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 First published August 14th 2004 - More than 4 years ago
The Zuddler Question: What to you get when you combine elements of a Muddler Minnow and a Zonker? Answer: A Zuddler!Notes on the Origin of the Pattern by Joe Emery and John Rode
Buoyancy We developed several patters for those conditions, using deer hair or foam to create zonkers that floated or sank very slowly. The results were spectacular. It was a thrill to see a huge boil in the water and feel the fish take the fly, almost jerking the rods from our hands. The few fishermen on the stream that we met were having no success, complaining that only rain could bring the start of the steelhead season. We quietly nodded and hoped for continued clear skis.
Onto something
The Zuddler looked like a nice pattern, so John tied a few up in natural brown color with a gold cone head and gold holographic flash in the tail and collar. Although the new fly looked good, high and dirty water kept the natural looking Zuddler in the box for several trips. It was a few months later on our nearby, famous and heavily fished Elk Creek in Pennsylvania when we first really tested the Zuddler. With its heavily pressured fish and typically gin clear water, Elk Creek was a great place to test a pattern's fish appeal. To our delight, the light brown Zuddler lit up the otherwise reluctant Elk Creek steelhead. We knew we were onto something.
How to Fish the Fly
Notes on Tying
After tying in the tail of crystal flash or flat braid, the rabbit strip and the body, we simply take about a half pencil sized shank of deer hair and tie it up top just behind the conehead. It helps to put a base of superglue, head cement or flex cement on the tread base to keep this hair from spinning and ending up, after a half hours fishing, as a throat instead of a wing. The deer hair is simply tied on about ¼ inch from the end of the hair ends, pulling the tread snugly to create the muddler head. These ends are pulled back and the thread is wound and then whip finished in front of the hair head. The muddler head can be clipped to a good shape later if needed. Then the conehead is pulled back onto the deer hair to give it a swept back look. The conehead is secured against the muddler head by tying a head of thread in front of the conehead. Our preferred hook is a Diachi 2220, 4x long streamer hook in size 6 for normal water conditions. For high and dingy water, we often switch to the same hook in size 4. In either case, the fly has lots of presence in the water; in other words it is not wispy, and probably displaces more water than many other patterns.
An alternate version of this fly results from a cross of a Bunny Fly (often called a Bunny Leach) with a muddler. The primary difference between this fly and Zuddler is that the rabbit strip is palmered around the hook shank rather than being laid flat across the length of the hook shank as in the Zuddler. The result is a "Buddler", with a somewhat bulkier profile and great pulsating action in the water. An easy and great looking way to tie this fly utilizes Gudebrod HT Braid as an underbody. By leaving about ½ inch of braid at the tail and ¾ inch at the collar, the braid can be quickly unwoven with a few pokes from a bodkin. This creates a fast, one material underbody and added flash. We often use this same body and flash technique while tying Zuddler bodies.
A color combination that had worked particularly well for the bruiser steelhead of the Salmon River in upstate New York, a natural colored rabbit strip with a purple braid body, became, with the addition of some deer hair, one of our top patterns. Why does this particular color combination seem to out-fish all others? We would only hazard a guess, knowing the pitfalls of anthropomorphizing our human bias onto the instinctive mind of the steelhead. It works, and it will work for you, and let's leave it at that. Suffice to say, the rabbit strip has great action, the purple body has always been a favorite attractor color for anadromous trout, and the addition of some deer hair up top seems to give the fly some buoyancy, keeping it upright and swimming well in all currents. The deer hair also gives the fly some nice bulk, creates a bit of micro-turbulence, and offsets the weight of the conehead. The natural/purple combination is tops in relatively clear water. Several other color combinations have also worked very well for us. In heavily stained water, we often have success with a bright yellow Zuddler with gold or orange flash and body. White rabbit and deer hair over purple or pearl flash and body has also worked well, especially in cold winter water. Black rabbit with black or purple deer hair over silver, gold or purple flash and body has been very productive as an end of the day color, fished by swinging the fly a foot or so below the surface of the water. It appears that steelhead often lose their wariness at that time, feeding on baitfish silhouetted against the low-light of the twilight sky.
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Submitted October 31st 2007
Great. My son sent it to me and I appreciate it. He just caught several over 20 on the Snake in Idaho using the Zuddler. I live in Henderson, KY and plan on tying some of the Zuddlers to try on the Cumberland River below Wolf Creek Dam.