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Clouser Hook v. Eye Weight v. Bucktail Rule of Thumb

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Yep- that is true to the original design.

 

That said, I believe that both Lefty and Bob C would sometimes tie them with all material on the top of the fly. (Looking at the fly hook point up). The eye tied in the classic manner remains below the hook. (Top of the shank with hook in normal position, before inverting it and then tying all other materials in).


l think it was Bob Pop that said this, and I believe I've seen it in several other places - it is not the weight of the dumbell eye that makes the fly ride 'hook point up".  Its the buoyancy of the bucktail.  Tie a fly with far too much bucktail in the  'belly' and too little in the wing, and it won"t swim 'right' with any size eye.

"Life's too short to fish with ugly flies."
Cynoscion Regalis
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As to how the belly bucktail on a Deep Minnow is tied, I agree that the butts should not be tied back to the eyes. I've said that a few times in previous posts with pictures from the sbs in "Clouser's Flies". As to how the bucktail is tied down behind the eyes, it is tied all the way back to the eyes without any space being voluntarily left as done in front of the eyes as shown in these pictures and text from the sbs (page 36).

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For my testing I tied one Minnow with about one third of the belly bucktail tied over the eyes (top of the shank) as I wanted to cover the shank on that side and the rest on the bend side of the shank (with the flash and bucktail for the Minnow back), so 90% of the material of the fly was on that bend side. And that fly swam better most of the time but not all the time. And it was tied on an Eagle Claw L254 #1 hook that weighs 4.3 gr just 0.3 gr more than the bead chain eyes. Maybe having tied  all that belly bucktail on the bend side of the hook would have ensured that that particular fly swam hook point up all the time but I don't think that would be the case if that fly were tied on a heavier hook. For now I've suspended my "testing" until I can get my hands on stainless steel bead chain eyes.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2022-10-02 at 8:01 PM, C. Regalis said:

 


l think it was Bob Pop that said this, and I believe I've seen it in several other places - it is not the weight of the dumbell eye that makes the fly ride 'hook point up".  Its the buoyancy of the bucktail.  Tie a fly with far too much bucktail in the  'belly' and too little in the wing, and it won"t swim 'right' with any size eye.

So on a Mustad S71SNP #1 hook,  I tied on the bottom of the shank (bend side) all the material I use on a Brunette Hooker (and in the same sequence) but without the eye and tested it: it swam sideways or point down but never point up.

 

 Then I tested the same hook on which I tied a pair of Wapsi 3/16 bead chain eyes (these eyes are slightly heavier (by 0.5 grain) than that hook) on top of the shank where Clouser ties the eyes for a Deep Minnow but... no other material. And that swam point up each time.

 

And finally I dressed a Brunette Hooker on it the Clouser way, with all the belly material on top of the shank and tested it: it swam all right all the time.

 

For more on this, you can read "Clouser eyes" on the Fly Fishing Forum.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Suave
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  • 3 months later...

I just stumbled across this thread again- and I'm thinking of how the head is tied. 

 

I distinctly remember Bob C talking about leaving a space in front of the eyes and I have the book too.

 

Then just last night I found two videos of him demonstrating how to tie it - and he specifically wraps the bucktail all the way back to the dumbell eyes.

??

The only thing I can think of is the specific minnow profile he was looking for in the earliest development of the freshwater version vs durability?

"Life's too short to fish with ugly flies."
Cynoscion Regalis
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23 hours ago, C. Regalis said:

I just stumbled across this thread again- and I'm thinking of how the head is tied. 

 

I distinctly remember Bob C talking about leaving a space in front of the eyes and I have the book too.

 

Then just last night I found two videos of him demonstrating how to tie it - and he specifically wraps the bucktail all the way back to the dumbell eyes.

??

The only thing I can think of is the specific minnow profile he was looking for in the earliest development of the freshwater version vs durability?

Clouser gave a presentation to a club I belong to several years ago.  He offered to show anyone who had questions about his flies how to tie them before the presentation.  I had just started tying Clousers and wasn't having much luck fishing them.  He critiqued mine, commenting that I was tying nice bucktail jigs.  Basically I was tying the dumbbell eyes in right behind the eye.

Somewhere I have the pamphlet on how to tie a Clouser that I brought from him that night.  When he laid out the fly, he was very specific that the dumbbell eyes were tied in 1/3 the shank length behind the hook eye.  For example if the hook shank is 30 mm long the eyes were tied in 10 mm behind the eyes.  At the time he wrapped the bucktail down all the way to the eyes.   That may have changed, or it's just a variation of how to tie a Clouser Minnow.  After bringing the bucktail over the eyes he started wrapping just behind the eyes and wrapped another 1/3 of the shank length.  So the thread wraps cover 2/3 the length of the hook shank.  Not tied almost to the bend that I've seen on some clousers.   The other things that stood out was how sparse they were tied.  The bunch of bucktail should be the diameter of a pencil lead and the flash shouldn't extend more than a 1/4 of an inch beyond the end of the bucktail.  I tend to tie mine on longer shank hooks, so mine look a bit weird.

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Once again pictures from Clouser's 2006 book "Clouser's Flies".

 

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In all the sbs (each step with a picture ) for his eight minnow-type Clouser patterns, Clouser puts the thread one-third the hook shank lenght behind the hook eye (although he writes "in front of the hook eye". I wonder why that wasn't caught!). And in the sbs for the first one of these patterns, the Clouser Deep Minnow, he writes (p.35) this about the thread wraps to tie down the first bundle of bucktail ( that, by the way, should be, as he writes (p.34) "about half thickness of a wooden pencil"), the first wrap being "half-way between the metallic eyes and the hook eye" : "Do not wrap back to the metallic eyes; you want a space between them and the beginning of the tie-down wraps of thread on the deer tail".  

