Completely New Topic

[Baron]

Mudlers, they seem to work.



Please tell all your Mudler stories:

-What colors work best
-What species do you use them for
-Best size
-In what fishery are you most likely to use them
-Are they tough to tie?

If you don't have any experience with these then you're welcome to make things up. If you've had a little success with the mighty Mudler you're okay to stretch details a bit. All friends here.


Slap some photos here::-D

 

[JerryC]

No stories to tell. I think I tied one for one of the fly tying classes I took years ago. I think I still have it. It requires a deer hair head and I'm too OCD when it comes to trimming deer hair. I just don't see them in the streams around here. So it's just not worth the effort. If I did tie them I would use different material than the typical pattern.
I could see them being used for mad tom, goby, fat head minnow or even tadpole imitations. Might even convince some fish it's a crayfish. For salt water a killie imitation. It's a long winter, maybe I'll work on a pattern after I figure out the spotted lantern fly pattern.

 

[purplewoolly]

Never understood the deer hair head on the traditional pattern. Sculpin wool head helps get them down where they belong.

 

[PennKev]

Baron wrote:
Mudlers, they seem to work.

Meh. There are much better streamers and much better sculpin patters specifically.

Muddlers were OK when ideas about streamers were much different. Since their creation, a multitude of better patterns have been devised.

Please tell all your Mudler stories:

They suck. A streamer that wants to float, with a delicate wing, and almost no movement underwater. No thank you. (I am talking about the original muddler here.) Remove the turkey wing and make it a rabbit strip. Then remove the deer hair head and put a rabbit fur collar and brass or tungsten conehead....

....so in other words tie Slumpbusters instead.

-What colors work best

I am now talking about Slumpbusters because Muddlers suck. Natural rabbit, black, olive, white, yellow. All have their days. Natural and olive tend to be my go-to's

-What species do you use them for

Any predatory fish will eat a slumpbuster.

-Best size

#4 3xl or 4xl hooks, though smaller and larger will work. Smaller ones work well on smaller water.

-In what fishery are you most likely to use them

Anywhere there are baitfish, sculpins in particular

-Are they tough to tie?

Slumpbusters are incredibly easy to tie.
On the other hand, muddlers have turkey quill wings and spun deer hair heads. Two things that give novice tiers fits. But muddlers suck anyway so I don't know why you'd bother.

If you don't have any experience with these then you're welcome to make things up.

Ok I can make something up: Original pattern muddlers are the most awesome fly pattern ever and bound to find a resurgence in coming years that will rival euro nymphing in popularity

 

[moon1284]

I tie them sparse and sloppy from sizes 10 to 2 on 4x long hooks. I wrap lead around the shank to help them sink. I tie in mottled turkey fibers for the tail and wing and tie in white marabou under the wing. I use a red yarn body. Definitely not a traditional muddler. These are lighter and cast much smoother than rabbit.

I hammer trout on them and have caught steelhead as well. They work well pretty much anywhere. When I fish streamers I use that fly probably 60 percent of the time.

I dont fish for bass or panfish but id be willing to bet they work.

 

[salvelinus]

My buddy uses them and catches plenty on them. Me, not so much.

 

[Fly-Swatter]

PennKev: You're being way to subtle. Just tell us how you really feel about mudlers. :lol:

Seriously, I agree with you about slumpbusters v. mudlers. I stick with pine squirrel strips and #6-10, but rabbit makes more sense for larger sizes. I've done VERY well on them in tan/gold and gray/pearl.

Muddlers: I can see tying them as marabou muddlers and fishing them off a poly leader. They will catch fish, but they are (as you said) a lot harder to tie than a slumpbuster. I guess it comes down to what makes each of us happy. Maybe if someone wants to focus on tying and fishing traditional flies?

