled brown turkey wing quill |
| Body | Flat gold tinsel over a smooth thread base, covering the rear two thirds of the shank |
| Rib | None in the original; fine oval gold tinsel or wire may be added to protect the flat tinsel |
| Hackle | None; the natural tips of the deer hair form a collar round the wing |
| Wing | Underwing of grey squirrel tail hair, with a matched pair of mottled turkey quill slips over it, reaching the end of the tail |
| Also | Head of natural deer body hair, spun on the bare front third of the shank and clipped to a blunt cone, leaving the tips of the first bunch as the collar |
Tying it
- Lay a thread base over the rear two thirds of the shank only, and tie in the turkey quill tail.
- Tie in the flat gold tinsel, and the rib if you are using one, wind the body and tie off.
- Tie in a sparse underwing of squirrel tail, then set the paired turkey slips on top.
- Stack a bunch of deer hair and hold it over the bare shank with the tips reaching back to the hook point; make two loose turns, then tighten so it flares and spins.
- Spin one or two more bunches in front, packing each back firmly, then whip finish.
- Trim the head to a blunt cone with scissors or a razor blade, taking care to leave the collar tips uncut.
Fishing it
In summer dusk and through the autumn, fish it down and across on a 3X (0.20 mm) tippet through pool tails and along rocky margins where bullheads live. The deer hair is buoyant, so add a sinking leader or a small shot ahead of the fly if it must go deep, and work it in short darts with long rests, close to the stones. Left dry and dressed with floatant, the same fly can be twitched across the surface on a warm, windy afternoon. Takes are sudden; hold the rod low and tighten into the weight.
Where it comes from
Don Gapen devised the Muddler in the late 1930s on the Nipigon River in Ontario, to copy the sculpin on which its large brook trout fed. His original had a loose, ragged head of deer hair; the dense, neatly clipped version came later from other tiers. That bulky head pushes water, and fish sense the fly as well as see it.