The image is a screenshot from McFLy Angler – Fishing and Fly Tying (see video). The video shows the fly, called a Keeled Minnow Streamer, catches trouts, so it does work. But what is it? An alien mosquito, deformed minnow, a woman’s lapel brooch? It’s not a perfect mimic of anything.
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here’s a lot of unnecessary minutia in tying flies, or at least I think so. Too, for some of us, perfect mimics of a shrimp, crayfish, stonefly, or sand eel may be possible because our dexterity and brain functions are syncable, but maybe we’re not blessed with a need to have clock maker’s attentiveness to detail. And frankly, my experience has been “looks like” this and “looks like that” flies catch all the fish anyway, or at least that’s my experience over the course of a lifetime. But, hey, it wouldn’t bother one bit to have anyone disagree.
Examples of go-to flies that don’t look like anything except maybe a little like this and little like that would be Lefty’s Deceiver, Blessing’s Woolly Bugger, Bob Clouser’s minnow, Charles Smith’s Crazy Charlie, and Jack Gartside’s Gurgler.
Why not sustainable?
There are also many alternative materials when tying, but why use exotic furs and feathers that no one knows where they’ve come from. How could that pinch of rare, exotic hair or fur possibly make a brown trout, Atlantic salmon, peacock bass, or bonefish unable to resist even a bad cast?
Back to minutia
Even with rabbit fur, there are details worth paying attention to, like how to utilize its differences best. There is the width of the hide to consider, how the fur lies if cut across or with the natural flow positioning of fur hairs, where the strip was cut from, the length of the fur hairs, and of course, the color and even colors within a strip of rabbit fur.
Watch Intheriffle’s explanation of how to use and distinguish rabbit furs. You may decide it’s minutia, but for me knowing about zonker versus rabbit is casting a functioning fly or a swimless dud.
Featured Image is a release Lake Erie, Pennsylvania steelhead trout that bit on a looks like this and looks like that streamer fly. Image: Wikipedia Commons.
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