Belly Scratcher Minnow

Cheech - November, 2014

In the past year and a half the Low Fat Minnow has quickly become one of my favorite flies for any specie of fish that eats other fish... One of the things I really like about the Low Fat Minnow is that it suspends nicely in the water, and is designed to be fished on a sinking line in order to control the depth of the fly. I knew that I wanted to make a weighted version for rivers, so I started researching about a year ago. I really like throwing big articulated streamers, but I wanted to come up with something that I could throw at those lookers and chasers that might not want to eat something on the large side of the spectrum. I also wanted something that I could tie in various weights without effecting the profile of the fly. Most of the time, more weight means bigger barbell eyes or tungsten beads. One of the great things about the low fat minnow is the slim profile, and adding heavy barbell eyes would take away from that.

Enter the Belly Scratcher Minnow. Pretty much a Low Fat Minnow tied with a weighted belly and a zonker strip for a tail instead of marabou. I also made the head a bit different because I have been playing with some different glues to attach eyes with. I really like the fact that I can vary the weight of the fly to match the water I'm fishing by simply adding or subtracting tungsten beads when I tie it. The initial test for this fly included lots of interest from hungry fish, but my tie-in technique for the beads was flawed, and they ended up falling off of the fly. Once I dialed that in, the fly produced just like I thought it would. It worked along the bottom of the stream bed and proved to be irresistible to some big browns.

This weighting technique is nothing new, so I'm definitely not taking credit for using it. What IS brand new is the new short length of bruiser blend that we are introducing. It's perfect for tying flies like this that don't need the extra length of the original bruiser blend.

~ Cheech