 

He doesn't repeat that in any of the other sbs except for the positioning of the thread at the half-way point between the metallic eyes and the hook eye but the pictures show that all wrap threads to tie down material (bucktail, fur strips, super hair...) in front of the metallic eyes never go back beyond that point.

 

But why does he do that? Funny, but he doesn't say in the book. But Ive always thought it was to ensure a better baitfish profile and not end-up with a "long-nosed" one.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Suave said:

Once again pictures from Clouser's 2006 book "Clouser's Flies".

In all the sbs (each step with a picture ) for his eight minnow-type Clouser patterns, Clouser puts the thread one-third the hook shank lenght behind the hook eye (although he writes "in front of the hook eye". I wonder why that wasn't caught!). And in the sbs for the first one of these patterns, the Clouser Deep Minnow, he writes (p.35) this about the thread wraps to tie down the first bundle of bucktail ( that, by the way, should be, as he writes (p.34) "about half thickness of a wooden pencil"), the first wrap being "half-way between the metallic eyes and the hook eye" : "Do not wrap back to the metallic eyes; you want a space between them and the beginning of the tie-down wraps of thread on the deer tail".  

 

He doesn't repeat that in any of the other sbs except for the positioning of the thread at the half-way point between the metallic eyes and the hook eye but the pictures show that all wrap threads to tie down material (bucktail, fur strips, super hair...) in front of the metallic eyes never go back beyond that point.

 

But why does he do that? Funny, but he doesn't say in the book. But Ive always thought it was to ensure a better baitfish profile and not end-up with a "long-nosed" one.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for copies of the book photos !     Played a bit with trying to ehance the photo colors as I'm curious if the Électrique Talonneuse Brunette (or, in short Brunette Hooker) that you had mentioned earlier is the same color , or close to it ?

 

Nice with the brown & green and added to my Clouser fly list this spring.

 

HT

 

 

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Currently have aphasia.    Aphasia is a result of my head stroke causing a bleed.   Happened in my Maine vacation in July (2021).   Lucky me less than 1% of people get stroke aphasia.  :(      I'm making project but have been told this is easily 5 months to 1 year for this to improve.   Until then hope you don't mind making sense with what I text.   HT

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Suave-

 

I actually referred to my copy last night - you are 100% correct. I too assumed he left the gap in the head before the eyes to create a profile.

  At that time he was also using epoxy and covering both the thread wraps behind the hook eye and the dumbell eye, emphasizing that it would also fill that gap, creating a durable head and eyes for the fly.

  Both of the videos I'd seen recently were club demonstrations. He does discuss thinking of the hook in 1/3 segments- eyes at 1/3 back from the hook eye, "cross wraps, not figure 8s", belly bound down to the 2/3 mark,  bucktail not encircling the shank but basically on the top and sides and so on.

 In the demonstrations several of the things he described did not match what he then showed.

   But what the heck- he's 83 or 84 years old and he's Bob Clouser. He can do whatever he'd like!

Still, wrapping from the hook eye all the way back to the dumbell eye was surprising.

He did say that many dress the fly entirely too heavily, (not sparsely enough) reducing its action in the water.

 

 

"Life's too short to fish with ugly flies."
Cynoscion Regalis
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4 hours ago, Philly said:

After bringing the bucktail over the eyes he started wrapping just behind the eyes... The other things that stood out was how sparse they were tied. ...  

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I 've always heard him refer to "the diameter of a pencil" (including the wood). And in one of the videos, why he doesn't use long shank hooks. (Lesser hook set advantage than standard shank, I think... perhaps denying the fish leverage which makes it easier to bend out  the hook)

 

If I do use a long shank hook I adjust the eye placement. At least one well known tyer lays the dumbell along the shank with one side at the hook eye. All his flies therefore have the dumbells placed a full dumbell eye's width behind the hook eye.

Edited by C. Regalis
"Life's too short to fish with ugly flies."
Cynoscion Regalis
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I was a subscriber to Fly Fisherman Magazine for two or three decades beginning in the 70's. And at one point in my fly tying, I began putting in a binder articles of magazines on fly tying. And yes, I still have in a binder, photocopies of the two articles in FFM by which the Clouser Deep Minnow "came out", the main one by Lefty Kreh and a one page one by Bob Clouser. Lefty's article has no picture of a Deep Minnow while Bob has three. And yep, the pictures, as I can see ( old photocopies..), seem  to show the material tied in front of the lead eyes being tied with thread wraps going all the way back to the eyes. And both write about how to tie the Deep Minnow but neither say how far back the thread wraps tying the material in front of the eyes should go. 

 

So maybe Philly is right depending on when his Clouser tying demonstration took place. Maybe Clouser initially tied the material in front of the metallic eyes all the way back to them. He certainly didn't in his 2006 book. And maybe he reverted back since then to what he seemed to do initially. But at the end of the day, does it really matter?  From what I've seen and read here on SOL, it doesn't seem to matter to the fish.  

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57 mins ago, Suave said:

 But at the end of the day, does it really matter?  

Of course not. :howdy:. It was purely a matter of curiosity for me - I hadn't seen it before.

The worst Clousers I ever tied, from the very beginning, are still catching fish. 

"Life's too short to fish with ugly flies."
Cynoscion Regalis
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9 hours ago, C. Regalis said:

Of course not. :howdy:. It was purely a matter of curiosity for me - I hadn't seen it before.

The worst Clousers I ever tied, from the very beginning, are still catching fish. 

You are absolutely correct -- clouser type flies have accounted for over 90% of the fish U have ever caught fly fishing.

 

I must say one thing about "my" fly tying, I can tie 8 flies of the same pattern & 6 will come out different :point:..... good thing I don't rely on tying to make $$.... !

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