 

[GeneBeam]

I have been using Muddlers ever since I first starting fly fishing in northern Michigan in 1976. The fly shop that I go my first fly rod told me about the flies that I should always carry. Since I got my rod in February in anticipation of spring steelhead fishing. They told me I should have some egg patterns and they explained to me and my friend, who also was getting his first fly rod, how to fish them. Hell I got so many I still have some of those first egg patterns. They also told us about which dry, wet & terrestrial flies to get. As I was young, stupid and just married without much money, I thought I should only fly fish with egg for steelhead and dry flies for trout. They said I would be missing out on a lot of fishing if I didn’t get some wet flies, nymphs & terrestrials. No not me so I got a bunch of egg patterns, and a bunch of dry flies and some terrestrials, because to me terrestrials were just another dry fly but at the last moment, they told me about the muddler minnow. They said if I got them, get at least two of each size and keep them separate and fish one as a dry fly as it would imitate a hopper or a cricket and as a wet fly it would imitate a minnow. I’m glad they did, as if there was not a hatch when I was fishing, I almost always got some fish on an ant, midge dry fly pattern or a muddler minnow fished as both a dry and wet fly.

After all my years of off and on fly fishing, my fly boxes now carry an assortment of dry, wet, nymph & terrestrial flies but the one thing I don’t have in my must carry fly boxes is an egg pattern, but the thing that is always in my must carry fly box is a muddler. Maybe it is because, like my first fly rod, that I still have, I carry muddlers because it evokes nostalgia of my time fishing in northern Michigan.

So since I retired late last year, I have gotten some Letort Crickets, Letort Hoppers, Sculpins and Clouser crayfish with feather back, from the man himself. It seems like every time I stop in at the local fly shop, and I love stopping at any local small-town fly shop. I always buy more than a few flies just to show my appreciation to them, for them letting me look around.

 

[Baron]

salvelinus wrote:
My buddy uses them and catches plenty on them. Me, not so much.

Outsider?

 

[Baron]

Hey Penn yur having a Kaniption Fit, better have a beer, lol. Thank you for your detailed account.
Gene, That was good mentoring on their part. You learned to catch fish and they kept you as a loyal customer...... not precisely but similar to mentoring.

I was at Upper Woods two months ago. Fishing was dead until a small hatch began and every small fish of every breed were eating these pure white miniature caddis looking things. I was whacking the little gills left and right. I put the rod down with the working line out 25' and with a muddler on the end. The line is old and it sank straight down while I worked on another line. All the sudden blammo a fish from way down in the depths grabbed the sunken and forgotten Muddler. Turns out it was a large Gill. healthy and fat. Later it happened again and that is when I realized that the gills were separated by size vertically and while the little guys were up top eating the flies the big guys were resting way down below. The muddler, from Big-Y, was yellow and gray and probably a size 10. This experience made me wonder if it might be worth spending time learning how to tie them.

 

[bigjohn58]

Muddlers are one fly I refuse to fish. I have zero confidence in them. I might use other variations of them but the actual muddler minnow patters I have zero confidence in and have never caught a fish on one.

 

[Baron]

My, this poor fly, I’m steering clear, not so much because it does or does not work. I’m worried that my reputation will be hurt if associated with all the nay-sayers. There are so many less controversial flies one could saddle up to:-D.

 

[gulfgreyhound]

Take only Muddlers out and fish them only. Muddler indicator for a weighted muddler. It takes nerve to try anything new.
I fished the Blue River near Breckenridge ,Co back in the day. Tied on a muddler and had 2 hours of non stop fish on. I guess the state must have just stocked it as they were all cookie cutter size fish. Cast drift hook up. That's long before Breckinridge became yuppy ville.
I like them when grasshoppers are active. GG

 

[salvelinus]

Baron wrote:

salvelinus wrote:
My buddy uses them and catches plenty on them. Me, not so much.

Outsider?

No, not him, but then I haven't seen him fish streamers.

 

[outsider]

salvelinus wrote:

Baron wrote:

salvelinus wrote:
My buddy uses them and catches plenty on them. Me, not so much.

Outsider?

No, not him, but then I haven't seen him fish streamers.

Except for the small pine squirrel wool-head streamers that I fished with at the UT. Remember, I gave one to you?

 

[salvelinus]

Oops. The mind is a terrible thing. And we must stop it in our lifetime.