Hot Cone Olive Muddler Minnow:

This fly was a fly I first tied over a pot of coffee on a terribly wet day at the fly shop. I knew that hot orange worked, and I knew that olive was also a very effective color. I walked around the shop, grabbed some olive deer hair, olive marabou and tied some up. I gave a number of them away that day and asked some guys I knew to fish them and find out how they worked. In 24 hours I had a patron back in the shop asking me to tie more. I was never a big custom fly tier and only did it when I had to, and rarely charged money to do so because I didn’t think I was that good at it. I was nervous people would get disappointed if they didn’t catch anything. Now over ten years later I realize I probably gave away a few mortgage payments of flies in those 10 years. No worries though, what lacked in revenue gained in satisfaction as this fly gave me a lot of it.

In fact the fly pictured here was just simply pulled out of the fly box. I had to turn the cone head because the other side was chipped. I need to tie some more of these. Simply put, get some olive deer hair, olive marabou and hot orange cones and tie some of these. You will be pleasantly surprised. I found them to be most effective in the fall and spring. Not so great in the summer for some reason.