Clarkman's Faux Musky Slayer

Clarkman's Faux Musky Slayer

By clarkman.

Description

This is basically my own bastardization of Matt Grajewski's Yardsale, Eli Berant's Optimus Swine & Brad Bohen's Buford....I love the basic idea of fur/feather/flash. I do try to keep the synthetics to a minimum here, but one could always substitute (except for bucktail, there's no good synthetic substitute for good bucktail). These fish best when tied in the 7-9" range. Much smaller, and it's basically just a smallmouth fly (one could say that about a 7" fly though too), and much larger, it's just more challenging to get the action just right, more challenging to cast all day and it doesn't make a difference with our local tiger muskies. Shank with saddle hackle tied off the hook bend, attached to another shank for durability. Bead chain eyes added underneath to help balance it out. The back end will basically act like a semi trailer when stripped and jack-knife. Best fished by adjusting cadence, length of strip, speed of strip until desired action occurs (it will mostly act like a jerk-type bait otherwise). The fish will ultimately tell you what they prefer.

Tying Process

in order from the back: back shank: bucktail underneath, 4-6 saddle hackles covering the sides and top of the bucktail base -> wrap cactus chenille up to the front of shank (helps make the overall fly pretty sparse) -> small clump of bucktail right at the front of the shank not flaring it too much. attach the back shank to the front shank tied onto the hook shank with the loop just past the hook bend ->right at the hook bend, slightly larger clump of bucktail, small piece of foam on top, cactus chenille about 1/3 of the way up the hook shank ->tie your longest portion of bucktail in here and flare it as much as possible -> 2-3 clumps of backside bucktail flared out making sure that you leave about 0.5-0.75cm of space in front before the hook eye ->bead chain eyes on the underside of the hook shank -> titan dubbing (or any other long dubbing--titan has ~4" fibers) reverse tied on top and bottom working around to that it's blended -> build up a thread dam in front of this, whip finish & glue that thread dam (I just use Sally Hansen's. Then, take a dubbing brush (I like a wire brush) and brush out any loose dubbing fibers. Tying notes: when tying in the bucktail back to front (e.g. tying in first to last): taper: short to long; thinner clump to thicker clump; less flare to more flare. Overall, a little goes a long way. side note: if being used for saltwater species, don't use TP610 hooks and you may want to add more flash depending on target species. For my Faux Muskies (e.g. Tiger Muskies), my local water is very clear and flies do not require very much flash, in fact if one uses too much flash, they may spook easier.

Materials

Hooks

Target species: Bowfin, Bull Trout, Muskellunge, Northern Pike, Tiger Muskie

Fly types: Bass/Warmwater, Saltwater, Streamer