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eborraga

First Clouser's

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I have only tied a few different flies, but it's been fun so far. Here are a couple Clouser's I tied last night. All comments and critique accepted

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Not bad at all and one of my favorite color combinations. Great job.

 

Clouser Tip: To keep your eyes consistent, try using a kinked shank popper hook like an Umpqua U504 or U505 and place the eyes in the notch.

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First, the critique ... "a couple" is two. If one of those is a model you copied ... you tied "a few". biggrin.png

 

Second, the praise ... those look as good as any I've tied. They're great flies for catching fish ... but I think they look weird. Thus, I think all Clousers look odd and tied properly !!!

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First, the critique ... "a couple" is two. If one of those is a model you copied ... you tied "a few". biggrin.png

 

Second, the praise ... those look as good as any I've tied. They're great flies for catching fish ... but I think they look weird. Thus, I think all Clousers look odd and tied properly !!!

I just tried to copy a youtube video by intheriffle. Tied all 3 last night. Only had 30 minutes to tie before I went to bed. Plan on tying more tonight in different color combo's

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Here's a video of bob clouser tying it

 

 

 

A couple things:

 

1. Your nose ties go all the way to the eye, take them only half way.

 

2. You've got too much bulk in the nose. Your bottom one is best but still bulky. Make sure to pinch the hair to get the amount you want at the tail end and remove all the shorter hairs from the nose end. Also you might also try clouser's method re pinching an oval shape of the hair (giving the hair a taller flat profile and resulting in a smoother transition at the nose) rather than the in the riffle flat circle method.

 

3. Your top two crowd the hook eye.

 

4. Try for consistent bulk. I know these can be tied in all different bulks, but pick one you like and aim for it. I like the proportions of white and green on your top one best.

 

5. Pinch vertically and pull up away from the hook with the hair as you wrap the thread down the shank, so the hair stays more in a line on that side and less as a round bunch surrounding the shank. Your bottom green does this best, the top green is wrapped too far around the shank. Your white is hard to tell from the pics.

 

6. What's with the crazy eyes? ;)

 

Here's a pic of one that I think gets the nose and proportions right, with a thinner shorter tie in at the nose, with good proportions of hair, with a tall skinny flat vertical profile, and with more evenly distributed hair from to back to front (removed the short hairs):

 

https://www.feather-craft.com/jf339-clouser-s-deep-minnow

 

(Click on the red and white one)

 

These are not criticisms but critique. Yours look good, and they'll work. Do fish them.

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I haven't tied a Clouser in probably 20 years but those look about as good as any I did tie. I used them schoolie striper fishing, which I don't do any more. I never liked Clousers, never enjoyed tying them ( probably because I didn't like the looks of the fly) never liked the look or casting them but the fish did like them. Your Clousers will catch fish too, it's a productive pattern for sure...

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Here's a video of bob clouser tying it

 

 

 

A couple things:

 

1. Your nose ties go all the way to the eye, take them only half way.

 

2. You've got too much bulk in the nose. Your bottom one is best but still bulky. Make sure to pinch the hair to get the amount you want at the tail end and remove all the shorter hairs from the nose end. Also you might also try clouser's method re pinching an oval shape of the hair (giving the hair a taller flat profile and resulting in a smoother transition at the nose) rather than the in the riffle flat circle method.

 

3. Your top two crowd the hook eye.

 

4. Try for consistent bulk. I know these can be tied in all different bulks, but pick one you like and aim for it. I like the proportions of white and green on your top one best.

 

5. Pinch vertically and pull up away from the hook with the hair as you wrap the thread down the shank, so the hair stays more in a line on that side and less as a round bunch surrounding the shank. Your bottom green does this best, the top green is wrapped too far around the shank. Your white is hard to tell from the pics.

 

6. What's with the crazy eyes? wink.png

 

Here's a pic of one that I think gets the nose and proportions right, with a thinner shorter tie in at the nose, with good proportions of hair, with a tall skinny flat vertical profile, and with more evenly distributed hair from to back to front (removed the short hairs):

 

https://www.feather-craft.com/jf339-clouser-s-deep-minnow

 

(Click on the red and white one)

 

These are not criticisms but critique. Yours look good, and they'll work. Do fish them.

