MUD5. The Smelt Muddler Minnow Streamer Fly

SMELT BAITFISH
A 'Smelt' is the common name for a small, slender fish of the family Osmeridae, closely allied to the grayling of the family Salmonidae (Salmon family). Most species are saltwater fish, but some ascend freshwater streams to spawn and others are landlocked in lakes. The American smelt (or icefish), Osmerus mordax, averages 10 in. (25 cm) in length and 1 lb (.45 kg) in weight. It is valued for its delicious, fragrant flesh, although its feeding habits are destructive and sometimes cannibalistic. The candlefish (or eulachon), a smelt found from Oregon to Alaska, is named for the fact that it is so fat at spawning time that when dried and strung on a wick it can be burned as a primitive candle. In Alaska and NE Asia are found the northwestern smelt (or rainbow herring) and the pond smelt. 

The top smelt, Atherinops affinis, and jack smelt are Pacific silversides of the family Atherinidae, which belong to a different order. They are abundant in the warmer waters of the Atlantic and Pacific, and named for the silvery stripe on either side of the body. Silversides, known commercially as whitebait, eat insects and small crustaceans. The small (3 in./7.5 cm) tidewater silversides, Menidia menidia, is found along the Atlantic coast; the similar brook silversides is a freshwater species. Larger and better known is the California grunion (5–8 in./12.5–20 cm), which rides in on high tides to lay its eggs in the sand. Beached grunions are collected by hand in large quantities. Other Pacific silversides are the top smelts and jack smelts, important to California’s smelt fisheries. The mullets (family Mugilidae), blunt-nosed warm-water fishes of both oceans, are closely related to the silversides. Small schools of mullets frequent shallow waters, feeding on aquatic plants and on mud, which is ground up in the gizzardlike stomach. The striped mullet, Mugil cephalus, is quite common, a bluish fish that attains a weight of 1 lb (0.45 kg). Mullets are good food fish and are preyed upon heavily by larger carnivorous fishes. Silversides and mullets are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Osteichthyes, order Perciformes, families Antherinidae and Mugilidae, respectively. The deep-sea smelts, family Bathylagidae, are closely related to the true smelts. Deep-sea and true smelts are classified in the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Osteichthyes, order Clupeiformes, families Bathylagidae and Osmeridae, respectively.

MUDDLERS
A cockatush minnow, is a small bullheaded like Goby found in North America. The Wisconsin nickname for these little fish is ‘muddler’. Other names for the fish are ‘Sculpin’ or ‘Bullhead’. The fly designed by Don Grapen, of Gapen Fly Company, Anoka, Minnesota was called a 'muddler'. It was publicized in 'The Practical Fly Fisherman'  magazine in 1953. It was introduced into Britain in the 1960's by a British tackle shop owner called Tom Saville who promoted the pattern in Europe. It has been documented that Ludwig Moedler, a German immigrant to the USA in Victorian times used deer hair rotated around a fishing hook, trimmed to a circular shape to create streamer flies. This sounds very much like a muddler pattern to me. These has been some debate over who should really be credited as the original designer of this great bait fish imitation pattern. My vote goes with Ludwig.

The original Muddler has spawned a large number of variations that all have the clipped deer hair head. It is now used all around the world. The head is tied with natural deer hair and then clipped into shape. . The Buoyant deer hair keeps the Muddler off the bottom, so it can be fished at all depths. The hair is hollow and the trapped air makes it buoyant. Fish them as a wake fly when the weather is dull which is usually late in the season when the sedges can be seen skating on the surface. A Muddler striped across the waves can induce ferocious takes from trout which will follow it for yards. Tied in natural colors this type of pattern can prove effective. With a sinking line its buoyancy adds life to the fly. Towards the end of the season trout go on a feeding spree to build up strength for their annual orgy. More trout show cannibalistic tendencies at this time of the year than any other and eat trout fry (baby fish). These small fish congregate in areas that suit their needs like marginal weed beds or entrances to feeder streams. The streamer lure now comes into its own. These fry imitations flies are probably one of the leading Streamer Lures at this time. On large saltwaters a Muddler Minnow fished fast at the surface, in a big wave, is always worth trying in late summer as a brown sedge fly representation.

