First attempt at a Clouser

[jonathan creason 0]

This is my first trying at tying the famous Clouser minnow. I tried to remember to keep it sparse, but it looks like I might need to shorten things up a little. This one is tied on a size 8 3XL Mustad.

 

[jonathan creason 0]

And this one is take 5 or so.

 

[tidewaterfly 0]

Not bad for your first attempts! You can shorten them some, but IMO your proportions are not bad either. I like some of mine to be a little long, and generally like the hook point to be about 1/3 the way back, which is about what you have, particularly those I'll use for bass or Striped Bass.

 

One small point. For some reason everyone wants to bind that belly hair against the barbell eyes on the front side. That's not how Bob Clouser ties them. (Check his book, "Clousers Flies". There's a great pic on the front cover!) Here's a pic of a couple I've tied. Notice the belly hair is not bound on the front side of the eyes, right against the eyes. This is a small detail, but provides a different profile & movement to the fly. My flies here were not finished when I took this pic, as the head would get a coating of epoxy & the small gap formed by that belly hair would be filled with epoxy also. BTW, these are tied on a size 1 plastic worm hook.

[JC Hoppaire 0]

Here's a link to Bob Clouser tying his Clouser Minnow:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0gX83J1Kvg

[streamcaddis 0]

They look great to me, fish em!. Take those bad boys out and fish them!. When I tie my Clousers I put some flash along the hook and add a mylar sliver or gold body along the shank before I add the bucktail.

[jonathan creason 0]

Thanks everyone. Especially for that video, it explains some of the issues I was having.

[Li'lDave 0]

I wish my first clousers looked that good!

[Philly 0]

Those will catch fish. Much better than my first attempts thought I was tying Clousers right for about 5 years until Bob Clouser did a presentation at a meeting of my freshwater fly fishing club and I had a chance to watch him tie a Clouser minnow and ask him some questions on how to tie them. Turned out I had been tying what amounted to buck tail jigs rather than Clouser minnows. Here's a couple of different takes on how I tie them now.

 

 

 

The one thing that he emphasized was that the fly was sparsely tied. I also tie them using clear mono which allows the separation of colors to show through.

[RCFetter 0]

Take 5 looks really nice.

[jonathan creason 0]

Thanks for the help, everyone. Still working on them, and hope to be able to test them out on some bucketmouths soon. The video helped me with several issues. Here's my most recent attempt.

 

 

 

[Fisherboy0301 0]

You used too much pressure on the thread, which caused the hair to splay out, this will probably still work, just with a fatter profile than a clouser.

[jonathan creason 0]

Gotcha, I appreciate the pointer.

[jonathan creason 0]

Last one for today, I swear.

[JSzymczyk 0]

You used too much pressure on the thread, which caused the hair to splay out, this will probably still work, just with a fatter profile than a clouser.

 

 

That is not a symptom of too much pressure on the thread- it is the wrong hair. It is "hollow" hair from either 1) close to the base of the tail, or 2) a bad quality tail. By bad quality, I mean bad for this type of fly.

 

Also, and it is a small detail which probably doesn't matter, in his book, and in person, Bob showed me to wrap the belly hair along the hook shank with widely spaced turns of thread back and then forward again; just as you've done on your "splayed" white minnow.

 

This further narrows the profile. I tie mine this way, in batches. For instance if I want to tie 5 with chartreuse top and white belly, I do the eyes first, then all of the white bellies. I coat the thread wraps and bucktail along the shank with SH so it doesn't come apart if a tooth cuts one turn of thread. Let it dry then do the flash and top bucktail.