Dubbing Loop Sculpin

Brandon - November 22, 2016

I have a strange obsession with sculpin, but not as much as trout do. I've never tasted a sculpin, but with the way trout eat them, I'm guessing its probably a flavor explosion similar to that of a perfectly executed Ribeye WITH rosemary butter. #realtalk, sculpin patterns are in my top three flies when I go chasing trout. A lot of the time they are the ticket to bring some big fish to hand.

When tying sculpin patterns I believe in 3 key factors: A broad head, Gills and the ability to fish very near to the bottom of the river. These 3 focuses help this pattern come to light. "Belly-Scratcher" weighting is the key to being able to slither this fly over the bottom and keep the hook point off of as many rocks as possible. Lastly, I think mixing dubbing is super under utilized in the fly tying game. On this pattern, to get the color I wanted, I blended 3 types of Bruiser Blend (Brown, Olive Brown and Tan). Blending dubbing can yield some killer results, and personally, I believe it can give your flies an advantage on the river. You can start out just blending them by hand to get started or upgrade to the coffee grinder like Cheech used in the Touch Dub Sow video or if you wanna come up in the dubbing game these are pretty killer!

~Brandon

P.S.
If you'd like to spice this pattern up a bit, I've been messing around with adding some Kiley's Fish Finz just before the Bruiser Blend head and they have been coming out pretty cool! Also, I gotta give a shout out to Don Cheech for convincing me that this pattern needed eyes beacuse one, he was right and two, it lead me to Fluorescent Fly Eyes.