The Muddler Minnows are true great flies. They are often used as surface streamer/lures for sea-trout fishing at night. In breeze midsummer weather skip it across the surface to bring trout up for an attack. They are also useful for salmon in shallow water. When retrieving try to mimic the action of the local small fry. You can fish the Muddler at different depths. It is a great all-rounder. Fished slow and deep along the bottom can fool the fish into thinking it is an aggressive dragonfly nymph. Fish it with slow steady pulls, pausing between each pull. Study where your fish are feeding. Try the muddler on a slow sinking line retrieved at a slow pace just under the surface. This fly is now tied and used all over the world. There are many variations on the same basic pattern. 

The Muddlers are good imitations of a small sculpins. Many smallmouth bass rivers have large populations of sculpins. These creatures are bottom hugging minnows that live under stones in well aerated water. This means that smallmouths living below riffles often feed heavily on sculpins as the offer a substantial meal. Wade into a river just below a riffle and cast across and slightly downstream. Give your streamer time to sink and then strip the line to make your fly swim along the bottom a good six inches every five or so seconds. Make about six casts to the same location and make each one about four feet longer than the last. If you do not have any luck wade about three yards downstream and start the sequence again. This overlapping casting system enables the fly to be seen by nearly all the bass in front of you. A prime feeding location for bass is against a three foot deep shaded bank as this is where the sculpins like to live. Wade into the middle of the river and cast downstream tight against the bank. If you do not get an immediate strike move down stream about five foot. If you see minnows splashing through the shallows they are probably trying to evade predatory bass or trout. Smallmouths often patrol around gravel bars and grass beds on overcast days at dawn and dusk. Cast your fly about three feet in front of the minnow and to the side of the minnows. Aim to strip your streamer through the middle of the shoal in the hope of presenting it in front of the oncoming bass

SEA TROUT SURFACE FISHING WITH MUDDLERS
The Muddler can be used as a surface lure for sea trout night fishing on those warm summer evenings when you can still wear a T-shirt at 1am. Using a floating line and a square cast over slow water results in the buoyant fly creating a wake in the surface film. For some reason this wake traveling gently across the pool can be irresistible to Sea Trout and explosive takes can result.

STREAMER LURES
In Britain this type of fly is called a 'Lure'. Streamers (including hairwings/bucktails) represent various small fish, and are tied on long-shanked hooks. They may be tied as deceivers, imitations of local small baitfish or as vivid colorful attractors that suggest something alive, edible or a threat. The attractors are also designed to stimulate a predatory fish's aggression. They are usually a little heavier than the nymphs, and the wind resistance can vary depending on the particular fly. A streamer is tied with soft feathers, such as cock saddle hackles or marabou, and is intended for fishing in relatively small and calm waters. By contrast, bucktails are tied with hair wings instead of feathers - originally hair from a deer's tail, hence the name but also squirrel hair. They are more suitable for fishing in broad, fast waters.

Historically, streamers belong to the American east coast, while bucktails come from the west coast. All these flies are fished in the same way. It is both the easiest way of flyfishing, and the method that yields the biggest fish! This may sound paradoxical, but it isn't. There are two reasons: you can do nothing wrong with a big streamer or buck-tail, and the fact is that big fish prefer big flies. The nice thing about small fish compared with tiny insects and crustaceans is that, to a great extent, they can oppose the current. Being strong swimmers, they commonly dare to enter more open and rapid water As a result, the fly-fisherman can fish his flies almost anywhere he likes: up or down or across the stream, either fast or slow. The fly will be equally attractive in all cases, and you need not worry about whether the fly will drag. Really large fish have long ago given up eating small insects in favor of more substantial young fish. Otherwise they would never have reached the size that makes them so desirable to us!

Trout are the commonest guests of our fly rods when we fish with streamers and bucktails. Grayling prefer insects and other small creatures, although this does not prevent large grayling from occasionally taking a small streamer When it comes to trout, one can get the feeling that not even the largest streamer is large enough. The great majority of small fish in flowing waters are definite bottom-dwellers. They not only live on the bottom, but actually spend most of their time resting on it. All this means that the flyfisherman's long-shanked flies should be fished as deep as possible. You can fish rather daringly with these big flies: fast or slow, upstream or downstream. There are unimagined possibilities of variation, in contrast to the usual fishing with wet flies or nymphs. It is more than a matter of using your imagination. If the fish does not take a freely drifting streamer, try instead taking home the line very quickly. Make your fly look like a darting small fish. Now and then you can even "awaken" a lazy trout by letting the fly splash down right on top of its head. One must admit that this is not an elegant manner of flyfishing, but it can be extraordinarily productive.

