Muddler Minnnow

[Silver Creek]

http://www.gapen.com/history/index.html

[NJTroutbum]

Something to keep in mind with the muddler deer head. The sculpin it is copying has a very large head. And it darts and hovers among the rocks. The Muddler deer head stays larger when fished and doesn't mat down or "pulse" like wool or marabou can, retaining that larger head profile. And the floatability causes it to hover or float with the current better during pauses between strips.

That's not to say that changes from the original, or modifications can't make it fish better on some waters. But don't discount the original for fish catching abililty. In riffles and shallower freestone streams I still find the original pattern to fish the best.

[Buddy Sanders]

In one of my older pattern books, Western Trout Flies (volume one) by Jack Dennis, he complains about the lack of good turkey feathers for Muddler wings. He was apparently having problems finding good ones, so he began playing around with a way to conserve them. Rather that using 'matched' slips from two feathers, he started using two slips from the same quill. This resulted in a wing with a pronounced curve to one side. His claim was that this caused an unusual wobble to the action of the fly, and that the fish loved it.

I've tried it, and you can certainly see a difference in how the fly tracks. It's been effective for bass and trout, but I've found over the years that the 'Kiwi' style rabbit strip wing works better for me.

Very interesting fly design.

Buddy

[NJTroutbum]

Buddy, That's why each time I put a gobbler down....I smile when I look over the feathers most of all

[fishdog54]

hairwing,

Don't give up on the muddler! Just eliminate the turkey wing or go here: http://globalflyfisher.com/flymeiste...rn=gallery.php

Best regards, Dave S.

[hap]

In one of my older pattern books, Western Trout Flies (volume one) by Jack Dennis, he complains about the lack of good turkey feathers for Muddler wings. He was apparently having problems finding good ones, so he began playing around with a way to conserve them. Rather that using 'matched' slips from two feathers, he started using two slips from the same quill. This resulted in a wing with a pronounced curve to one side. His claim was that this caused an unusual wobble to the action of the fly, and that the fish loved it.

I've tried it, and you can certainly see a difference in how the fly tracks. It's been effective for bass and trout, but I've found over the years that the 'Kiwi' style rabbit strip wing works better for me.

Very interesting fly design.

Buddy

Turkey was very hard to come by at one time because the commercial birds are all white (to make pinfeathers harder for the consumer to see) and wild birds had not come back (or had their ranges extended so far) yet. Now turkey is almost too easy to find...

I still do not understand why folks want to avoid learning a relatively simple skill.

A couple weeks ago I was tying with a friend and he started to tie standard dry flies without wings. I took a little break to show him how to tie each kind of wing very simply and directly...

Later he sat there shaking his head at himself and chuckling as he easily tied winged dries. "Sixty-five years old and I finally learn how easy it is to tie on wings..."

Learn how to tie those wings just because you should. There are a lot of tricks in fly tying far harder than a muddler wing.
art

[Buddy Sanders]

Art,

My problem with the original turkey wing on the Muddler isn't in tying it, it's in it's effectiveness.

A bulkier body and a strip wing catches more fish for me, to the point that I no longer bother carrying 'standard' muddlers anymore. I do carry a few of the Dennis offset wing versions, just because they are a bit quirky and I like to watch them twitch in the current.

To get the full effect of this version, you do need to treat the wing slips with something, 'cause if they separate the action suffers.

Still use the deer hair head for all of them, but I tend to play with the trimming of it..you can make the fly dive by angling the head, use the old standard Bailey 'bullet' shaped head, or leave it shaggy like the original...I've even tied the fly with an excentric head designed to make the fly run to one side or the other...couple of spots I fish often that hold some big fish..IF you can get the fly to run under some stuff to get to the fish. A specially trimmed head makes the fly plane in the current....works well.

The best thing about tying your own is you can adapt and change flies to suit the situations you find on your waters.