Will do. Thanks for advice. Gonna tie some more tonight and will try what you suggest. And the crazy eyes. I'm thinking the clouser has had one to many!!!

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They look pretty good. At least you didn't make the mistake I did for many years of tying the eyes too close to the hook eye until I had a chance to watch and ask Bob Clouser questions at a fly fishing club meeting. One of the things Clouser told me was to divide the hook shank in thirds. If your hook shank is 30 mm long, you tie the eyes in 10 mm from the hook eye, the "belly" hair is wrapped to 20 mm point. I've seen a lot of folks wrap it down to the bend of the hook. I agree with chugbug27 that the nose is too bulky. Not sure about it being too close. When I'm tying them the tips of the hair are just behind the hook eye. As far as the bulk, two reasons. Too much thread, too much deer hair. The clouser minnow is a sparse fly. Bob Clouser suggests using between 10 and 15 pieces of deer hair when tying it. I've never tied mine that sparse. The other thing with the nose is that you've wrapped the hair down too close to the eye. You can see there's a space between the end of the wrap and the eye in the Feather Craft pictures. They'll catch fish as is just keep tying them. Here's one I tied up maybe last year.

 

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They look pretty good. At least you didn't make the mistake I did for many years of tying the eyes too close to the hook eye until I had a chance to watch and ask Bob Clouser questions at a fly fishing club meeting. One of the things Clouser told me was to divide the hook shank in thirds. If your hook shank is 30 mm long, you tie the eyes in 10 mm from the hook eye, the "belly" hair is wrapped to 20 mm point. I've seen a lot of folks wrap it down to the bend of the hook. I agree with chugbug27 that the nose is too bulky. Not sure about it being too close. When I'm tying them the tips of the hair are just behind the hook eye. As far as the bulk, two reasons. Too much thread, too much deer hair. The clouser minnow is a sparse fly. Bob Clouser suggests using between 10 and 15 pieces of deer hair when tying it. I've never tied mine that sparse. The other thing with the nose is that you've wrapped the hair down too close to the eye. You can see there's a space between the end of the wrap and the eye in the Feather Craft pictures. They'll catch fish as is just keep tying them. Here's one I tied up maybe last year.

 

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Philly that is one of the nicest looking Clousers I have seen and would pass for a sand eel easily. Or most any bait fish for that matter.

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Thanks, Dave. It's interesting that the fly was originally designed for smallmouth on the Susquehanna It's seems to be more popular among salt water fly fishers than fresh water fly fishers.

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Thanks for posting those. It's great seeing these legends tie their own flies.

 

Interesting tidbit - in the other video (and this) he divides hook into thirds and ties eyes at 1/3 mark, but as he explains on the vid you posted here he's using the whole hook to measure, not just the shank to the bend... so it's actually close to the 1/2 way mark on the shank.

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Thanks, Dave. It's interesting that the fly was originally designed for smallmouth on the Susquehanna It's seems to be more popular among salt water fly fishers than fresh water fly fishers.

I used to use them and also actual sand eel patterns in our local estuaries where the water runs from fresh to brackish to full salt. Intermediate line 8 wt rod. Sand eels in there are everywhere and so the fly of choice. But if the fish happened to be hanging near the bottom the clouser did the trick with the added weight of the eyes. Schoolie bass and sea run trout in there. Average fish ran around 20-25 inches, now and then you might get a 30-32" fish which here is over keeper size of 28" for the bass. Browns ran around 3-4lb or so back in the day. These days I think what there is of them are stockers.

 

Mostly the walk in accesses got wiped out in tidal surges ( dangerous now, least to me), that and recreational and commercial kayakers took over and litter the place all summer long now, so I stopped fishing the place as have most other guys I knew who fished it 20 years ago. Truth be known smallie fishing is more fun anyway as it turns out ! Those larger schoolies hit hard then you reel in what feels like a sack of potatoes. A good sized small mouth has more going on imo...

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Thanks, Dave. It's interesting that the fly was originally designed for smallmouth on the Susquehanna It's seems to be more popular among salt water fly fishers than fresh water fly fishers.

I would guess they're the most popular sub-surface smallmouth fly by a factor of two. (And I wouldn't be surprised if I were told that 2nd most popular sunken SMB fly was a Clouser Crayfish.)

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