Marabou Minnow

Tied and Submitted by: Carl A. Rettenberger

Pattern Recipe:
Hook: TMC 5263, size 8 to 12 (FC Item TA222)

Thread: Size 6/0 Uni-thread, white (or to match the rest of the fly)
(FC Item TH002)

Body: Silver tinsel (FC Item TH200 size 16)

Flash Material: Rainbow Krystal Flash (FC Item TU030)

Wing: Marabou, white (or to match the rest of the fly) (FC Item TK102)

Lateral Line: Peacock Herl, (FC Item TP 016)

Eyes: 3D Molded Eyes, red, x-small (FC Item TL031)

Head: 5 Minute Epoxy, clear (FC Item TZ011)
Pattern History:
Marabou Minnow

By: Carl A. Rettenberger (a.k.a. Stelhd)
Winchester, VA
04/10/2010
I think we all have to admit; that in essence there’s very little in fly tying that is new or original to us, so I’m sure you may find this streamer to be like others you have tied, but I first tied it years ago and it has been my stand by ever since.

Since that time, I have fished it quite successfully for rainbow trout, brook trout, brown trout, steelhead, smallmouth bass, and fallfish. That said, I guess one would have to categorize it the same as most other flies that I tie, a cold/warm fresh water streamer pattern.

When fishing this streamer, I’ll let you in on a little secrete that I discovered by accident several years ago. Now, I just knew that there were browns in this particular piece of water that I was fishing, and so I was pounding away using the traditional deep across swing and strip retrieve without a whole lot of success. On one of my better casts, I hooked this small dry maple leaf that was floating down stream. Wanting to get it off in a hurry, I ripped the line in, which caused the fly, leaf and all to skim the surface of the water, well before I could retrieve the fly I had three vicious strikes. After that off came the weight used to get the fly down deep and I shortened the length of my casts so that I could rip the fly back keeping it right on top of the surface of the water just like the flight of a minnow escaping in full terror. That did it and it turned out to be a day of browns to remember, so I have fished this fly the same way ever since

That’s about all I can say about this fly except for the fact, that like most of my creations, I have selfishly  kept the recipe a secrete, but now with Feather-Craft’s fly tying contest, its time to share it with others so that they can enjoy fishing it as much as I do.

Here are the detailed step by step tying instructions. I think you will find it a rather easy fly to tie.

1. After debarbing the hook, mount it in the vice and wrap the hook shank with thread from the eye of the hook to the bend.

2. Tie the body tinsel in at the hook bend, such that the gold side is up, that way when you spiral the material forward the silver side will be out. I like to let the tag extend up towards the eye of the hook to the three-quarter point so that I get a uniform body.

3. Wrap the thread back to about the three-quarter point of the hook shank then spiral the tinsel forward using slightly overlapping wraps, tie it off and trim the tag. Apply super glue to the top side of the tinsel body wrap using your dubbing needle use only a very small amount of glue, do not coat the body.

4. Turn the vice so that the hook point is up and tie in a small amount of flash material on the bottom side of the hook. I like to fold the flash around the thread then pull the thread and flash down onto the hook and tie it down. You can trim the flash so that it is just a little longer then the wing after the fly is finished.

5. Spin the vice back so that the hook point is down and tie the marabou wing in on top of the hook shank, such that the tip of the wing extends past the hook bend about a hook shank in length. Don’t let the marabou spin around the hook shank, keep it on top of the hook shank as best you can. Trim the tag end of the marabou on a slant towards the eye of the hook and follow up with a couple of snug wraps. (Don’t over do the size of the wing, what you want to end up with is a size and profile, similar in nature to a minnow’s body. I find that most people when using marabou will just bunch the fibers together at the tip of the feather and tie it in that way. That works however; you are not getting the full effect of the undulating qualities of the marabou fibers by doing this. What I prefer to do is to lay the feather on my thigh and comb the fibers out perpendicular to the stem using my dubbing brush (FC Item TM056). Once you’ve done this, you’ll notice that the barbules at the lower end of the feather, the end that was connected to the bird’s body, have a lot more smaller barbs protruding from them then those at the tip of the feather, these are what give marabou its undulating affect. Tightly grab as many fibers from the lower end of the feather as you can and strip them from the stem so that they stay aligned. If you need more fibers to fill out the wing to your liking, wet the fibers so that they will stay together, lay them aside and repeat the stripping process using the fibers on the other side of stem. Once stripped from the stem, wet the second bunch, align the tips with the first bunch and tie them in.)

6. Next add the peacock herl lateral line. To do this, choose two good pieces of herl, align the tips and tie them in at the wing tie in point, such that they are near the mid point of the wing, and the tips are equal in length to the length of the wing. Repeat the process on the other side, then trim off the tag. (Don’t reuse the herl on the next fly after you have cut off the tips, it ruins the look of the fly.)

7. Next create the head by wrapping the thread over and in front of the wing tie in point until you have a good size ball. Then take your smooth jawed debarb pliers and flatten the side of the head a little to make it easier to mount the eyes. At this point whip finish and trim off the thread.

8. The eyes should be self sticking, but I always use a small amount of super glue to hold them in place while forming the epoxy head. The eyes will protrude past the tread head on the top and bottom, but don’t worry about that the epoxy will fill in the gap.
9. Now its time to apply epoxy to the head. The stuff is called 5-minute epoxy, but for the love of me I don’t know why, because it sure doesn’t take 5-minutes to harden to a point where you can no longer work it. (So don’t mix up more than you can use in a couple of minutes). After you mix it, use your dubbing needle to apply the epoxy to the top, bottom and sides of the thread head, being careful not to get it on the eyes or the marabou wing. I do this in two steps, first a light coat to fill in the gaps, then a second coat to fill out the head. If you put too much epoxy on at one time you’ll wind up with a Roman nose glob head instead of a natural uniformly finished head.

That’s all there is to it. I hope you have as much fun tying and fishing this fly as I do. Remember, don’t weight the fly, use shorter across stream casts and try ripping the fly in on your retrieve instead of stripping it in slowly.