streamer White-Belly Matuka: a parr-marked brown-trout streamer with enhanced action from a reverse-tied mini-marabou wing and belly feather

[troutracker 0]

 

Photograph 1. A white belly matuka tied with a single reverse-tied wing and belly feather. The fly shown is about 2.25 inches (57 mm) long

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Video of tying a White Belly Matuka is posted on Youtube. 

A video of why the White Belly matuka was developed and how it is tied is posted on YouTube: youtu.be/nLCGD9ombPQ 

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Development of the White Belly Matuka

The White-Belly Matuka was developed for fishing the upper Arkansas River in Colorado whose preyfish are mostly baby or fingerling brown trout. The classic Matuka pattern is redesigned for this role by adding a belly feather to fill in the body and increase the motility of the fly. In white belly design, the over-the-top wired-down wing feathers of the classic Matuka are given increased action by tying in one or two reversed-tied olive grizzly marabou feathers, that is, tied in with their quill end towards the rear of the hook. One or two reverse-tied white mini-marabou feather are also tied in under the hook adding a belly to the fly. These reverse tied feathers flow in the water giving the fly an animated look and allowing it to swim much like a prey fish. The Matuka tail is made to be more freely moving by using one or two soft-hackle dyed-olive grizzly-marabou feathers that can impart a swimming action when the fly is fished appropriately. While increasing the movey action of the fly, these changes also act to flesh out the classic matuka’s slender-minnow look into a fuller football shaped body more like that of a brown trout fingerling. Amber-colored barred silicone leg material maybe added to the sides of the fly to suggest lateral lines but also act to impart an additional source of movement. 

The final touch is adding parr marks on a baby brown trout design. Including parr marks on baby brown trout flies is important on the upper Arkansas River because it is managed as a wild-trout fishery and therefore has all age classes present. Parr marks are associated with young wild-trout because most stocked trout are older and have already lost them when put in a river or lake. Further, stocked trout are usually slimmer and paler in colored markings and more silvery overall, than a comparable wild-bred brown-trout which can be densely spotted and barred as well as brightly colored. While there are many baby brown trout designs out there most do not include parr marks—and are seemingly adapted from the look of a stocked brown-trout. In the White Belly matuka, the 7 to 9 major parr marks on the yellowish sides on wild trout fingerlings are represented by the dark-barring seen on the yellowish field of a golden-olive grizzly feather tied in along both sides of the fly.

By Fall, fingerling trout, depending on nutrient availability, genetic factors and so forth, have grown to a several inches in length-- setting a target length of single hook fly pattern of around two inches including the tail or articulating a doubled pattern to make a 2.5 to 3 inch inch fly. Like others, I have found that on smaller rivers, like the Upper Arkansas, the trout often respond well to these smaller, often single hook streamers in the 2-3 inch range but, like frequently observed, there are no rules only generalizations in terms of what trout like.

Fishing the White belly Matuka

Of course, there are many ways for a trout to approach a fly and strike it. But in my experience there are two general approaches that trout use: the first one is to come up directly behind and attack from the rear of the fish --where all fish have a blind spot (for an example, see youtu.be/DD_p5oC7XpU). From the directly behind point of view, I think its the swimming motion of the fly is key in luring the trout to bite. The second way trout approach prey is a flank or broadside attack where my thinking is that flank shape coloration and markings are increasingly important to making the fish bite. The flank approach is mostly seen in attacking trout that are ambushing the preyfish from, say, an undercut bank, rolling up and over from, say, a river bottom lie, or in the case of the upper Arkansas River, waiting in soft water commonly found near the rip-rapped riverbanks that are commonly found along the river. In the rivers I fish, the flank approach and assault from a near-bank lie is the most common strike that I see. However, to cover both types of approaches you want to fish a motile fly made with the expected flank look over a range of retrieves from dead drift to active-erratic to swing until you find out what is triggering trout that day. In any case, the parr marks are distinctive flank markings on baby brown trout flies that often trigger strikes from the large cannibal trout in the upper Arkansas River.

