All Hail The Rolled Muddler
Anybody who knows me knows when it comes to naming flies I am really resistant and I actually get quite indignant when somebody takes a well established fly, changes something minor on it and renames it completely.
It’s Not a New Fly If You just Change the Thread Colour
In my mind, if you were going to make a ‘new’ fly you have to honour (at least in my opinion) the original fly in some way. The name of the rolled muddler is perfect.
What is a Muddler Fly?
I’m sure most of you know, but there was a point where the muddler minnow (the original one) was the most popular streamer to cast. That is until an easier fly to tie came along. The wooly bugger. It pushed the muddler to the side, but eventually everybody who starts off with one fly and sticks at the sport long enough, has thousands of flies, so it all works out.
So the muddler has the muddler head on it. It’s spun deer hair trimmed back into some sort of shape some people like a ball shape, that’s pretty traditional, some people like a tapered shape. I prefer a smaller shape but either way, we have a muddler base.
Before we get to the rolled muddler. we can look at a bunch of other flies that have the deer spun deer hair and wing.
The original of course is the Muddler Minnow which has the Turkey quill tail and underwing. the Marabou muddler where the Turkey quill was that’s where the Marabou feathers go. We have the Zuddler which is a Zonker tied with muddler head and we have the Bow River bugger which is a wooly bugger with a muddler head.
The rolled muddler is called that because we take Mallard flank feathers of various colors, pull them off and then roll them between our fingers so they point in no particular direction. These flank feathers have a very definitive curve. They’re not straight so we roll them and they go wacky and in all kinds of different directions and that is where the name is derived.
How To Tie The Rolled Muddler
I tie in the tail, I tie in a very thin wire, not for much for a look but for durability, some sort of body wrap, (on the regular old school rolled muddler it would be a gold body. I wrap body material forward over the hook shank and then I put the ribbing on a, some crystal flash under wing, more rolled Mallard flank feathers over the flash, and then a deer hair wing so to speak on top and then a spun deer hair head trimmed to shape and cemented.
Some people like to put in the wing first and then a separate head I like to try and make it all in one shot and save myself a step. I will use red thread, we do a lot of trimming underneath to try and preserve the wing and not to have a lot of flaring on the outside or underneath but then you can sort of see the red thread underneath which looks like flared gills a little bit.
Other ones I’ll use white thread and some I’ll use black thread it just depends on the overall look of the fly I’m going for. I tied them from #2 down to #12 Streamer Hooks.
Variations
Natural deer hair with gold, black, light green, dark green, hot pink, or orange beads.
I also tie them in all black, all white olive and I’m thinking about doing some in red.
I use these for pretty well everything that swims but they just are in that size size range and color scheme they just seem to be very very effective for small mouth bass and brook trout They also work quite well for rainbow trout and brown trout.
Robert Burton
flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
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Chub Creek
We know another little lovely Creek that is beautiful, remote and you can run into all kinds of wildlife! It’s pretty free of garbage, at least the fishing kind. People walk their dogs and I think some teenagers party but other than that we have it, fishing wise, to ourselves. The only catch is there’s no trout or any ‘sought after’ fish species. Creek chub for the most part but they can get pretty big, never refuse a fly put in front of them and there are plenty of them.
It’s a great place to try out new techniques, specialty rods, lines and all kinds of stuff. So on this particular day we were using Tenkara I was experimenting with a level leader that you spool off. I was judging between Maxcatch and dragonfly fluorescent a three or three and a half level leader and Steven J even tried doing two fly setups on Tenkara and got a lovely doubleheader.
85 fish in total with some river shiners in there
Robert Burton
Catch and Release Only
flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
- Casting Lessons
- Tying Lessons
- Public Speaking
- Guiding
- Fly Fishing Only
That’s it, Were going back to Fairford!
Beginning of August off to Fairford River eleven fish total most of them were drum and the biggest being a 23 inch drum a couple small ones Oh I got a Pike and steven got a carp good size like 26 inches something like that it was a good day it was a good day nice and warm fishing steady through the day.
