The Foxee Red Clouser

[SKollmann]

"The Foxee Redd Minnow is a version of the Clouser Deep Minnow that has become a staple for many species of fish. I do not leave home without this one, and I carry it in a variety of sizes. It has become my favorite fly for trout and carp," says Bob Clouser in his outstanding 2007 book, Fly Fishing For Smallmouth In Rivers And Streams (Stackpole Books, ISBN 0-8117-0713-5). "The Foxee Redd Minnow is a good imitation of sculpins and crayfish," says Clouser. "Lefty [Kreh] thinks it looks like a baby carp or rock bass. I love to fish this pattern for trout in sizes 2 through 8 in coldwater rivers and carp in sizes 2 through 6 on the Susquehanna from late July to September." Any fly with such a recommendation from two giants of contemporary fly fishing deserves the immediate attention and respect of any serious angler. I'll even go one farther; this fly is so good at fooling summer smallmouth that I'd happily fish it and it alone. And I'm not alone in these sentiments! Bold claim? Try it yourself and find out!

I tie the Foxee Red Clouser differently that Bob Clouser ties his own Foxee Redd Minnow. The slight difference in names is very deliberate. This is a different fly, but it remains such a close cousin that to do other than fully honor the original would be a deep violation of ethics. You see, this is Bob Clouser's pattern, but simply refined for the slower, shallower and more intimate waters in which I often find

myself. It's proven it's worth, in this incarnation, in flows as diverse as Florida's St. Johns and Econlockhatchee to Minnesota's Pine and Ottertail, from Kentucky's Elkhorn to Michigan's Flat River. Everywhere I fish this fly, it catches smallmouth bass and rock bass with amazing regularity. When compared directly with Clouser's original tie, this fly bumps the success factor up a full notch.

The Foxee Red Clouser is different because the main material used in its construction is different. The original Foxee Redd Minnow was designed using red fox tail fur. Says Clouser; "My first attempt was a disaster. I cut a clump of the hair from the tail and tied it onto the hook shank without first removing all of the soft underfur. Fox tail has a lot of underfur, which makes good dubbing for nymphs and dry flies, but it caused the fly to have a bulky head, look horrible and matte when wet. One day it dawned on me to remove the underfur and just use the long guard hairs, which have black tips, reddish centers, and creamy brown bases. With all the underfur removed, the guard hairs of the red fox tail makes a small, neat-looking Clouser Minnow, don't tangle or mat, and have the right consistency for the size so that they look just like deer tail going through the water." I suggest that Mr. Clouser went in the wrong direction. The tail guard hairs do look excellent and make for a streamlined minnow pattern. But the softer red fox body fur, complete with underfur in place a la Eric Leiser's Llama, makes for an even more translucent and lively fly that imitates a crayfish.

Crayfish make up nearly 80% of a smallmouth bass' summer diet.

In 2001 I was fishing a local creek. I regularly parked in the lot of a bait shop on the banks of the creek, and as a token of my appreciation for parking privileges I always went in to buy a soft drink and snack and whatever tackle looked like it might work on a fly rod or fit into my small collection of spinning gear. On this particular occasion they had soft-craws available for bait - and they were expensive. I asked about the $8/dozen crawdads and I was told that there's nothing else like it. The owner explained that soft craws will take fish when nothing else will. Because of the difficulty in obtaining and keeping these delicate creatures - and as a direct result of their effectiveness - they sold for prices that seemed astonishing. I bought a dozen on my way out and put them into a small aquarium in my office to study their action, color and behavior.

I discovered quite a bit about crayfish from that experiment. First, when they are in the soft-shell phase (crayfish molt their exoskeleton in order to grow - this happens several times every season to each individual, so soft-shell-phase crayfish are nearly always in the environment) these mudbugs are highly gelatinous and almost incapable of movement. Nearly gelatinous, they tumble and twist with the current. This, of course, explains their penchant for holing up under a rock or log for the shedding process. They are also very translucent. Immediately after shedding the crayfish are primarily cream, tan and gray. The new s

hell hardens over a two or three day period, During this time the colors gradually get darker and gain opacity. The spectrum of colors I observed was amazingly similar to the colors in a red fox tail I had in my tying supplies.