Trout are aggressive fish that defend individual territories in the stream. They are aggressive all year round, but this behavior becomes ever more apparent as the spawning time approaches and they defend their territory with fury against any intruder. The fly fisherman can take advantage of this situation when the fishing season is coming to an end and the trout's spawning time arrives. Then the fish may be hard to attract with ordinary imitation deceiver flies since, having feasted all summer, they are less interested in food and increasingly concerned with spawning. It is then time to serve a big, colorful attractor streamer or buck-tail - a fly whose size and hue can, by themselves, give the fish an impression that some possible rival is encroaching on its territory. This method of fishing can be pretty exciting. It is important to have a good knowledge of the locality, so that you know exactly where the fish are holding. You have to seek them out with streamers and bucktails of large size, and present the fly right in front of them repeatedly until they react. Often nothing happens on the first cast, so you must continue stubbornly. For the more glimpses the fish gets of the fly, the more irritated it becomes. Finally it cannot endure the temptation and tries to chase away the fly.

At first you frequently feel only a strong blow against the fly, without hooking the fish. The fly has thus only been hit, not taken in the fish's mouth. Yet there is a good chance that one of the following casts will result in a solid strike by what may be the season's largest trout. In any case, such fishing is fascinating once the quarry has been aroused. In Alaska and British Columbia, every year sees a rather special kind of streamer fishing for large rainbow trout and Arctic char. It takes place when extensive schools of baby salmon smolt, which emerge from lakes upstream in the water system, begin their migration downstream toward the Pacific Ocean. The trout and char gather at the outlets of lakes to feast on the young salmon. If you stumble upon such a smolt migration, you are sure to have exceptional fishing experiences for quite a while. Sparsely dressed streamers and bucktails are the only thing worth putting on your leader

Towards the end of the season trout go on a feeding spree to build up strength for their annual orgy. More trout show cannibalistic tendencies at this time of the year than any other and eat trout fry (baby fish). These small fish congregate in areas that suit their needs like marginal weed beds or entrances to feeder streams. The streamer lure now comes into its own. One of my favorite use of smaller streamers is the sport of trying to coax trout that lurk in deep plunge pools to rise up to the surface and take my presentation. They normally will not do so for a dry fly. It has to be a more substantial meal to be worth the effort. I try to imitate a small fish that has been temporally stunned as it swam over the waterfall and landed in the plunge pool. Cast your streamer as near to the waterfall as you can. Give it a few moments to sink and then begin the retrieve to imitate the fish recovering and quickly swimming away from it's vulnerable static location to safety. Using the same idea look for deep slow pools near where a stream is forced to drop suddenly due to a narrow rock channel. Small fish will be forced down with the strength of the current before they can quickly swim off to the relative safety of the bank. Drop your streamer into this current and let it sink. Then start you retrieve. Trout can be teased into chasing your streamer.

FISHING STREAMERS IN SPRING FLOOD CONDITIONS
There are two things that work in the fly fisher’s favor when fishing streams and rivers in flood in the spring. The first is that because there is so much fast moving water around the fish are not spooked by wading fly fishers. The second is that the fish are on the feed again after winter. In the early part of the season you have to select a fly which will make a trout think it is worth spending the energy to attack it. It is still very cold. Try to work out where the trout are holding up. Trout turn to eating small minnows when the water is in flood as it is hard for them to detect insects to eat. If the water is discolored tie on a dark colored streamer to lure the trout to an attack. There are a number of streamers you could try ranging from black zonkers, woolly buggers, matukas to black ghosts. Try sheltered area of the river first. Look for pockets of water that are not moving as fast as the main body of water. That is the best place to go hunting fish.

Normally I try the traditional down and across presentation when fishing with streamer lures. In flood conditions I like to try and imitate the minnow swimming upwards, pausing and going to the bottom again. I do this by using the tip of my fly rod and lifting the fly up about one meter (one yard) and then down on a streamer lure cast up stream. It looks like an easy meal to the hungry full size trout. When you get a strike you know about it and instantly get a set hook as the fish is biting on a rising hook on a tight line. In larger rivers I wade downstream slowly and fish down and across. I use a slow six inch retrieves on a fly line with a moderately fast sinking tip with a rate of about three to four inches a second. Remember always take care fishing water in flood. Wear proper wading boots and a life vest. There are too many fatalities each year. Don’t become the next statistic.

