Craft Fur Minnow

The photo for this fly is missing
Hook:
Mustad 3366, size 2 to 8
Thread:
6/0 Uni-Thread
Eyes:
Medium Bead Chain
Belly:
Cream or White Craft Fur
Flash:
Gold crystal flash
Flash:
Copper flashabou
Back:
Dark Brown Craft Fur

This fly is a take on the classic Clouser Minnow using newer synthetic fibers on the market today to more motion underwater.

How to tie a Craft Fur Minnow Fly

Step
1
Clamp the hook in the vice and crimp the barb. Start the thread at the hook's eye and lay down a thread base from the eye to the bend and return to about one-third of the shank's length behind the hook's eye.
Step
2
Tie in the bead chain eyes with several figure-eight wraps. Make several wraps around the eyes to fill up the space between them. This will allow the white belly material to bulge above the eyes forming a transition to the belly.
Step
3
Clip a clump of craft fur from the patch and remove the longest fibers by gripping the butts tightly. Then remove the longest fibers with your finger tips. This is a substitute for the process that you would use to even bucktail tips in a hair stacker. To tie in the belly, move the thread in front of the eyes and bind down the butts of the hair clump with tight wraps of thread.
Step
4
Move the thread behind the eyes and bind down the craft fur with three or four tight wraps.
Step
5
To create the back, turn the fly over with the barb pointing up and move the thread to the front of the eyes. Tie in five or six strands of gold Crystal Flash that is at least as long as the belly fur.
Step
6
Next, tie in five or six strands of copper Flashabou that are the same length as the Crystal Flash. You should be forming a neat thread head during the process of tying in the back materials.
Step
7
Select and prepare a clump of brown craft fur just as you did with the fur for the belly. Tie it in directly on top of the flash material. Form a neat thread head, then tie off the thread with a Zap-A-Gap Knot. To make a Zap-A-Gap Knot, simply coat about an inch of the tying thread nearest the hook and wrap the wet thread over the existing thread wraps. Let the glue dry and clip the thread.
Step
8
Coat the head with head cement.
Step
9
When I tied this fly I preferred dark brown craft fur but had only a light brown so I made it darker with a dark brown waterproof marking pen.
Step
10
At this point your Craft Fur Minnow is ready to be fished. If you want to shorten the Craft Fur Minnow, use a curved serrated scissors for the job. Some tiers prefer the belly to be shorter than the back and this can be accomplished using the scissors.