I was introduced to a brown version of a clouser tied with brown craft fur at the FFA Queensland Bass competitions on Lake Maroon over the week end. Fortunately I had some clousers tied with brown buck fur and along with a couple of other flies also tied in brown it certainly help me catch 24 of the total of 76 bass for the competition. I have tweaked the fly a little since I came home and I am sure that will make it work even better.

The Clouser in my view is the quintessential salt water fly. It can be tied in sizes to suit Bream or Bill fish and with the correct dressing and size is equally at home in salt water, trout and bass fisheries. Many flies whilst not acknowledging their heritage are based on the Clouser recipe. Have a good look at David Dodd’s Bream Fly or John Schofield’s Bass Vampire and you will see that at the very least they are influenced by the Clouser recipe and specifically dressed for Bream & Bass respectfully.

The original Bob Clouser recipe calls for the use of buck tail tail as the dominant dressing for the fly. It works very well but on the down side it’s not a durable fly and you may want to consider using more durable materials as in my synthetic clouser. Alternatively, as a minimum, add a little synthetic material on top of your buck tail to give it some protection.

More often than not I also use bead chain eyes rather than “real eyes” or “dumb bell eyes” because I do loose a few flies fishing into snags and the bead chain eyes work just as well for me but of course cost almost nothing by comparison.

What ever your dressing do keep in mind that you need to ensure that the combination of the wing and the eyes do cause the fly to swim hook up when fished.

Materials for example below

 

Hook	Thread	Tail / belly	Flash	Back
For saltwater I use Mustard 34007 Stainless steel but for my freshwater fishing I find that Gamagatsu B10S in sizes #2 to #6 a better option.	You will need a strong thread and I recommend “Uni big fly” thread.	A mixture of white buck tail and white synthetic material.	Pearl Flashabou or substitute.	Buck tail and/or similar coloured synthetic material.

Process

 

A	Wrap the thread in tight touching turns down the front 1/3 of the hook shank. See [[Understanding hooks]] Tie in your bead chain, dumb bell or real eyes on top of the hook shank at the 1/3 position using figure 8 wraps. To tighten the connection wrap the thread around the base of the eyes on top of the hook shank. Finish with the thread half way between the eyes and the eye of the hook. See [[Tying in dumbbell eyes]]

 

B	Select a small bunch of buck tail and hand stack it so that the tips are roughly aligned and the fuzz has been removed from the butt end of the bunch of buck tail. Do take care when selecting bunches of materials that you don’t select too much. From my experience a lightly dressed clouser is always better than an overdressed clouser. Trim the butt end square and tie the buck tail in on top of the hook shank with the tips extending over the eyes taking care to ensure that the butt ends do not encroach on the eye of the hook.

 

C	Pull the buck tail over and between the eyes and tie it down behind the eyes and on top of the hook shank. See [[Tails on flies]] Return the thread to half way between the eyes and the eye of the hook.

 

D	Invert the hook in the vice. Select a couple of strands of pearl flashabou or similar material and tie that in with the flashabou extending back behind the fly. If you take two or three long strands you can half that around the thread and then pull it down with the thread into position before tying it into place with just one or two additional wraps of thread.

 

E	Return the thread to half way between the eyes and the eye of the hook

 

F	Select a small bunch of wing material and hold it firmly in place with the tips extending out the same distance behind the fly as the tail.

 

G	Lock the wing material in place. You may choose to do this in two steps with two colours of back material. For example if you tie in a small amount of pink first followed by a small amount of olive this will better represent a small rainbow trout than just the one colour. Continue wrapping the thread in front of the eyes to build up a neat cone shaped head.

 

H	Whip finish and varnish the head and where the tail passes between the eyes