SEA TROUT
A Sea Trout is simply the migratory form of the brown trout. (Steelheads are migratory rainbow trout.). Lures and larger hook size wet flies are ideal for fishing Sea trout. The female sea trout lays her ova in October or November in the gravel river beds of fresh water streams. It is later fertilized by the males. She will lay about seven or eight hundred eggs for each pound of her weight. Only a small percentage will reach the small sea trout stage and even fewer will return to the river to spawn

The eggs hatch out into 'alevins' -small fish with the yoke-sacs still attached below their bellies. One of its greatest enemies at this stage is the Dragon fly larva. After a few weeks the fry become what is called 'sea trout parr'. They stay in freshwater for two to four years and then one spring their color turns to silver and they move down stream as a 'sea trout smolt' to the coastal waters of the estuary where they feed well and grow rapidly without moving from the coast.

The smolts grow and become what is called a 'finnock or whitling'. They return to their native rivers during the summer. Some spawn and some feed on the spilled ova of spawning salmon and sea trout. Finnocks return to the estuaries at various times during the year. From there they enter the saltwater sea.

Adult sea trout return to the river at any time from early summer to early winter. When the adult sea trout has spawned it is known as a 'kelt'. Most remain in freshwater until the spring when they return to the estuaries. Sea trout can live a long time and return year after year to the same rivers and streams of their youth

When fishing for salmon you will often catch sea trout. Sea Trout and Salmon differ subtly in behavior and sometimes different tactics are needed. Unlike salmon they feed after starting their spawning migration. They tend to take flies decisively and can be quick, even violent. Those that have been in a river for some time are very shy. On the first run into freshwater they may be easy to catch but only after a short while you may only be able to catch them after 10pm at night. At times a dry fly is effective for sea trout.

BLUEFISH AND STRIPED OR 'STRIPER' SEA BASS
A large Muddler Minnow is ideal for Bluefish and Striped bass fishing. Striped bass can be found in many costal waters from the St Lawrence River south to Northern Florida on America's Eastern Coast and from Washington to California on the Pacific Coast where they were introduced in the 1879. They swim far upstream in rivers to spawn. The stripped bass can be distinguished from the European Bass by the seven to eight dark strips running down its body. Stripers spend the winter semi dormant in river systems like the Hudson and Chesapeake Bay on the Atlantic Coast but when the sea temperature reaches 48 degrees F in the spring they become active and start to feed. The shoals migrate north up the coast and return in September/October. Big fish are caught deep in early winter, but in warmer places like Jamaica Bay they are still caught near the surface. In warm waters they can be fished for all year on the fly. They can feed in the roughest surf. You can see them chasing smaller bait fish along the beach until their backs come out of the water. You will also find them holding in estuaries, deep channels, and off jetties, piers or sand bars. 

Bass feed by trapping bait fish against a shoreline or by attacking them from deep below. Small fish are inhaled and larger bait fish are are grabbed head first and crushed. Stripers have a dangerous spiky dorsal fins so handle them by their lower lip. Stripped bass can grow up to 70lb. A bluefish feeding melee can bring up the bigger stripped bass 

Stripers can be temperamental compared to the Bluefish who are an aggressive formidable predator that have a full set of sharp teeth. They are found in the same habitat as stripers. The bass normally can be found feeding on Bluefish leftovers of dead and dying  fish after a feeding frenzy. If you are lucky you might witness one of these feeding blitz. They corral a shoal of baitfish into a big ball and then when the ball is surrounded they attack. 

I was lucky to witness this on my last trip to the States last September. I was fishing for stripers when all of a sudden the captain pointed to gulls swarming around an area of water that was turning white with fish breaking through the surface. 'Bass?' I asked him. 'No those are Bluefish on the feed, change your tippet for wire. Those things have very fast teeth'. I used a floating line with a chartreuse and white 2/0 Lefty's Deceiver attached to the wire tippet. The gulls must have thought Christmas had come early. They were eating as many fleeing bait fish as they could swallow. The noise was very, very loud.

We were told to cast into the center of the swirling mass of activity. I hooked almost immediately. Blue fish are very strong powerful fish. My first was a seven pounder and my second a 12 pounder. The Captain shouted at me to be very careful and use big pliers to extract the hook or end up in hospital with bluefish bite wounds. I must have caught over 12 of about the same size range that day. I had a fantastic days fishing. Later in the bar I found out that many of the locals looked down on bluefish as easy prey. I'm sorry I think they are a wonderful sporting fish. 