Robert Burton
info@flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
Secret Brookies
That’s the name a now passed friend gave to this location. They may have meant it derisively as maybe no one cares about a place with mostly small fish. Not really a stretch when the gov’t rewards you for catching big fish through the “Master Angler” program. To be clear I do tell people about this place it is not a complete secret. The problem is they don’t care! It’s a lot of work (long drive, lots of hiking on rough terrain, heavy packs) to get these small fish and there are closer bigger fish to catch. But it’s a an environment that speaks to me and I’ll keep doing it until my my legs can’t do the work. It is a lot of work to get these fish but it’s beautiful place with no sunflower seed packages, no Bud Light cans, no Styrofoam, no tubs of shiners left around, No garbage etc. Yes I get to run into the odd bear and get scared by the odd fox or river mammals like muskrat, Beaver etc. But I like running into those things more than I like running into garbage.
Fairford River Manitoba
Well this area is famous, at least to fly fishers, as a place to go during the really really cold weather. It’s also a pretty good place to go during the summer. The main downfall of going in the summer is of course lots of people do it and it can get crowded.
It wasn’t particularly busy on this day there were on there’s always people fishing locals know that.
There was rain on the way up and rain surrounded for most of the day but it was a mix of sun and cloud I was actually pretty busy taking pictures of birds around me but eventually got around to fishing.
I did get down to fishing and I caught a Pike then I caught the biggest walleye of my life!
After that there was more Pike to be and my fishing partner got 7 pike.
The last one which sliced open his fingers right right after I suggested maybe using the pliers that I had in my hand to give him.
Another great day on the Fairford!!
Robert Burton
info@flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
Secret Creek
Hit our favorite water again. Did lots of hiking while it was kind of warm. Fishing wasn’t fast and furious but pretty consistent and we’re able to find fine fish all the way downstream and back. One fish per cast and then slowed down a bit. I finished around sunset 40 fish in total Just wanted to enjoy fishing and I didn’t shoot any video and just took a couple of pictures of some fish just for the records.
Robert Burton
info@flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
Vermillion River Manitoba
July 7th Vermilion River in Manitoba not as good as last year still managed 8-10 fish. Water levels were quite low and we were fishing in the middle of the day and it was quite warm. Here’s some video but the video is again me trying to get used to turning on the camera when I hook a fish so you can see the fish and then turning off the camera when I release the fish. But sometimes I forget to turn it off and then I get into the reverse habit of turning it off when I hook a fish in anyways I’ll get better at this to get the quality fly fishing content that my viewers demand haha.
Robert Burton
info@flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
Pine River Manitoba July 5th & 6th
We went to what is called the Clearwater Creek Crossing on the Pine River. It was easier getting in this year because it was a very low rain and so it was no dicey bits. I mean it’s a it’s not a proper road and you do have to drive slow especially if you don’t have a high clearance vehicle like I don’t. Three fish were caught in three hours and the water is kind of low and again it wasn’t as good as it was three years ago but better than the last time when the bugs sent me scrambling Here’s a picture of me wearing the outfit that allowed me to fish there long enough to catch actual fish!
Found Large Prints Looks like wolf over a bear print.
The next day we explored Old Crossing and Lovers Leap. Beautiful but low water no trout.
A little bit of video. Again my new method is to only hit the record button when I have a fish on because that’s what you guys want to see but if I forget to turn it off after a fish then the next time somebody gets a fish I end up turning it off.
So it’s a short video you can see two small fish caught and you can see one fish hooked by my partner but then I turned it off so we don’t see him land it. I think it was a nice fish I don’t remember.
And then a bit of video footage from the lower section that we were exploring that had no fish I did catch a chub there but you know anyways. We know the place better we’ll explore it more next year hopefully the water’s higher.
Robert Burton
info@flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
Something Other Than Trout
It is not at all unusual in the world of fly fishing to target bass but there was a time when targeting anything but trout was seen as a little bit weird. Smallmouth were given the name of Red Eye Green trout, Warm Water Trout, Spiny Trout and a bunch of other names.
If You Aren’t Targeting Bass With Your Fly Rod, You Are Missing Out
Anyways, anybody worth their salt knows fishing for trout is not the beginning and end of fly fishing. I’m not a meteorologist but I do watch radar and I tried to find a place that wasn’t going to be raining and basically it rained everywhere in driving distance of Winnipeg except at the Manigotagan on this June day. It was definitely clouded over and we did hit the rain on the way back.
Multi Fly Rod Fishing for Multi Species
I was doing some different things on this day.
