While certainly nothing new to the fly-tying world, thisvariation of Lefty's Deceiver and the Clouser Minnow hybrid, whenfished on a clear intermediate line, is extremely effective onfinicky stripers feeding in low-light conditions during the mulletrun.
Working this fly in a particular manner produces strikes fromlarge bass. A long cast into the foam and two short strips rightoff the bat often produce savage strikes in short order. However, abrief pause while maintaining good contact with the fly after thoseinitial strips sometimes mimics the action of a stunned anddisoriented mullet getting rolled around after a breaking swell.This pause allows the fly to get down to the feeding zone as well.Another two or three strips, and then pause again, continuing untilright at the boat. Unsure and weary stripers will often follow afly all the way to the boat before literally coming out of thewater to hammer it.
Here are nine easy steps to tying this fly:
1. Tie in 5/32-inch prepainted red Clouser eyes a quarter of theway down the shank of a 2/0 stainless-steel long-shank hook.
2. Tie in two 5-inch yellow saddle hackles (facing each other tocancel out the flare) behind the eyes.
3. Tie in two 5-inch yellow grizzly hackles outside the solidyellow hackles, again with the curve of the feather facinginward.
4. Tie in a generous clump of flashabou behind the feathers ontop of the hook shank (even when fished in low-light conditions,this stuff will reflect light).
5. Tie in a 2 1/2-inch clump of yak hair on top of the flashaboubehind the eyes.
6. Turn the fly over and tie in another 2 1/2 -inch clump on thebottom.
7. In front of the eyes, tie in another clump (2 inches) ofyellow yak hair.
8. Turn the fly over again and tie in a 1 1/2-inch clump ofyellow yak hair on the bottom.
9. Whip finish and secure with a good head cement.
