Acknowledging that the Muddler has a long and justified reputation, I am confused by the fact that it is basically a subsurface lure but has a deer hair head that promoted floating. The clipped deer hair heads do look nice but why haven’t sinking material for heads like spun wool, dubbing or even chenille surpassed the spun deer hair and updated it? 
I share the same feelings. My only conclusions so far for deer hair on the Muddler are the following: it sheds water rapidly making a non-chuck-n-duck cast, it pushes a lot of water getting that lateral line all jazzed, it’s naturally boyant (so fished on a sinking line it dives similar to a sculpin) and it spins easier than synthetics.
Just my 2/100ths of a dollar, Ray.
Scott
Some years back another FAOL’er talked about tying the Muddler with a wool head. I seem to recall that it was Rick Z though I am probably mistaken. Anyway, I tied some up and used them on crappie with success. Here is a link to a wool muddler.
Tim
I have a book with a picture of the Dan Gapen’s original muddler minnnow. The head is not nearly as densly packed as it is in most muddlers you see today. It is almost more of a wide deer hair collar. This would probably allow the fly to sink better. Another option would be to make a head of densly palmered hen hackle.
If not packed too tightly, the head becomes waterlogged in short order and readily sinks in modest currents. I think the spun head can cause different issues when quartering downstream in stronger currents, where it may assist the fly to plane undesirably toward the surface. Additional weight on the fly and/or sinking lines with short leaders counter this. The alternative materials listed have all been suggested as reasonable substitutes for “practical” tyers who might want a faster tie or feel that the spun head isn’t advantageous in their fishing but otherwise like the profile.
…updated it? Because Al McClane never got around to writing an article about a fly change in Field and Stream. 
I liked and fished the Muddler for awhile but it said bye-bye to my fly box when the cost of two turkey feathers was more than I made per hour of work. If the fly is ever going to make a comeback we’re going to have to start eating more Golden Oaks and less White Butterballs for Thanksgiving Dinner.
When I wanted the Muddlers to sink the best way I found was to catch a fish, fish slime does the job better than anything we’ve come up with, and forbid the thought, makes the fly smell like a little fish.
I read Don Gapen used to fish for a lot of catfish. An excellent source for fly sinkant ! I’m sure he never had a problem with the deer hair keeping his fly afloat, and if that fish slime did didn’t sink it, I’d be almost positive Don had a dipsey sinker in his pocket that would do the job.
So why IMHO is the ole fly tied today the way it is? …I’d blame Dan Bailey. ;)
Excellent point, Rainbowchaser. I tied my first Muddlers using Joseph Bates’ Streamer Book (1968?) as a model and the heads were much thinner. My earlier Muddlers look down right puny compared to those sold today. BTW, the Muddler has never been a particularly productive fly for me. 8T
The Muddler has been changed and updated quite a bit over the years. Changes in the back portion are rampant, with rabbit strip, hackle tips, bucktail, marabou, and many synthetics used for the wings…The body can be anything you like, from the ‘standard’ tinsel to braids, flashy stuff, dubbing, chenilles and yarns.
The deer hair head has remained the head of choice for all of them, though. Most of the tyers who make muddlers are capable of using something else that doesn’t tend to ‘float’, yet they keep with the deer hair head.
Perhaps it’s bouyancy is part of what makes it so effective? Many streamer fishermen, Kelly Galloup and Jack Dennis come to mind immediately, believe that an unweighted streamer fished in the upper third of the water column is the most productive. Maybe the deer hair keeps the fly ‘up’?
In any event, if you are going to tie your own, you have many options. If you tie the head sparse, as was mentioned above, then it will quickly become water logged and work under the surface. The angle you cut the head can help it dive. A very few wraps of lead on the hook shank will overcome even the most densely packed head. You can incorporate lead eyes in the head, which I guarantee will sink the fly regardless of how much deer hair you pack onto the hook.
I tie most of my ‘muddlers’ with a Semi-Seal tail and body, rabbit strip ‘wing’, and sparse deer hair head. Common modifications include a bit of lead wrapped for weight, and the additions of lead eyes (these are tied so the hook rides up) for deep bass fishing.
Does anyone else like to muddle about with the Muddler?
Buddy
Gallops zoo couger has a big wad of deer hair…He trys to design lift ito his streamers because He believes it is un nataural for a fish to dive in the presence of a predator.
I caught a lot of fish in pocket water on a deer hair muddler with a floating line it when I lived out west. It sank fine ,but not like a rock
I recall something similar, Tim. Is that the pattern called the “Thief”…or “Modern Thief”?
Something like this: http://www.flyfishohio.com/FlyFishOhio.com/Modern_Thief.htm
Here’s Rick Z’s version (scroll down in the article):
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/features/panfish/part302.php
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.
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
Buddy, That’s why each time I put a gobbler down…I smile when I look over the feathers most of all
hairwing,
Don’t give up on the muddler! Just eliminate the turkey wing or go here: http://globalflyfisher.com/flymeister2001/large.php?id=83&category=3&return=gallery.php
Best regards, Dave S.
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
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
…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.
