Mini-Brown

Peter relates that this productive fly was originally an "embarrasing mistake" for him. His original intention was to tie up a Professor, but ended with what he has called a Mini-Brown. It almost never made it to the water! You can read more about the history of this fly by visiting Peter's truly wonderful site. Just click on the link below the tying instructions.

Peter's Notes and Instructions:

HOOK: Mustad 9672 #12 or Kamasan B800 #12
THREAD: Yellow Uni-Thread
TAIL: Red Schlapen
BODY: Yellow Uni-Floss
RIB: Gold Wire
WING: Mallard Flank
OTHER: Gloss Black Head Cement

There are several important keys to this series of flies; body colour, ribbing, and large, black head. I'm not sure whether the wire rib, the large head or a combination of the two produces the shimmy, but since the fly has always worked with both features, why change. The head is produced by a couple of liberal coats of black head cement (be generous) over the yellow thread. The body colour is produced by the use of floss over thread. As the floss gets wet, it turns a bit translucent and picks up on the thread colour which has turned much darker.

Tie in the wire, a length of floss and the red hackle tail fibres starting about 25% of the shank length behind the eye. Wrap all three back with on even application of thread then wrap forward, making sure to get an even coverage of yellow thread. Wrap one layer of floss forward then tie off. Reverse wrap the gold wire rib and tie off then cut the tip from a mallard flank feather and strip off the barbs until it is about 1/4" to 5/16" across the tip. Fold it lengthwise along the quill the tie in at the head and tie off. Wrap up a nice smooth head of thread, whip finish then give it at least two generous coats of gloss black head cement.

Peter has a great website. While visiting to read more about this fly, be sure to take a good look around his other pages as well!

Update September 2010: Peter submitted this fly over a decade ago, and his original website that contained more information about this fly and other streamer patterns no longer exists. However, Peter's new website, which primarily focuses on fly fishing steelhead and is excellent, is located at http://www.hooked4life.ca