Mickey Finn

Streamer imitating baitfish, for trout, salmon and sea trout. Beginner.

A flat silver tinsel body with an oval silver rib, and a three-layer bucktail wing: yellow, a sparse red, and yellow again on top.

Materials

Steps

  1. Attach thread Attach the thread at 90% of the way along the shank with a few turns and trim the tag end. One eye length behind the eye.
  2. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to the start of the bend in touching turns. Binding the rib along the underside for a level underbody.
  3. Tie in: silver oval tinsel Tie in the silver oval tinsel with a few firm thread turns.
  4. Tie in: silver flat tinsel Tie in the silver flat tinsel with a few firm thread turns.
  5. Wrap thread Wrap the thread to 90% of the way along the shank in touching turns.
  6. Wind: silver flat tinsel Wind the silver flat tinsel forward to 90% of the way along the shank in 22 turns. Touching turns, back to the bend and forward again.
  7. Tie off: silver flat tinsel Tie off the silver flat tinsel with a few thread turns and trim the excess.
  8. Wind: silver oval tinsel Wind the silver oval tinsel forward to 90% of the way along the shank in 5 turns. Evenly spaced, at about 45° to the shank.
  9. Tie off: silver oval tinsel Tie off the silver oval tinsel with a few thread turns and trim the excess.
  10. Tie in: yellow bucktail, a small bunch Tie in a bunch of yellow bucktail, a small bunch so the tips reach just past the end of the bend (4.3× the gape from the tie-in point), angled about 3° up from the shank. Cleaned and stacked, on top of the shank.
  11. Trim: yellow bucktail, a small bunch Trim the butts of the yellow bucktail, a small bunch flush. Butts cut at a shallow angle, so the head tapers.
  12. Tie in: red bucktail, sparse Tie in a bunch of red bucktail, sparse so the tips reach just past the end of the bend (4.3× the gape from the tie-in point), angled about 6° up from the shank. Tips level with the yellow.
  13. Trim: red bucktail, sparse Trim the butts of the red bucktail, sparse flush.
  14. Tie in: yellow bucktail, a larger bunch Tie in a bunch of yellow bucktail, a larger bunch so the tips reach just past the end of the bend (4.3× the gape from the tie-in point), angled about 9° up from the shank.
  15. Trim: yellow bucktail, a larger bunch Trim the butts of the yellow bucktail, a larger bunch flush.
  16. Whip finish Form a small head, whip finish with 5 turns and cut the thread. A small, tapered head, varnished.

History

Its maker is unknown. It was first called the Red and Yellow Bucktail. Wikipedia, after Joseph Bates, traces it to eastern Canada in the late 19th century; Nick Karas thought a commercial tyer made it for William Mills of New York. In spring 1932 John Alden Knight was given one by Junior Vanderhoff on the Mianus River near Greenwich, Connecticut, and they called it the Assassin. Gregory Clark of the Toronto Star renamed it the Mickey Finn, and Knight's 1937 magazine article, which came out at the time of the New York Sportsmen's Show, made it hugely popular.

Fishing it

A bright streamer with a long record for brook trout, and a favourite early in the season and in murky water. In Canada big ones on hooks up to 4/0 were trolled behind canoes, and it was one of the first flies Danish anglers used when they took up fly fishing for sea trout in the late 1960s.

Sources