The super simple baitfish came about as I rushed to tie some flies for a trip to Mexico. Not a fishing trip per se, but I almost never travel where there isn’t water, and I almost never am around water without at least trying to catch a fish. We were mostly going to be around family and escape the grey dreariness of February in Missoula, MT. I had been there before and gotten skunked. The beaches get deep quickly and the surf pounds right near shore. Or the surf is farther out and the beach is perfect and it’s chock full of surfers that don’t appreciate being caught and lugged back to shore I figured my only luck was with big lures that could cast out beyond the immediate break on those steeper beaches. Unfortunately, the most common baitfish are small, like two to three inches long and skinny. I could cast out my big heavy spoons, but no fish would eat them. So, I thought I would tie up some small skinny little baitfish flies and use them in tandem with the spoons like an old fly and bubble set up, or a flasher and fly type rig. This fly uses only three materials plus the eyes. I made it a bit more complex by snelling a leader on, but you have to tie some knot to attach the tippet to the fly. This way my fly to tippet knot is completely covered by the glue and had zero chance of slipping. I by no means claim originality with this fly. It is a riff on multiple simple patterns that are proven winners.
Super Simple Baitfish
Hook: Gamakatsu Octopus 2/0
Thread: 8 lb. Trilene mono
Body: Crystal flash
Belly: Crystal Web Flash Silver/Grey
Top Wing: Polar Flash or equivalent Pale
Eyes: 6 mm Living Eyes Ice
Glue: Solarez Thin Hard
Get the mono started. Make sure to leave plenty of room for the snell knot at the end.
Tie in the crystal flash with 2/3 pointing forward. You will wrap forward then back and pull the front part back to help bulk out the body.
You can see the folded back crystal flash. Now tie in the crystal web to the bottom of the hook.
You can see the folded back crystal web. Ideally, I would have kept more of the crystal web on the under side of the hook, but I’m not too worried about it.
You can see this is tied in a more traditional way, but you are still going to fold those butt ends back so that you can keep bulking out the body.
The butt ends are tied back and then whip finish and snip the mono. Next comes the glue and the eyes
Lovely, you can stop here and tie this fly on in a standard manner. I add two more steps.
There’s the snell knot with the 20 lb. flouro. You can see that it’s not perfect by any means, but that’s ok.
The glue cleans up my bad knot and makes this fly nearly indestructible. Have fun!