Man you guys are good. I do tie all my Clousers closer to the hook point. There are a couple of reasons for this. First all I use are short shank hooks. Both flys have short shanked hooks and the larger fly is a size 1 with a wide gap.



As you can see the point of the larger fly is way to the front. The reason for this is simply because I have brain hooked too many fish in the past with the longer shaked hook. I can't remember the last time I brain hooked fish with a shorter hook. With the shorter shank hook most of the weight of the fly will be closer to the front helping the fly with its jigging action.


The second reason is becuse I fish the surf and back bays. If you have fish in sandy bottom waters you will find your closer will have a mohaired punk rocker look when it comes apart at the point of where the weighted eyes are tie on. I tie all the bucktail on top trying to keep the bottom of the fly clean so the the sand doesn't ware out the bucktail or glue. Leaving the front with a little more room to tie off allows me to use more wraps and more glue to prolong the life of the fly.