Hi! I am Charlie from Tight Lines Fly Fishing Co., and today I am going to be tying a simple Arctic Fox Wing Muddler.
This is a great little muddler for small streams, particularly Spring Creeks or trout rivers. It's just heavy enough with a little cone on it that it sinks to the depth you want it to, but it doesn't hit the water like a cannonball. So this has been a very, very productive little muddler.
The materials for this fly, starting with the hook, it's tied on a TMC 5263, in a size 10. The cone is just a little gold cone. This is a 4 millimeter. The tail on the fly is just going to be some hackle tips, some red hackle tips. The body is made of copper diamond braid. The wing is yellow arctic fox hair, and the head is just All Purpose Deer Hair.
The first step to this muddler is just tying in the hackle tip tail. The next step is just making the diamond braid body. We have just enough room next to the cone to make a little wing and a little head.
Next step is tying on the yellow wing, this is arctic fox hair. The trick to this is to just grab a clump, and now let's say I tie in a little bigger than you think, just because the fox hair really does slim down a bunch in the water. But just grab a clump, even at the tips, cut it off, fairly good.
There is going to be a bunch of long guard hairs on this fly. What you want to do is just grab all those long guard hairs and pull them out. That way all your tips are relatively even, you will get a nice uniform wing.
I will tie this on right behind the cone, standing about to the end of the tail.
Next step is to make the head. As far as muddlers go, a little cone head muddler like this is about as easy of a head as you will ever make, and you can do it by just doing one clump of deer hair on the top, that will make the collar and the head, and then one clump on the bottom, to finish off the head.
We will do the top clump first, and just secure that to the hook right behind the cone. Then I am going to do the exact same thing on the bottom of the hook shank, trying to make sure to even out the tips that are going to form the color. I can just secure that with a couple of good wraps. Then weave your thread to right behind the cone, and then whip finish the fly directly behind the cone.
The final step to this fly is trimming the head to shape, and you can use the cone to your advantage. If you just separate the blunt ends that you are going to cut off from the tips that make your collar, you can run your scissors right along the cone and trim your head right flush to the cone.
And that's the completed fly. Just a simple Arctic Fox Wing Muddler.
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