Caddis Fly Shop: Oregon Fly Fishing Blog

The Clouser Deep Minnow is a GREAT fishing fly. The darn thing, in many colors and sizes, just looks like food to many fish around the world and is among my very favorite flies for salmon fishing here in Oregon. And yes, I do know that the Clouser deep minnow is a fly that is fished around the planet by anglers seeking to catch anything but a salmon, like smallmouth bass, musky, bonefish, tarpon, shad, snook, redfish, toadfish, giant grouper, blue shark, and guppies.

Lately, I have had the opportunity to explore some new fly fishing territory, shift fishing obsessions to new targets, and dabbled with adapting some of my traditional Clousers to new species and fly styles. This has been tons of fun. Rockfish (including Lingcod) love Clousers. Sea Run Cutthroat love Clousers too. Silvers love Clousers.

So, what the hey, why not tie up some Clousers on tubes? Sure, plenty of fly fishers have probably been doing this for ages, but this was new for me. This started when I ventured offshore for the first time this year with Jack and Jon Harrell, in their Pacific City based Dory, the Gold Comet. A decades old fear of being sea-sick had kept me off the ocean, but I finally decided to give it a go. Wow. This was fun on top of fun. No puking whatsoever, and willing bottom fish to the fly were a new treat for me. My slow sinking salmon lines were quickly replaced with my fastest sinkers, I upped my rod weight a little, and started tossing salmon Clousers to the Black Rocks (the fish, that is). They ate them plenty nice.

I noticed, sadly, that my grabs were plenty and my hookups were on the sparse side. Hummmmmm. Maybe the #2 hook I LOVE for Kings in tidewater was a little small for the big mouths of the briny deep. This got me thinking about tying Clousers on 1/0 and 2/0 hooks, which I did on short order. These flies definitely upped my hooking ratio on the bottomfish. But I was still plagued, if this could be considered a negative, by receiving many many more grabs than solid hookups. Now I wondered if this might be on account of short strikes, a function of the fish nipping at the tail end of the fly and just giving the fly a tug with no contact with the hook.

Then too, I was not entirely pleased with some of the larger hooks or with long shank hooks that I tried in order to overcome the short strike phenom> These hooks are too large for my liking when fishing Chinook and silvers in the estuary. The hooks may not actually be too large, but I thought they were, and once I start down the path of confidence reduction in any particular fly, they are likely to be eliminated from my box.

What to do? Some of the ocean Clousers I was fishing were not much larger than my in-river Clousers. Hummmmmmm. Silly head. Tie on tubes and switch out hook sizes depending on where they will be fished. Simple and effective. So I went to the bench and made it happen. Then in short order I put to sea with my friends and behold, the tube Clousers were an instant hit and my hooking ratio stayed high. The bonus was that my fly endured for many, many hookups. Often, the fly would ride up the leader, just as it is supposed to, and evade at least some of the beating it would normally have experienced if it were lodged in the chompers of a sharp toothed bottom-fish.

By the way, these rockfish ranged from as deep as 40-50′ to a shallow as rolling on the surface. This naturally called for different fly lines and some Clousers with large and small dumbell eyes. This was wonderful because it offered a justification to tie lots of flies and buy lots of materials and boxes to store the flies and hooks in and …………

My Sea Run tube clousers, tied very slender with Fish hair were just what the Blueback wanted to eat during several recent evening forays into the estuary. These were tied in white and pink, and in white/pink/blue, all with a little multi color Krystal flash and #8 TMC 811S hooks.

We will cover the next stage in the evolution of the Tube Clouser when we get to the Tuna Tube Clouser, but that is yet to be fully researched, so wish me luck. The Silver Salmon Bucktail Clouser has indeed been tested with wonderful results, and that too will be covered shortly.

A few recap thoughts: Tube cClousers offer the advantages of 10 protecting the fly from excessive chewage by the multitude of fish you will catch on these flies; 2) allow you to adjust the hook size with the same overall fly size remaining constant; and 3) allow placement of the hook near the very tail end of the Clouser, which can be a huge advantage when receiving short strikes.

Tube Clouser Minnow

Tube: Pro Tube Micro Tube
Eyes: Aluminum Sea Eyes w/3D Pupil
Belly: DNA Holo Fusion
Lateral Line: Red Krystal Flash
Dorsal Surface: Blue and Lime Green Bucktail
Overtopping: Mixed Colors Krystal Flash
Hook Guide: Pro Tube XL Hook Guide
Hook: Gamakatsu S12S # 2

JN

I was minding the booth, walking dealers through the latest and greatest books and DVDs, when I heard someone yelling my name. My giant carrot-topped boss was waving me over, with a devious grin on his face. His wife, Joy, ran up to me, grabbed my arm, and pulled me to the front stage.

“Here’s your guy!” she yelled. Then to me, “Rob, there’s an open seat in the fly tying competition! You have to do it!”

Resistance was futile. None of my weak arguments found purchase. And before I knew it I was pushed into a chair, smack in the middle of an international string of tyers, with fair crowd looking on.

Similar to Iron Chef competitions, contestants had a limited time to create a masterpiece, using selected materials and a couple of “secret” ingredients. For the first round, tyers were given 15 minutes to tie a fly.

As the clock started, I found myself shaking nervously. My bobbin was strung way too tight, and my thread broke repeatedly. I looked to my right and to my left, relieved to see that my neighbors’ hands were also shaking wildly. One poor fellow was so nervous, he resorted to a desperate lashing of odd materials to his hook. I took a deep breath and opened the bag containing the secret material: beautifully dyed ostrich herl! I looked backward at Bill Black, whose Spirit River was sponsoring the event. He had supplied the materials.

“Thanks, Bill!” I said with a smile.

“You like that?” he replied, with a knowing smile and a wink.

I tied a funky little shrimp/crawfish fly, which I was sure would be cast off by the judges. But no dice. The final round came down to myself and a young man from London. This time we had 10 minutes to finish our fly, and my rival struggled for several minutes just threading his bobbin. I cranked out a simple summer steelhead fly, stripping and hackling the tip of a blue-dyed ostrich plume to radical effect.

When it was all over, Bill presented me with the trophy, and Jon Bauer handed me a brand new Rogue reel.

Let the teasing begin…
-RR

Smallmouth Bass Clouser Minnow

Smallies are a non native gamefish brought to Oregon by officials and anglers who longed for the kind of fishing they had experienced East of the Rockies. Today, these fish have established a permanent foothold in places like the John Day, Umpqua, and Willamette, to mention but a few. Smallmouth bass are one of the key species on the radar of many Oregon Anglers, some of who spend ten times on chasing smallies and bucketmouth than I could ever imagine in my most obsessive salmon and steelhead fever. Continue reading →