Forgetting Successful Flies

Why is it that we forget about flies that work?  I assume the reasoning falls on the notion that what is new is always better.  Without question, I am guilty as charged when it comes to forgetting about flies that work in favor of something new to try.  Several years ago, the Murdich Minnow was my #1 bass streamer.  That pattern caught countless fish for me, and then, I mysteriously found myself getting away from it in favor of other streamers.  I "rediscovered" the effectiveness of the Murdich and now have it back in my regular rotation of streamers for bass and other warmwater species. 

Winding the clock back seven long years to 2010, a good friend and I were coyote hunting during the winter and managed to call in and kill a gorgeous coyote.  I did the calling, my buddy did the shooting.  My reward for the hunt was the tail and some body fur for fly tying.  Back in those days my flies were all simplistic, "known" patterns.  The obvious fly to tie with some coyote tail was a coyote Clouser deep minnow, which I tied with white bucktail, coyote tail, and some copper flash.  Why this combination proved so successful I will never know, but I caught a ton of fish on this fly.  The coyote Clouser claimed one of the most unique and best Ohio fish on the fly of my life that year.  Fishing from my kayak I caught a 26" saugeye on this fly, my first official "sleigh ride" in a kayak.

The species list caught on the coyote Clouser expanded constantly.  Bass and crappie were the primary victims of this fly that seemed to have some extra mojo.  Other panfish species were also caught on the innocent looking little streamer.

Flash forward to 2017, and before last week I could not begin to tell you the last time I tied the coyote Clouser onto my tippet.  I still had them in a few boxes, but somehow the majority of them wound up in a little-used fly box I carry for steelhead around Lake Erie.  Last Friday, by sheer luck, I had that box with me on my local flow.  I had seen a lot of smallmouth buffalo in the river, and one of the few flies I had caught them on in the past were egg patterns.  Therefore, I grabbed that steelhead box which had eggs and sucker spawn flies in it...along with the 'yote Clouser minnows.  Facing a difficult afternoon with bites few and far between, I tied one on.  Almost immediately I caught a few dinky smallmouth.  

Several minutes later, I made a long cast downstream along a deep weeded bank.  Water clarity was excellent and I could see the fly fairly well even at a decent distance.  A few strips in, I saw a chunky shadow creep out off the bank behind the fly.  Although I didn't feel the take, I saw the fly disappear and gave a strip set.  I had hooked a gorgeous 15" spotted bass, minimum size for trophy citation in Ohio, and it was a handful on a glass 3wt.  

Still to this day I don't know what it is about this combination of material that fish find so tempting.  I've never seen a baitfish in the area that is tan/white like this fly.  The coyote also holds a bit more bulk in the water than bucktail, so the fly has a little less slender shape in the water.  All I know for sure is that the fish like it, and that fly again saved my outing after several years of neglect.  I need to do a better job of using what is known to work, so the coyote Clouser might rise to prominence in my boxes again.