Superfly: A how-to guide for catching fall fish

Reporter Patrick Cross shares his secret recipe for a fall-time delicacy (for the fish that is.) Read on to see the construction of the Tail Gunner Bugger.

Big trout don’t get big just by eating tiny mayflies; much of their protein comes from other fish.  Their menu may include small “forage fish,” species like minnows, sculpins and dace, in addition to young fish of their own kind.  They also tend to eat more fish in the fall, not only to stockpile nutrition for the oncoming winter but also because of instinctual aggressiveness during fall spawning.  Fly fishermen often imitate this fish food using large sinking flies, called streamers, like the Woolly Bugger, the Zonker or the Tail Gunner Bugger, featured in this week’s Kaimin Outdoors.

This streamer incorporates a double-hook design, increasingly popular in West Coast steelhead flies but still rare in Rocky Mountain trout flies, to give the fly’s tail a little extra shake and increase the chances of hooking a tail-chasing fish. The color pattern is meant to imitate a baby brown trout, but the fly has also been effective in waters with only cutthroat or golden trout.  Cast it into and strip it out from an undercut bank on Rock Creek, pull it across a riffle just under the surface of the Bitterroot or let it swirl around behind a boulder in the Big Blackfoot, and perhaps the Tail Gunner Bugger will catch one of those big trout.

RECIPE
HOOKS: #12 dry fly hook and #10 streamer hook
JOINT: barrel swivel
TAIL: brown marabou (#12 hook) / yellow and brown marabou (#10 hook)
BODY: brown marabou (#12 hook) / brown chenille (#10 hook)
LEGS: yellow rubber
EYE: dumbbell weighted eyes

STEP 1: Before placing the #12 hook in the vice, slide one end of the barrel swivel around the hook and up to the eye, which should be thick enough to not pass through the swivel. Tie the swivel to the top of the hook. Next, tie a brown marabou tail like that of a Woolly Bugger, then wrap the thicker lower part of the marabou around the rest of the hook shank up to the eye.  Place a few tight wraps of thread over the marabou-wrapped part of the hook and tie it off.

STEP 2: Now there should be what looks like a mini Woolly Bugger with an appendage extending from its head (the swivel). Slide this end of the swivel around the #10 hook. Place this hook in the vice, and secure the swivel at the bend in the hook. Next, about halfway up the hook shank, tie two pieces of one-inch long yellow rubber leg on either side of the hook, attached in the middle of the leg and parallel to the hook shank. At first this will resemble the X-style legs found on some dry flies, but then pull the two forward legs back toward the tail and secure them by wrapping the thread on top of the wraps attaching the legs to the hook.

STEP 3: Tie another Woolly Bugger-like marabou tail (this one two-tone) at the back of the hook covering the swivel. The TOP half of this tail should be yellow marabou and the BOTTOM half should be brown.  The yellow imitates the belly of a brown trout, but it is tied on top because the swivel apparatus and weighted eyes cause the fly to swim upside down. Next, tie on the chenille in the back of the hook and the dumbbell eyes in the front, leaving enough room between the dumbbell and the eye of the hook for a twist of chenille. Wrap the chenille up the hook shank to form the body, carefully adjusting the rubber legs to extend perpendicularly from the hook shank to imitate a fish’s pectoral fins.  Wrap more chenille around the dumbbell, making sure the top, bottom and front are covered, and tie off the chenille and the final knot behind the dumbbell.