Welcome to August’s Tie One Off challenge. Remember, in order to be eligible for the prize you must be signed up for our SWC Newsletter. You can sign up under the Newsletter heading on this page half way down on the right hand side of the screen.
You have until Sunday night at 8pm to tie the fly posted below to the best of your ability. Post it on Instagram with the hashtags #tieoneoff #hcft #skinnywaterculture. Or post it directly to our Tie One Off posts on the SWC or HCFT Facebook pages. The winner will be selected at random, quality of the fly does not matter as long as you put forth the effort. Winner of this months challenge will win a SWC Snook print shirt, size and color of the winners choosing and a new SWC Tailer license plate.
For this months challenge we are keeping it simple and effective with the ever famous Clouser.
Materials List
- Hook – Gamakatsu B10 Stinger #4 (I like to use a smaller hook because I tend to tie a smaller Clouser than most.)
- Thread – White 210 Denier
- Small/Medium white dumbbell eyes
- White Bucktail
- Brown Bucktail
- Green Crystal Flash
Start your thread closer to the bend of the hook and work forward, leaving plenty of room close to the eye of the hook.
Take your dumbbell eyes and tie them in on top of your thread. Do your best to cross tie your eyes to get them to lock down on the shank of the hook. You can also hit the top and the bottom of the eyes with some Hard as Hull for extra strength.
Take a small clump (about half the width of a pencil) of white bucktail. Be sure to pull out all the under fur and shorter bucktail strands. Tie your bucktail in close to the eye of the hook, working your way back towards the eye. Continue tying the bucktail on the backside of the eyes. Only a few wraps are needed on the backside of the eyes (8-10 wraps is good).
Flip your fly over, grab your crystal flash. I like to use 3 strands and double them over creating 6 strands of flash. Tie your flash in on the eye side of your dumbbell eyes and work your thread back towards the dumbbell eyes.
Grab the same amount of brown bucktail as you did the white and tie it in on the bottom side of the shank along with your crystal flash. Do your best to match it up with your white bucktail. Only tie the brown bucktail in front of the dumbbell eyes (as seen below). This creates more of a body to the fly.
Whip finish at the head of the fly and trim as needed. Coat the head of the fly with “Hard as Hull” for some extra strength and security.
The Clouser was created by Bob Clouser in 1987. It can be tied in many different colors and sizes and has been effectively used on an array of species over the years from fresh to salt.
Thanks for checking out our challenge, hope you were able to find this helpful and informative.
Winner of this months challenge will win a SWC Snook print shirt, size and color of the winners choosing, and a new SWC Tailer license plate.
