Better Minnow

[Nick Pionessa]

Better Minnow

well Bob, you did have a good run!

on this fly's maiden voyage i hooked a fish after a few casts with it. landed that fish, went back to the top again and hooked another fish on the very next cast. beginners luck? i was as skeptical as anyone but that was about 3 or 4 years ago and since it's been the go to on a certain large river too famous to even mention since everyone knows it already in one way or another.

originally tied like a standard clouser minnow on a tube but it always seemed to get a bit thin in the water and that bothered me. i came up with this design to make it fuller while still maintaining it's translucency and motion, it's two key factors. color variations are endless and i sometimes add a little chartreuse or pink and blue between the grey and white to match the different smelt or emerald shiners.

in the research and development stage i tried various configurations of tube, eyes and cones and finally settled on this version. the short weighted part of the tube, along with the eyes, make the fly jig and dive nicely without being too heavy and losing action. i tried longer weighted tubes but then you get some tube hang down which shows the tube below the wing of the fly in the water. this short tube with a hybrid extension swims very true but hides the tube nicely. you can adjust the hybrid length for the length of the fly to get the hook positioned where you want it. if i use these for bass (highly recommended) i would not extent the tube at all but keep it short so not to deep hook those wolfish bass. for steelhead i like the hook about two thirds of the way back. cuts down on short strikes and keeps the wing from fouling in the hook.

using the cross eyed cones makes for a cool version as well and if you do them that way the two colors of hair get tied on opposite sides of the tube at the same point. in the eyed version the belly is behind the eyes but the back is in front of them.

R&D day last week


as close as i can come


works well when the water is cold too


cone head


steelhead

Rick Kustich Photo

with a little pink and blue for the smelt