Clouser troubles

[monkey93 0]

i have read a lot about clousers being suggested and have never tried one or even heard of one until my first post and was wondering what your suggested method for fishing a clouser minnow was :help:

[JSzymczyk 0]

what your suggested method for fishing a clouser minnow was :help:

 

Tie it to your leader, and get it in the water.

 

Not trying to be a smart-a$$. There is really no wrong way to do it. Most folks will automatically say "try to make it act like a minnow" which is of course true. Most folks with some experience will also say they've caught fish with them while dead-drifting, twitching, slow-stripping, fast-stripping, letting it fall in still water with no action, even picking it up out of the water getting ready to make a new cast .

 

You've got to try different things until you find what works. Then in the next place or the next day, something else might work better.

[Houdini 0]

Weighted flies can be a challenge to cast. The "duck and chuck" method is recommended. Aside from that, the design of the fly was intended to imitate a minnow - swimming and diving down towards the bottom on the pause when stripping back in. But as mentioned, that doesn't seem to stop fish from hitting it about any time it's in the water.

[Hairstacker 0]

Another 2 cents:

 

I mostly use them to fly fish for largemouth bass and this is my approach:

 

I tie them with small lead dumbbell eyes to make them relatively lighter and, I believe, more versatile as I can fish them shallower when need be. For example, it's possible to fish over a shallow flat and keep it from getting gunked up by weeds by retrieving it just a few inches below the surface by stripping line relatively rapidly, give it a darting motion with each strip, A plus is that, because it's being fished so shallow, I often see the hit.

 

On the other hand, if I'm tossing to the edge of a weedline or bed, I usually cast it to the edge and let it sink for as long as the leader length and water depth will allow to give any bass suspended there a chance to wallop it on the drop before beginning any retrieve. If no takers, I then strip it back in an erratic motion with significant pauses every few strips.

 

Depending on the specific piece of water I'm fishing, I will also sometimes experiment with fishing it at different dephs to see what works.

 

In the winter with cold water conditions, I try to fish it relatively slowly with very pregnant pauses every couple of strips. I try to keep the fly in the strike zone as long as possible using these pauses. I found the fish will usually hit the fly while it's paused so it's very important to maintain good line control (at all times actually but particularly so when utilizing pauses).

 

Good luck!

 

Mike

[flytire 0]

its a jig. make it work like a jig.

[Hairstacker 0]

its a jig. make it work like a jig.

 

I respectfully beg to disagree . . . . Your typical conventional bass jig weighs between 1/4 oz. - 1/2 oz., whereas a Clouser tied with small dumbbell eyes weighs less than 1/30 of an ounce. Thus, a 4-inch Clouser tied with small dumbbell eyes simply won't fish like a jig. The Clouser will descend much slower and will have a different orientation in the water column. I believe the Clouser is more versatile as to where and how you can use it.

 

-- Mike

[peregrines 0]

If you're new to FF, you might want to start out with lightly weighted ones using bead chain instead of lead dumbells for eyes. Heavy ones can be a bit of a bear to cast. I'd also suggest you wear a hat and pinch the barbs down. It's not uncommon to get whacked in the back of the head--- not that you need a helmet, but they do smart. Heavily weighted ones can also shatter graphite rods if they bang into the blank if your casting is little off, windy.

 

The retrieve is usually a strip pause strip strip pause kind of deal. with the clouser angling down on the pause and then darting up on the strip. They're very effective and hard to fish wrong. One way to do it is cast out, and count mississippi's or hippopotomussessessesses before beginning the retrieve, fishing shallow at first and working your way deeper until you catch fish or start getting to know where the bottom is, and adjusting your count to fish just above it. It's a good way to fish different depths until you find where the fish are holding. I finally learned to do this after casting for a long time and not catching. After casting "one last time" to the same place I'd been throwing for awhile, I started to reel in line to pack it in and go home instead of stripping in the fly right away. Needless to say. I came tight to a fish (striped bass about 15 pounds) that had whacked the fly. It was just a question of getting a bit deeper, the fish were there all along.

 

It's a an easy tie, and a very versatile pattern for just about everything that swims.

 

Good luck

 

peregrines

[monkey93 0]

thanks ill have to try that and see what happens, but i have never fishied one before so i was just trying to get an idea of presentation methods