Tying Instructions

· Crimp your hook’s barb and add a black glass bead. After laying down a thread foundation all the way to the hook bend, cut a good sized bunch of yellow marabou and tie in the tail.

· Tie in the body. Gold tinsel will do, but the Krienik gold braid makes a much better body. (Kreinik can be found in the sewing department of most hobby shops). Leave a short space between the body and the glass bead for the wings.

· Tie in theYellow marabou underwing just short of the tail’s length.

· Tie in the squirrel tail overwing just a bit longer than the tail. Be very careful to attach the squirrel tail well or you’ll end up with yellow leach after a few casts.

· Create a smooth thread collar that leads into the glass bead. Paint the thread band with Dave’s Flexament for both looks and durability.

How to Fish

 

This is a great fly for early and late season fishing on the spring creeks of the southwestern Wisconsin coulee region. Many of our creeks here are as wide as they are deep and call for quick accurate casts along difficult cut-banks where the reclusive large browns lay near bottom waiting for something special to come along. This is where a small split shot and maybe a trailer nymph can help the Yellow Fox work its magic. Fished extremely slowly on or near the bottom at the headwaters of small, deep pools, this little streamer can often get the attention of those larger trout that we always see but can never seem to move.

On searching expeditions, I like to fish the Yellow Fox down and across the water above deep pools, letting the current carry it into the depths. It works well fished across riffles as well. Another great technique is to cast the Yellow Fox as close as possible to the opposite bank of long, slow runs and let the current work the fly along. I’ve had some beautiful takes this way.

Because of the Yellow Fox’s small size and weight, it’s an easy fly to cast with the lightweight rods most coulee fishermen prefer. Yet, with the flowing yellow marabou tail and underwing accented by the natural red of the fox squirrel overwing, the Yellow Fox represents a pretty big and tempting morsel to the already well-fed trout in our local waters.

 

Notes

The Yellow Fox was originated by coulee expert, Ross Mueller. It’s a small streamer for small water and is great producer on the spring creeks of southwest Wisconsin. A lot of people like to go big when fishing streamers, but on our local waters I like this pattern in a size ten and twelve. The Yellow Fox is a great upper-midwest prospector fly and works especially well in the early and late seasons when the larger browns are on the prowl. In late summer, when the hatches are down and nothing seems to work, the Yellow Fox will often save the day.