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More Clouser Deep Minnows
More Clouser Deep Minnows
Back three years ago, in a post entitled “Fly Tying during a Plague”, I show a bunch of streamers I had done for the salt season. Well as luck would have it, I still have most of them. Unlike fishing in sweetwater, in the brine we lose few flies, as long as you use decent mono, and tie decent knots. Granted bluefish steal some and fishing around obstacles such as bridge pilings contribute too, but overall we do okay.
A look in my fly box, however, did reveal the I could use more Clouser Deep Minnows. And a post or two back, I started to take care of that. Well I’m still working on those puppies. Mostly of these are size 1#, and a few are size 4#
Stripers from Shore are Spotty
Stripers from Shore are Spotty
At the moment, stripers from shore are spotty. Now I’m talking about my local waters here in Connecticut. You absolutely have to find the thick schools of bait – menhaden, juvenile herring or silversides. If you’re not in front of balled up forage, its a slow pick for schoolies.
AHREX SA 210 Bob Clouser Signature Streamer Hook
AHREX SA 210 Bob Clouser Signature Streamer Hook
Recently I sat down to tie a few of Bob Clouser’s famous Deep Minnows. This is undoubtedly one of the most effective flies ever devised in both sweet and salty waters. A must have. Don’t leave home without it. This time around I felt like trying a new hook. And what better hook to try than one specifically designed by Bob for the salt – The Ahrex SA210 Bob Clouser Signature Streamer Hook.
Made in Scandinavia, this high quality salt water hook has a straight eye, a true micro barb, a long shank, a needle point and a wide gap. Below you’ll see a comparison between this hook in size 1#, and a Mustad C70SD size 1#. (The Mustad is on the bottom.) By the way Ahrex also makes a standard shank length salt water streamer hook as well – Model SA220
As nice as this Ahrex SA210 Bob Clouser Signature Streamer Hook looks, and it does look like a winner, there is one question in my mind. Although this baby is meant for the salt, it is carbon steel, not stainless. Ummm, odd. Ahrex explains their choice of metal this way.
“We’ve chosen to make the hooks from carbon steel. Carbon steel is stronger and holds a point better than stainless steel. But it’s not stainless. They are however coated with the brand new A-Steel finish, which makes them very resilient and resistant to saltwater – even the high saline salty environments of the tropics.”
Will the A-Steel finish hold up? I can’t say yet, but comments on the internet are encouraging. Expect me to report back as the season progresses. In the meantime I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
The Hornberg
The Hornberg
Colonel Joseph Bates, in his fine book “Streamers & Bucktails the Big Fish Flies”, reports that this fly was created by Frank Hornberg, a conservation warden in Portage County, Wisconsin. Designed to mimic a small minnow, the Hornberg was born almost 100 years ago and sold commercially by the Weber Tackle Company, becoming widely popular in many waters.
The Hornberg had no tail, the body was flat wound silver tinsel, over which two yellow hackles made an underwing. Over that wing, were tied pale grey mallard feather cheeks that extended back beyond the hook bend. Jungle-cock eyes were added on top of both cheeks with several turns of grizzly hackle forming a collar up at the eye.
Upon landing on the water, the grizzly collar had a tendency to momentarily cause the fly to float. This allowed anglers to briefly fish the Hornberg as a dry fly, perhaps imitating a caddis, or stonefly, or even a hopper. Once submerged it became a conventional streamer, making it a versatile fly.
Originally this fly was tied upwards of size 6, but today size 10 is the most common on a hook such as the Mustad 9671. Silver braid has replaced the tinsel and the yellow hackle has given way to yellow bucktail. Otherwise, the fly is much the same. In his “Book of Fly Patterns”, Eric Leiser tells us over the years many variations of the Hornberg popped up, often utilizing colored mallard wings, noting that well-known tyer Dick Steward even made a flat wing version of this fly.