This fly can be tied in a variety of colors. I like chartreuse and fluorescent green colors in the spring and yellow later in the summer. White is a bonus color I almost always add because I have found it to be a trigger color on nearly all my crappie flies. It must look more like something to eat if it has white in it.
This fly is a combination of a clouser minnow and a shwapf. If you have read my beginning fly tying series, you know about the shwapf, and most fly tyers know about clouser minnows. Both are killer flies in their own right, but the combination is crappie candy. They just seem to like to eat these flies.
Materials
Hook: Straight eye streamer hook, size 8 to 12, any brand will work.
Thread: Fluorescent green Danville Flymaster Plus.
Tail: White marabou.
Body: Fluorescent green wool yarn and chartreuse crystal flash
Wing: White bucktail.
Eyes: Silver or brass bead chain (the kind you find on light fixtures)
Tying Steps:Thread: Fluorescent green Danville Flymaster Plus.
Tail: White marabou.
Body: Fluorescent green wool yarn and chartreuse crystal flash
Wing: White bucktail.
Eyes: Silver or brass bead chain (the kind you find on light fixtures)
1. Secure a set of bead chain eyes to the hook with figure 8 wraps as shown. A drop of super glue will keep them from shifting on the hook.
2. Tie on a short tail of white marabou.
3. Invert the hook in the vise.
4. Tie on eight to ten strands of chartreuse crystal flash.
5. Secure the crystal flash all the way to the tail.
6. Tie on a strand of fluorescent green wool.
7. Leaving the thread at the tail, wrap a body of fluorescent green wool.
8. When you have the wool wrapped to just behind the eyes, bring the thread forward while keeping upward tension on the wool.
9. Take the thread over the hook in front of the wool and behind the eyes.
10. Then tie the wool off and trim.
11. Pull the crystal flash over the body.
12. And secure it behind and in front of the eyes.
13. Next, flare the crystal flash back over the body with your thumb and tie it off behind the eyes. Try to get the crystal flash to flare around the hook.
14. Trim the crystal flash just behind the hook bend.
15. So far, your fly should look like this.
16. Flip the hook over in the vise.
17. Even the tips of a small group of white bucktail hairs in a hair stacker. Measure the hair to extend halfway between the hook bend and the tip of the marabou tail.
18. Secure the hair behind and in front of the eyes as shown.
19. Trim the excess hair near the hook eye, build a nice head, whip finish and cement.
20. Your finished fly will ride in the water with the hook pointed up like this:
Live minnows are light on the bottom and darker on the top just like this fly is. Since crappie favor eating minnows, they also favor flies that look like minnows in the water. That's why I add the bucktail to this fly. It makes the fly look more like a minnow than it would if everything was one color.
If you live near crappie water, try this fly the next time you go fishing. You'll quickly discover that perch, bass and pike like the looks of crappie candy too. You might even catch a few big bluegills if they inhabit your favorite crappie lake.
