Squirt: New Micro Streamer

For the past few weeks, one of the pattern concepts kicking around between the ears has been a truly micro streamer for small stream fishing, as well as panfish like crappie and larger sunfish.  Saturday morning, I put concept to reality and got out to field test a bit on my local Ohio River tributary.  The goal was to mimic the profile, size, and effectiveness of arguably the best conventional artificial lure for these species/locations: the 1.5" tube jig.  Pre-fly fishing, I fished these little tubes on light jig heads for everything from bluegills to crappies to saugers to small stream bass, and they always caught fish.  Here's the recipe I went with which tested quite well, as you will see below.

Hook - DaiRiki 700B size 10
Bead - 1/8" tungsten, secured just ahead of the bend in the hook shank
Tail - rubber centipede legs
Body - Ice Dub in a dubbing loop, picked out and trimmed to profile
Collar - rabbit strip in a dubbing loop
Head - 4mm Fish Mask

The purpose of the bead on the bent shank hook is to get the fly down (obviously) but also help the fly ride point-up by positioning it just ahead of the 20* bend in the hook shank.  If you used a straight shank hook, I'd recommend tying the bead in belly scratcher style (see FlyFishFood's site) to help keel it by getting the bead on the underside of the shank.  With the small tungsten bead, the bead is easily hidden under the collar, small in size, but helps the fly get down without it sinking like a rock.  I even tested the fly under an indicator (small Thingamabobber), allowing it to hang subtly without sinking the indicator.  In a little over 2 hours of fishing, this fly caught: crappie, bluegill, smallmouth bass, and one sauger.

This pattern will definitely find its way into my boxes for the smaller creeks and panfish applications.  It's a pretty easy, quick fly to tie, and there are lots and lots of color options available to you.  I'll be doing a video tutorial on this one in the not-so-distant future, and I'll post the link here when it's done.  If you fish for similar species in similar waters, give this one a shot!