I was trying out a brand new rod that I got at the Fly Fishing Banquet
It’s a rod that had never been fished! From around the 50s era and, without going into people’s names or anything like that, it turns out it was a rod that was given to a bar owner somewhere in Minnesota, in a working class town to pay off a bar tab. Magically it had been in the hands of a few people including a fisherman and it never got fished. So as the person who owned the rod was in a personal care home and they did not donated it to the club to be auctioned of and not fished, I want to make sure that it saw some fish and didn’t become a museum piece.
So I got a bass on the on the first cast.
Then I can proceed to catch a bunch of bass and some really good ones in the 16 range and the rod balance was good. I might want to get a heavier reel to balance it out but for the most part a match catch reel that was a little bit oversized for it worked out great. I also tried my tenkara rod that day I was able to hook more fish than usual with it because there’s something about the drift in a tenkara rod that just is more enticing. Landing fish with the tenkara is very very hard as you can’t reel it up and the rod has a lot of spring to it and with that current coming off the of woods Falls think I only I don’t think I managed to land a single fish but I had a lot of fun hooking them and then getting off.
Here are some pictures and video from that day.
The fishing was so good why not go back the next week?
I have figured out that this spot is very much a springtime into summer fishing location. We have been there late winter, barely spring, and has been poor and we’ve been there in the fall a couple of times and it’s surprisingly poor considering there’s so many small mouth bass. But spring into summer it is wicked good so you got to strike while the iron’s hot and that’s what we did one only a week later.
It was a brighter day but the fishing was still great! I use the seven weight bamboo again and my Tenkara
As I type this post It is January the 22nd The high today is supposed to be like -29° C if you buy into the whole “feels like” thing, the wind chill supposedly makes it feel like -44° So I’m enjoying looking open water, sunshine, and fish on a day like today.
BTW, the winning fly here and basically for the season is one I developed. A mostly white Muddler in the rolled muddler variation we have deemed “Rage Bait” a name sort of of our time but also a reaction to how trout and bass hit this thing.
Robert Burton
info@flyfishingmanitoba.com
204-770-0846 (Texting only)
Rivers Finally Become Fishable
The month of May at us going to the same secret trout stream that well I don’t keep it a state secret I don’t post it on the Internet because we know what Internet does to fishing spots. So we went on the 9th and the 25th. On the 9th when I caught 19 fish. The fish were stacked up in the pools and not in the rapids. The water was quite cool and there would be 20 to 60 fish in each pool. Which was amazing that we only managed 19 for the day but was really good to see is a lot of fish in a lot of places as opposed to the main spots as usual. Travelling from spot to spot, we probably scared as many fish as we saw.
The next time
The second time we went it was fished till sunset and and drove out in the dark. The air temperature was 21 to 12 and we got so many on rolled muddlers and nymphs and a few on drive flies just for the fun of it! and he has you know it’s late at night but you got fish until sunset more often that’s for sure!
And Again
We were going to fish a different area and then we saw so many birds of prey that we decided to fish the main trout section. Now you may say what does that have to do with anything but, over the years we have found that when the solunar cycle is at a certain way the birds of the prey and the animal activity of predators goes up and it does seem to correlate to fish activity and it turned out to be the right idea. We went straight to our favorite pool got fish but we found fish in all sorts of places and were able to catch them in pools that haven’t had fish in for quite a number of years. Hard to fish pools and in some pools that we only find available and active later season so it was actually very hard to leave the fishing was so good we caught like 60 fish between us.
Oh Heck Why Not Go Again and Make a Weekend of It?
Left straight from work on Saturday and got to start fishing around 4 in the afternoon until sunset. Stayed overnight in a motel in the area and went back on the river by eight in the next morning got off about 11 to drive home as I had a gig that evening. We found a Beaver Dam down way downstream and it was full of fish. We really only got to look at a little bit because of the long walk back And it looks like there’s more of a below that and so we’ll be looking at that later on this year. Both look extremely fishable as opposed to you know Beaver dams where it’s so mushy on the outsides of it that you can’t get at it except by standing on the dam and tangling your line up in all the sticks! When we went back the next day we just basically fished some of the closer spots to where we park.
The winning fly for that day though was a tie that I had made over the winter that I thought might be good for a bass and it’s basically a rolled muddler done in all white so white rolled feathers, crystal flash and white deer hair for a body and based on the way the fish hit it it has been named Rage Bait.
Having Too Much Fun Fishing to Take too Many Photos
I promise, the next installment will not be brook trout from a Creek I can’t tell you about.