Zoo Cougar

By Kelly Galloup, 1990s, submitted by Mike Cline.

Description

Kelly Galloup is known as the man who inspired the big-streamer craze, and the Zoo Cougar is pattern that started it all. First tied in the mid-1990s for Michigan’s Manistee River, the streamer is designed to imitate an injured sculpin. Key features include a deer-hair head that pushes water and a specific retrieve style that causes the fly to flutter and dart like a wounded baitfish. Galloup, who moved to Montana in 2002 to take over the Slide Inn, has since created many more big streamers, but the Zoo Cougar remains popular because it is so effective—especially in fall. Unlike a lot of meaty streamers, the Zoo Cougar is unweighted, which means you should fish it on a sinking-tip or full-sinking line.

Materials

• Body: Tinsel or Estaz chenille
• Collar: Stacked deer body hair
• Head: Spun deer hair clipped
• Tail: Marabou
• Thread: UTC 140
• Wing: Underwing-Calf Tail
• Wing: Wing-Mallard Gadwall or Teal flank feather

Hooks

• Firehole 811 Barbless Streamer

Target species: Trout

Fly types: Streamer