White-Belly Matuka Recipe-- Baby Brown Trout Variant

General notes:

1. A rotary vice has an advantage when tying this fly. The rotary action makes it easy to flip the fly back and forth to view and properly place the wing and belly feather on the centerline of the top and bottom of the hook shank, respectively. The rotary action also allows the tier inspect the far side of the fly when the wing and body binding wire is spiraled forward to avoid both rolling the feathers around the fly and tying down too many feather barbs.

2. The white belly matuka is thought of as enhanced animation design-concept whose body form and length as well as coloration should be adapted to the local preyfish in your area.

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Hook: Gamakatsu B10 in size 1 or 2: Or other wide gap, streamer length, stinger style hook. In any case, use a wide gap hook to assure the hook point is well clear of the fly body and belly feather(s).

Weight: 6mm black Brass cone. The weight is needed to get the buoyant marabou to sink quickly for immediate retrieve. If needed, the weight of the conehead maybe supplemented by using a heavy backer bead

Backer bead: a bead placed behind the cone to center the cone and when firmly tied in and glued with UV-setting adhesive to lock the assembly on the hook shank. Use a 3-4mm, round bead with a hole large enough to thread on the hook yet small enough to slip inside the countersunk conehead. in order of increasing additional added weight to fly, the bead can be 8/0 plastic or glass, 4mm brass, or 4mm tungsten. Zap-a-gap superglue can also be used in this application but when applied in thick layers can take a while to set. 

Thread: Nanosilk: 50D in olive color. The heavier thread is used so that it can be firmly pulled on when winding the chenille body to the cinch it tightly to the hook shank. The thread is tied in behind backer bead and used to build up the thread base there to lock cone and backer bead in place behind eye of the hook. Add enough UV-setting glue to fill end of cone and harden it there with your UV light. Then put a single layer thread base over the hook shank ending up at the rear of the hook shank so that the tail can be tied in.

Tail: The tail is done in the classic Matuka style but uses one or two grizzly marabou dyed sculpin olive feathers-- that when stripped of the downy barbs and tied in at hook top of the hook bend so that the vane of the feather can extend out the rear of the fly far enough to double the length of the fly. For example, on a size two B10 hook, tie in the tail so that the overall length of fly pattern 2 – 2.5 inches (50-65mm). 

Ribbing wire: Small or brassie size (0.1 to 0.2mm) silver wire. Tied in at rear of hook shank just ahead of the tail

Body: Petite Estatz pearl or medium Cactus chenille pearl (both are about the same diameter). The barbs of this type of chenille is thought to help hold the feathers in position as the wire is wrapped over them. The chenille is tied in at rear of hook shank and tightly spiraled forward to back of conehead. As you wind forward, every few turns pull on the chenille to assure that it is firmly wound to make it a tight body for the wing and belly feathers to attach to. When the chenille reaches the rear of the conehead firmly tie it off with several wraps of thread and cut off chenille tag end. Return the thread back to the rear of the hook shank while weaving the thread back and forth through the chenille to reduce the tie down of the chenille barbs.

Rear bridge tuft: A small stack of sculpin-olive grizzly marabou barbs tied in on top of the hook bend to close gap between tail and wing. Only needed if the stripped grizzly marabou tail feathers are too short or sparse to close this gap by themselves. Lately, I have had a hard time finding feathers long enough to form the tail and wing with one feather. So I have taken to tying a tail feather and wing feather and, if needed, filling in the gap between them with a bridge tuft.

Wing feather: Select a sculpin-olive or olive grizzly marabou feather that has a long enough strip of long barbs that it can span the entire chenille body. Strip this quill of downy barbs and the short barbs side of the feather and then tied in reverse at the rear of the hook shank-- that is with the quill heading out over the rear of the hook shank. If the wing feathers available are not thick enough, I may tie in a second prepared wing feather. But keep in mind that further overdressing the wings, belly and tail feathers can inhibit their swimming motion in water.

