Bucktail minnows work - I've been remiss

[TurbineBlade]

I decided to put those 34007s I got from Rich a while back to good use the other day and forced myself to tie "bucktail" minnows (Yuck) with very, very SPARSE wings.  I mean, wings with so few fibers (hand-stacked a bit) that you could count them.  

They work pretty darn well afterall -- I suspect I disliked them because I tied them poorly.  I'm a believer in the "Gartside principle", that fish are stupid and tend to "see what they want to see" with a fly pattern.  I think the sparse wing provides enough, but not too much to seem artificial if that makes sense.  

My hands froze and were tomatoes, but you can stand there like a goon and pull out fish on nearly every cast.  

I hate winter -- I think I'll drive to Covington tomorrow, get trapped on the other side of the stream, and have to run up the Gathright steps while Beth meets me at the top .  Then we'll speed off without anyone seeing our license plate!  Wait, that was last September!  "Government officials only" ---suckers!  

Gene  

PS -- if adding lead eyes to a bucktail fly that people were fishing for X years with bead chain and calling it after yourself is par-for-the-course with fly fishing people, consider me a meat-fishing, tenkara guy!