Minnie Leech Variation

Don't let the name fool you, this a rather large fly, tied on a 2/0 hook. The Chum Salmon run on the Nisqually River is picking up, and they have been nailing it. These chum aren't just picking the fly up, they are attacking it, and they are pretty fresh, hard fighters. Tied with the heavy salmon hook and the hour glass eyes, it has just the right amount of weight to float deep, but not drag on the bottom. The Nisqually water levels are up finally. It's a pretty good sized river with some deep flows, so it's important to get the fly down. I fish it with a sink tip line with about a 12 inch section of lead core line spliced to the end, and about a seven foot leader. If you feeling it dragging along the bottom it's fishing too deep. If bumps occasionally, it's fishing at about the right depth.

Tying Instructions
1. Tie in the thread and secure the zonker strip at the hook bend with approximately 1.5x the hook length sticking out as a tail.
2. Wind the thread forward under the remaining zonker strip and wrap the remaining zonker strip forward. Tie off, leaving enough room for the head and eyes.
3. Tie in a generous amount of flash on both sides of the body.
4. Secure hour glass eyes in front of wing with figure eight turns of the thread, leaving room to tie head.
5. Tie in Crystal Chenille behind eyes; wrap before, and around eyes to form head.
6. Whip Finish and dub thread with head cement.

These colors have been the most successful for me and chum always seem to prefer some variation of green or pink, but experiment with colors. This fly can be tied with matching colors for body and head or contrasting as you see here.