My first clousers

[pie314]

[/IMG]I have recently just started tying my own flies. I started off with a wolly bugger and now onto the clouser minnow. This is the best one so far. Any advice or comments are welcome as i am always trying to get better.


Brian

 

[kelkay]

Hard to tell a little from the photo. Your bucktail is flaring on you. Use the top two thirds of the tail. The bottom third will flare on you. I would not use quite that much material. For just starting out, they look really good. Keep it up. I always use Sally's Hard As Nails for covering the threads. I couldn't tell if you used head cement or not. Overall you did a fine job.

 

[Jimmie]

Looks good for first Clousers. Keep in mind the barbell eyes flip the hook point up so the material that you have tied in the bottom (in the picture) will represent the top of a bait fish. You may want the length balanced with what you tied on top. Another trick is to take it out of the vise until you center the material over the hook bend.
Good job.

 

[lancer09]

I would say tie with a little less material but overall very good looking and should fish well.

 

[Rip Tide]

Lefty says that the material on a Clouser (proper name, capital C) deep minnow "should be no more than the thickness of a barn burner match"

I tie mine with all the material tied in below the shank. Bucktail tied in on top will quickly wear off if the fly drags through sand and gravel. Not true to the original recipe, it just works better for me.

 

[Frank Whiton]

Hi pie314,

A good attempt for your first Clousers. There are two distinct features of the Clouser Minnow.

1. The profile is narrow like a bait fish.

2. The flash along the sides goes all the way to the end and is the longest part of the fly.

Take a look at the photo below and you will see both of these features in his Clouser Minnow. Also note there is no flaring of the top or bottom.

Frank

Clouser Original Minnow from his site.

 

[pie314]

Thanks for the tips guys. Im having a tough time working with the buck tail. Not sure if i got a bad piece or if i just need to stick more towards the tip when selecting pieces. Now i can see that im using too much material.

Frank, I was tought to only tye 2 pieces of flash in between the top and bottom pieces of bucktail. Should i use more? Also, should i tye the flash in on both "sides" of the fly, or just one bigger piece in between the top and bottom pieces of bucktail?


Thanks,
Brian

 

[BigCliff]

Hard to tell a little from the photo. Your bucktail is flaring on you. Use the top two thirds of the tail. The bottom third will flare on you.

One thing I like to do that makes this very easy is to break the top 1/3-1/2 off of a bucktail when I first start using it. Fold it back and forth a few times and it should break or tear off fairly easily. That allows you easy access to where the hairs attach to the hide and its easier to work your way up that way.

It also allows you to keep many colors of bucktail handy in a smaller storage space and keep the remainder of each tail elsewhere as "back-stock".

Use the pic Frank posted as your model for proportions. Thats the original and most productive.

 

[MrEsox]

these are one of my fav flies. I tie a lot of them from. I use size 8 up to 5/0 hooks. I drop just about any material that you could find on them. From panfish to pike I do very well with them. I like urz, only I find such work great for pan fish (on a small hook). If you are interested their is a how to book by Clouser himself. I got it and have picked up a lot of little things Im bringing over to other flies. Lastly one little tip. If your using deer body hair your going to get a spread out look. Also knows as spinning hair, the hallow shafts dont work as well. If your using nothing but tail hair it will lie better on the hook. I often times will tie back a little ways to give it that narrower look. :shades:

 

[FrankB2]

Hmmmm....While bucktail won't spin, it will flair if too much tension is applied at the tip end. I tie in the buck tail tightly at the butt ends, and then wrap more loosely as I move toward the tips. Once you've wrapped your thread toward the tips of the hair, you can begin to tighten the wraps as you move back toward the hook eye.

Here's a video of Bob himself tying a Clouser:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUujQVZTf_g&feature=related]YouTube - BOD CLOUSER - MINNOW 2[/ame]

Note the small amount of thread tension he uses behind the dumbell eyes. I use beadchain eyes on my Clousers, and fish them mostly for smallmouth. I use very little hair compared to some other Clousers I've seen, and Bob once told me that if he tied the Clousers he sells in the store as sparse as those he ties for his own fishing, they'd never sell. I use about 4-6 strands of gold or rainbow flashabou, doubled over when tied in. In the video, Bob uses epoxy to secure the eyes and bucktail, but minve stay together well enough for the 12-16" smallmouth I catch.

 

[Guest1]

I use clousers more than any other fly, so therefore I tie a pile of them. One of the things I do is avoid bucktails that have fat curly bases on the base of the hair. Pick bucktails that have long, thin and straight hairs. When I do the hair on top, I get enough turns to hold it in place and apply head cement. Then finish the head. This drives the cement into the hair and helps keep it from being pulled out by fish hitting it and general abuse. Then before I put the cement on the head, I take the thread and do a few wraps on the body of the fly so all the hair is coming back flat from the head. (Temporary wraps just to hold the hair down, these are removed later) Then apply the head cement past the head and into the hair as well. This along with the wraps on the body will help keep the flair effect to a minimum. If it still flairs a bit, train the hair by holding it head up in the hottest water your fingers can stand. While it is wet and shaped like you want it, put it in a folded paper towel and put something flat on it to hold it in place till it dries. The shape you get from this will be permanent. Do these 3 things, right hair choice, wraps on the body when you put head cement on and train it with hot water and your clousers will come out with a perfect minnow shape every time. I did not use step 3 in the photo. If I had it would have come to a point in the end.

 

[kelkay]

Beautiful Clouser. What kind of hook, and size of hook are you using?

 

[Guest1]

Beautiful Clouser. What kind of hook, and size of hook are you using?

I used to use a Mustad 3665A #4 or TMC 300 #4. But where I fish most is really snaggy. I was loosing flies all the time. So I started to use an Aberdeen size 2. I take it and put the eye in my vise and bend it down. Then take it out and tie the fly. The wire in the Aberdeen hooks is soft enough to bend out with as light as 8 lb line. It is strong enough though to land really big fish on. I landed a 42 1/2" Northern on one this spring. I have not lost a fish yet to it bending out while I was fighting it. It has saved me a ton of flies though. I think the only way I loose one now is getting it snagged by the eyes.