Belly feather: White mini-marabou, sometimes called by the trademarked name, chickabou. Select a long-barbed feather that, after being stripped of the downy barbs, is wide enough to span the across the entire hook shank from the hook bend to the rear of the cone. Inspect the feather and strip off the side of the feather with the shorter barbs to make a half feather still on the quill. This half feather is tied in with thread under the hook shank at the hook bend and also-- reversed-- with the feather quill out to the rear. Now, return the thread to the front of the hook shank while weaving the thread back and forth through the chenille to reduce the tie down of the chenille barbs

Spiral ribbing wire forward from hook bend to behind cone head. Make about 4 or 5 turns through both the wing and belly fibers tightening the wire after each turn to cinch down the feathers to the chenille body.

Front bridge tuft: A small stack of sculpin-olive grizzly marabou barbs tied in on top of the hook bend to close gap between the conehead and wing. Again the tuft is added only if the stripped grizzly marabou tail feathers are too short or sparse to close this gap by themselves.

Parr marks: The tip of a golden-olive dyed grizzly feather on each side of the hook shank. The feather shaft is centered along the hook shank and the tip of the feather extends out to near the hook bend. Note that the point where the feather is tied into the head of the fly must be near the diameter of the body or else the feather will flare out when tied in.

Sidebars: Mobile elements tied in just behind conehead and extending to just past hook bend. Lateral line: 1) Amber colored silicone legging material with black barring; and, 2) Flank flash: I add in one strip of 1/32” holographic silver flashabou or mylar pearl tinsel to suggest the silvery flashes seen in the clips of the feeding forage fish shown in White Belly Matuka YouTube tying video.

Collar: Dark olive ice dubbing spun on a waxed portion of the thread. The dubbed collar fills the gap between the rear of the cone and the chenille body. Whip finish just behind the rear of the cone and allow the thread to slide in under the cone and the collar dubbing.

 

Optional Articulation: Tie the lead fly on a Gamakatsu B10 size 2-4 hook and the trailing fly on a MFC ring eye hook in size 4-6. Add skirts instead of tail on the lead fly. See general articulation procedures outlined in the Kelly Galloup videos: youtu.be/gQvQ6OwTCrg & youtu.be/PFJ5PhVLU48

[partsman 0]

Very cool trouttracker, thanks for posting.

Mike.

[chugbug27 0]

+1

[WWKimba 0]

👍👍

[niveker 0]

Nice work.  

[MuskyFlyGuy 0]

Very clear and thorough instructions. I’m going to try and tie some for smallies. 

[Guest]

I must be wrong.  Matukas are feathered and Zonkers are the fur ones....

Oops marabou not fur...🙃. Obviously didn’t read it.  Incredible detail and ingenious.  Not enough of that lately.   Certainly better than copying from a book!    Sounds like a double Matuka; feather on bottom and top.  The top forming the tail?   Nifty idea, have to try that.  Mine won’t be nearly as complicated.   Similar deal with rabbit strips; zonkers...  Add the parr marks, side bars.😏

 

 

[troutracker 0]

22 hours ago, denduke said:

I must be wrong.  Matukas are feathered and Zonkers are the fur ones....

  Sounds like a double Matuka; feather on bottom and top.  The top forming the tail?  

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The Matuka picture shown is tied with a single feather on the top and a single feather on the bottom. These feathers are tied in reverse orientation from the classic matuka -- that is with the quill end of the feather lying out towards the tail.   This make the barbs stick out more and increases the animation of the fly.  As the Youtube video about the white belly shows  after the reversed feather is tied in, the remainder sticking out over the tail is cut off.  See how the fly is tied at:  youtu.be/nLCGD9ombPQ

I do tie them with double feathers if I want a  thicker barbs on the top and bottom of the body.    The top feather does not form the tail.    The  quill end of the tail feather is cut  off after it is tied in on the top of the hook  just  ahead of where the hook bend starts  down. 

 

 

 

22 hours ago, denduke said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[troutracker 0]

On 1/2/2023 at 6:28 PM, MuskyFlyGuy said:

Very clear and thorough instructions. I’m going to try and tie some for smallies. 

It will be interesting to see if the pattern can cross over to smallies.   Bass seem to like flies that have enhanced animation