Smuddler

I got this pattern from my friend Brad Smith. Brad is a SW WA native who's family has been catching native summer runs on the grease line since before I was born (and when there were still a few fish around). Last summer I was lucky enough to be introduced to Brad on his home river, the River Nunyabusiness, with fellow steelhead junky Mike "Steelie Mike" Davidchik. Being trained from an early age in the ancient jedi art of fly fishing summer steelhead in low water conditions, Brad fishes almost exclusively with a dryline and....a single handed rod. Gasp. While no one in their right mind would assert that they invented the muddler, Brads pops apparently was one of the first folks to regularly make use of a muddler with a marabou wing, a pattern which they fish often and call the smuddler. I'm not sure the exact details of the story, but at some point someone claimed the pattern as their own and sold it to the commercial tying company as an "after dinner mint". Unfortunately the factory version, with its gigantic jug head and over stuffed marabou wing with just doesn't have quite the mojo of the original.

Brads tie is tied on a long shanked, downeyed streamer hook so you'll have to forgive my bastardization, and I've taken a few liberties with the color combination since I couldn't find my purple body braid. I've been a believer ever since last summer when I saw him take a fish on the comeback which grabbed on and started running into the backing before I even realized what'd happened. Hope you guys are having a good summer in SW, thanks for the fly buddy.