The specific crayfish patterns in I researched various books and magazine articles all focused on the chelae (claws) and were far too dark and without the flowing motions I'd seen in the real thing. Several tries at complex designs left me unimpressed. The straight Clouser recipe seemed logical, so my first ties were simple Clousers tied with the red fox tail. They worked a little better than accepted crayfish imitations, but the micro-motion and translucency was still missing. I needed something like marabou, but with mottled coloring and different texture. Happenstance delivered a piece of red fox body fur in a materials swap.

The light creamy pink of the fox flanks captured the colors of the soft-shell almost perfectly. The gray underfur, a useful dubbing, added bulk. One experiment lead to another and the technique of leaving in the underfur, learned from the Llama, brought the effort to a successful conclusion. The Foxee Red Clouser, tied in a way I'd truly stumbled upon, exhibited the squared profile, graduated translucency and spectrum of colors that provided the effect I wanted, And the fish approved!

I now have a "system" for fishing Foxee Red Clousers. In the early part of the year, from mid May until late June, I use a size 4 or 6 fly tied

with painted red dumbbell eyes. The spot of red imitates the eggs carried by the female (at least it does in my imagination). Female crayfish "in berry" are highly sought by game fish because of their additional nutrition value and ease of capture. From late June through late July I use the Foxee Red in sizes 10 and 12 tied with unpainted lead dumbbells to imitate young-of-the-year crayfish. In August and September I like to fish sizes 8 and 6 with unpainted dumbbells, in keeping with the theory of the inverted bell-curve for size. Finally in late September and through October I switch over to the flashier and larger Mixed Media to imitate the adults during the autumn mating season.

I like to fish the Foxee Red Clouser with a floating fly line and long, fluorocarbon leader. Leader lengths vary from 10-feet to 14-feet depending on water depth, water clarity and fly size. I almost always use a non-slip mono loop knot to attach the fly to the tippet. For a size 4 or 6 I like 3X, for 8 and 10 I'll go to 4X. Under low, clear water conditions I'll even go to a size 12 on 5X tippet. This last version is also a killer size for brown trout that act like they've seen everything.

I prefer to cast up and across with a quartering presentation and fish the fly on a tight line, high-sticking the fly back to my position just barely faster than the current. It's important to keep the fly low in the water column, crayfish will rarely swim more than a foot off the bed of the stream, and in the soft-shell phase they really can't swim at all. Takes are never subtle, smallmouth bass and rock bass eat this fly. The take is firm and positive. Using a light wire hook and keeping the point sharp ensures positive hook placement in the mouth or lip.

Tie a few of these and take them to the river on your next smallmouth bass outing. Try them in the lakes along rocky bottoms where large numbers of crayfish find themselves a frequent target of marauding largemouth. Try them the next time those wily brown trout turn up their noses at your best-presented nymph. Finally, cast this one in front of a tailing carp and hold on!

 

[Rob G]

Steve, what a nice write up. I'm convinced to give these a try. Glad you included Joe's Mixed media because I thought of that immediately after seeing these. I've been tying some Hairy Fodders with a lighter natural color crosscut rabbit trying to achieve that same mottled appearance but really want to try these. After tying so many crayfish patterns with more limited success, I personally am convinced that impressionistic patterns like this do better than the more realistic patterns. Again thanks for sharing.

[Guest rich mc]

and john loebach has joe cornwell[flyfishohio] lined up to speak to us on april 24 at bass pro. rich

[Ben Lubchansky]

Steve,definitely an intriguing fly. I know it looks straightforward but, do you use only red fox tail for the under and over wing? would you mind posting a recipe for this fly?

[SKollmann]

Steve,definitely an intriguing fly. I know it looks straightforward but, would you mind posting a recipe for this fly?

 

Ben . . . here's the website that will provide you a listing of materials as well as step-by-step instructions for tying this fly. www.flyfishohio.com

[Mark P]

FFO.com is a decent site but the finished quality of the flies in the videos leave a bit to be desired but is a good place to start for new tyers.