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The Clouser in my view is the quintessential salt water fly. It can be tied in sizes to suit Bream or Bill fish and with the correct dressing and size is equally at home in salt water, trout and bass fisheries. Many flies whilst not acknowledging their heritage are based on the Clouser recipe. Have a good look at David Dodd’s Bream Fly or John Schofield’s Bass Vampire and you will see that at the very least they are influenced by the Clouser recipe and specifically dressed for Bream & Bass respectfully.

The original Bob Clouser recipe calls for the use of Bucktail as the dressing for the fly. It works very well but on the down side it's not a durable fly and you may want to consider using more durable materials as in this synthetic clouser.

This is my favourite version of the clouser for use when targeting fish at all sorts of depths and is tied with H2O slinky fibre which is very durable and makes the fly present as slightly translucent which I think adds to it's appeal.

Materials

Process

A	I have tied this fly on a #2/0 Mustard 34007 Stainless Steel hook witha 3/16 dumbbell eye but it works well on a range of size hooks with proportionally sized dumbbell eyes and on similar shaped stainless and non-stainless hooks. Start off with your big fly thread and wind that half way down the length of the hook and then half of that distance back toward the eye of the hook. Understanding hooks

B	Put a drop of super glue on top of the hook shank exactly where you intend to tie the eyes in. Position the eyes on top of the drop of super glue and tie them in on top of the hook shank using tight figure 8 wraps. To make sure that the eyes don’t rotate on the hook shank include a couple of tight wraps the thread around the base of the eyes on top of the hook shank and between every couple of figure of eight wraps take a firm wrap of thread around the hook shank. Your finished with the big fly thread now so tie a couple of half hitches in the big fly thread and trim away the excess. Tie in your denier thread now directly behind the dumbbell eyes.

So as to avoid too much body material in front of the dumbbell eyes I tie one quarter of the H2O Slinky Fibre in behind the dumbbell eyes. If you tie all the belly material in using the steps you would follow if using natural bucktail you will finish with too much bucktail in front of the dumbbell eyes to make a neat cone shaped head on the fly.

I target a tail on my clouser flies to be one and a quarter times the length of the hook. The Mustard 34007 SS hook that I am using for this fly is size #2/0 and is 40mm long so the tail will protrude behind the back of the hook 50mm making this a 90mm fly.

Do take care when selecting materials for all your clouser type flies that you don't select too much. From my experience a lightly dressed clouser is always better than an overdressed clouser.

C	Select about one quarter of the H2O Slinky Fibre that your are going to use and tie that in behind the bead on top of the hook shank. I normally tie that in half way along its total length. Dealing with long strands of synthetic materials

D	Pull the front half of the Slinky Fibre over the rear facing Slinky Fibre and lock that in using firm wraps of thread Take the thread forward to half way between the dumbbell eyes and the eye of the hook.

E	Select a second quarter of the Slinky Fibre that your are going to use and tie that in half way between the dumbbell eyes and the eye of the hook. I normally tie that in half way along its total length.

F	Pull the front half of the Slinky Fibre over the rear facing Slinky Fibre and lock that in on top of the hook shank a distance equal to the diameter of the dumbbell eyes behind the dumbbell eyes, with firm wraps of thread

G	Invert the hook in the vice. Take the thread forward to half way between the dumbbell eyes and the eye of the hook. Tie in ten strands of krystal flash in front of the dumbbell eyes with the tips extending behind the fly the same distance as the tail of the fly.

H	Select a third quarter of the Slinky Fibre that your are going to use and tie that in half way between the dumbbell eyes and the eye of the hook. I normally tie that in half way along its total length. Pull the front half of the Slinky Fibre over the rear facing Slinky Fibre and lock that in on top of the hook shank with firm wraps of thread.

I	You can make the fourth quarter of the H2O Slinky Fibre the same colour as the first three quarters of the fly but my preference is to make the fourth quarter of the fly a contrasting colour in this case chartreuse. Select your final quarter of Slinky Fibre and tie that in half way between the dumbbell eyes and the eye of the hook. I normally tie that in half way along its total length. Pull the front half of the Slinky Fibre over the rear facing Slinky Fibre and lock that in on top of the hook shank with firm wraps of thread.

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