And no wings on dries size 16 and smaller for me...I can do it, just don't think it adds anything worthwhile to the fly.

Buddy

[hairwing]

...scuttlebutt from hard print had it that Harry Darbee and Dan Bailey both laughed at Al McClane when he first showed them the Muddler. Al had to take 'em out and fish it with them before they wiped the smile off their faces.

Al put the fly on the map with an article he wrote for Field and Stream in 1954 titled "PRESENTING THE MUDDLER MINNOW". The article is a chapter in his book "Fishing With McClane". Wish you could read the whole article, but here are a few quotes from it.....

Al states "I am the original victim of the Muddler Minnow."

also he says: " Ordinarily, I'm not really fussy about fly patterns.A well tied Light Cahill, Hendrickson, or Quill Gordon, if there's enough light to see it, will get my vote every time. I like to use spider type flies also, especially the Blue Dun Spider, when the stream is low and clear. But the Muddler Minnow is a form and substance completely unlike orthodox dry flies. It is long, slim, and makes practically no wake when retrieved over still water. To a fish, the fly probably represents four insect families: dragonflies, damselflies, the larger stoneflies and grasshoppers. There is nothing mayflyish about the Muddler. In fact, it is definitely less effective in fast-water streams where the mayfly form is dominant. This fly is for big, quiet rivers and lakes which means smallmouth and largemouth bass, brown trout, and squaretails. Lake rainbows are very partial to the pattern when fished dry, but prefer their muddlers worked as a streamer fly in fast water.

Al admits Don Gapen intended the fly to imitate the sculpin but goes on and says "The interesting thing is that the fly suggests many different aquatic foods to both angler and fish."

On tying the fly: "Ellis Newman and I tried to improve on the dressing of the Muddler Minnow. We substituted every hair, feather, wool, and tinsel we could think of, but we wore out our nights in a devil dance of frustration. It can't be made prettier and still be effective. The tail is simply a fiber of turkey-wing quill and the body flat gold tinsel. The wing , should be just about the length of the hook, is made of matched fibers of turkey-wing quill, with sparse bunches of white and black impala on both sides. The hackle is a bunch of deer hair placed on top of the hook, then secured to flare forward. Only a small amount of hair should flare, as this part is trimmed into a head shape. Ellis cements every operation in tying for extra strength, but the ingredients are rugged and the Muddler will take a real beating."

Al likes his muddlers on top : " As a dry fly design, the muddler minnow is quite different. The dressing makes good use of buck hair for one thing; instead of being in the wings or built up in the body, the hair is used as hackle. It floats like a cork." He uses floatant to keep 'em up. But goes on in the next paragraph " Although I seldom use the Muddler as a sunken fly, I always keep a dozen or so dressed on heavy wire hooks to fish streamer style when the occasion arises." He mentions a diving and bobbing technique he finds useful with a weighted fly but the fly is still not fished very deep.

He closes : "These, gentlemen are some of my experiences with the Muddler Minnow. I heartily endorse the pattern as one of the most effective flies you can put over trout and bass in lakes and slow-flowing streams.The most useful sizes are No.6 for largemouth bass, salmon,and steelhead, and No.8 for smallmouth bass and trout. A No.10 is sometimes productive, but I don't believe it's necessary to go that small, because the pattern, after all, is meant to represent a rather large insect. For streamer-fly fishing, a No.4 or No. 6 on a 1X or 2X wire would be right."

Myself before the fly was tied with mylar, we used real tinsel for the body, I learned a good lesson fishing the Muddler. Use a stout tippet! A 14 in. fish will snap you off like nothing. These fish will not be leader shy. I don't care what water your on. 2X is as small as I go. 1X and Ox are better. I only wish the mottled oak was cheaper. I have other flies I can use now, but the Muddler was a great one for me in it's day.

[Draggerman]

A muddler variation,no turkey has been my most productive fly for atlantic salmon and river and brook trout
for over 20 years Here are my #1&#2 muddlers