Comb-Over Minnow

Curtis Fry- May, 2015

When you're tying flies that will imitate any sort of baitfish pattern, there are a few factors to consider. Among these factors is buoyancy, lifelike action/look in the water and also "castability". The Comb-Over minnow is an example of how to incorporate a few of these aspects. A number of years ago, when the EP fibers first hit the market, I tied up a bunch of chub minnow imitations to fish on a local stillwater where the trout would actively hunt down the little chubs. I was all stoked to be throwing such awesome looking minnow imitations, so I whipped out a fly and hucked a cast into the water. Lucky for the fish, my fly would have been a much better floating dead minnow imitation than a life-like trout-attracting fly pattern. I had done a few things wrong with this pattern. First off, I had waaaay too much material. Second, I didn't stop to consider how I'd actually fish the pattern. Had I been using a sinking line or tip of some sort, it might have worked well but still would have been a chore to cast and the action in the water was listless, so FAIL. Lesson learned. Anyway, you have a few choices on fly design here: You can incorporate weight to get the fly to the zone you want or you can thin it up enough so that it will slice through the water on its own (similar to the Low-Fat Minnow, which is an awesome pattern, BTW). This pattern uses just enough material to maintain a great profile in the water, it's tapered with some cool thinning shears but still needs some weight to get the jiggy action and depth I wanted. Oh, and the "comb-over" part comes from a technique using Clear Cure Goo Hydro to lock some of the fibers over the barbell eyes to get it the tapered slick look of a nice gentleman afraid to embrace his natural hair tendencies. And don't forget the wicked sharp Lazer Trokar hook we're using on this one. Truth be told, the first time I saw this hook, it had "minnow" written all over it and I started to devise something to build around it. It's a fun one to throw!