CUSTOMER'S COMMENTS
Hi Craig, greetings from America! This is a photo of a channel Catfish caught this morning 34 inch and 24 lbs. They like your Muddler Minnow Sreamers, please send more. The muddler is a very versatile fly indeed! Would you believe what we've done in that lake, after much expirimenting, is to finally decide that a muddler is the best, nearest approximation in all regards to a piece of floating pelletized fish food? This is what those catfish are keying on in that state catch and release lake. It's a small lake that has automated feeders out on it that go off a couple times daily. In meantimes, we go out in our float tubes and toss out some dog kibble, which also floats. The cats and big carp start rising just like trout as the wind carries the feed down the lake. We float along, pick out a good fish and work it just like a rising rainbow!! The muddler is the right color and it sits just right in the water, plus the catfish are able to inhale it easily. This was a big part of the problem for us in catching them this way. We've tried a few things since last year that they really would go after, but as they are not the best surface feeders, they would just flat out miss our bugs most of the time or just push alot of the foam things we had along with their noses. They were just too floaty. The muddlers have been the most successful so far to the point that I would say I'm done looking, I've found my catfish fly! It's great fun getting hauled around lake in your tube like a kid's cork until one can manage to get in and get your feet on the bottom and work them in. A great battle on the fly rod for sure! Steve Wagle, Omaha, Nebraska

CUSTOMER'S COMMENTS - The Ultimate Catfish Fly!
The muddler is a very versatile fly indeed! Would you believe what we've done in that lake, after much experimenting, is to finally decide that a muddler is the best, nearest approximation in all regards to a piece of floating pelletized fish food? This is what those catfish are keying on in that state catch and release lake. It's a small lake that has automated feeders out on it that go off a couple times daily. In meantimes, we go out in our float tubes and toss out some dog kibble, which also floats. The cats and big carp start rising just like trout as the wind carries the feed down the lake. We float along, pick out a good fish and work it just like a rising rainbow!! The muddler is the right color and it sits just right in the water, plus the catfish are able to inhale it easily. This was a big part of the problem for us in catching them this way. We've tried a few things since last year that they really would go after, but as they are not the best surface feeders, they would just flat out miss our bugs most of the time or just push alot of the foam things we had along with their noses. They were just too floaty. The muddlers have been the most successful so far to the point that I would say I'm done looking, I've found my catfish fly! It's great fun getting hauled around lake in your tube like a kid's cork until one can manage to get in and get your feet on the bottom and work them in. A great battle on the fly rod for sure! I hope those get here quick, catfish are very hard on my flies!

CUSTOMER'S COMMENTS
This is an e-mail we received from a customer Fred Laird, Virginia, USA "You will be pleased to hear that the maribou-muddlers and hoppers that I purchased from you produced excellent results on both large and smallmouth bass and some very large sunfish. Tight lines, Fred"

CUSTOMER'S COMMENTS
Whilst fishing some of South Florida's Intercostal waterways I was lucky enough to catch some baby tarpon, before they headed offshore to join spawning schools. It is ridiculous that they are still called babies when they can be nearly 50 lb. Your larger hook size Muddlers were the killers. I tried the minnow, olive marabou, white marabou and the black marabou. They all produced fish. Forget your tarpon flies. I'm sticking to your muddlers. I even had bass chasing the fly on the retrieve. Paul Carrier, Florida

CUSTOMER'S COMMENTS
Muddlers are in my top ten list of flies. Most of my fishing is on rivers and streams in Maine, USA. Occasionally I'll canoe a few ponds. Most noted are the rivers of Kennebec, Penobscot, Moose, Crooked, Rapid, Messalonskee, Kenebago, Grand Lake Stream, Magaloway, Dead River, Kenduskeag and Sebasticook. As always tight lines, Jeff Haresear

CUSTOMER'S COMMENT
This is one of the flies I use in September when the fry of many coarse fish species will have been building up weight as fast as they can throughout the summer. When they start to shoal they become a very tempting target. The trout force them up to the surface as they try to escape. They 'boil' up on the surface and seabirds can be seen picking up fry from the top of the water.  This is where I cast my streamers. John Wilson. Birmingham

You can e-mail us at fly.fishing@blueyonder.co.uk

The English Fly Fishing Shop, Estate and Country Sports Equipment Ltd,
5 Woodland Way, Morden, Surrey SM4 4DS, England (Established 1978)