{{start}}

My articulated scrounger minnow works very well in those areas where flathead, jacks, grunter, bream and other predators target small fish that on the falling tide are being flushed out of mangroves, rocky shores, drowned timber and weed beds.

This is the third in my series of scrounger flies and like the scrounger baitfish and the scrounger jelly prawn it's tied on a worm hook which in soft plastic parlance is also referred to as a weedless hook and more often than not this fly can be retrieved not only through weed but also over or around most structure such as detritus matter, drowned timber, rocks etc, in rivers and lakes, without being snagged up.

I like to work it through a range of retrieves including continuous retrieves at various speeds and retrieves with plenty of pauses that allow the fly to either sink through the water column or bounce along the bottom.

Building an articulated fly is basically a two part process with the first step being the tying of the trailing hook fly.

Materials for trailing hook

Process

A	Insert the hook already loaded with lead wire into the vice. Adding lead to a "weedless" AKA "worm" type hook Starting behind the eye of the hook wind the thread in touching turns back to the vertical section of the hook shank and then half the distance back toward the eye of the hook.

The woolly bugger type tail is made up of three parts.

B	The under-tail: The first stage is to tie in half the marabou for the under-tail. The target length of tail should be up to the length of the hook shank.

C	A bit of flash: I don't like the flashy material tied under the tail, on top of the tail or either side of the tail and prefer it partially hidden in the tail so tie three or four strands of pearl flashabou on top of the hook shank with equal amounts facing forward and backward.l

D	Fold the forward facing flashabou over the rear facing marabou, seperate the strands and lock them in with tight wraps of thread.

E	The balance of the tail: Tie in the second half of the marabou completing the tail. Take the thread back to the vertical section of the hook shank.

F	Tie in a length of 'milk white' FNF chenille Wind the FNF chenille forward in tight touching turns to just behind the eye of the hook. Tie the FNF chenille of with tight wraps of thread and build up a small thread head directly behind the eye of the hook. Whip finish the thread head and trim away the excess tread. Apply a little super glue or head cement to the thread head.

The second part for building an articulated fly is to attach the articulated head to the eye of the trailing hook and dress the articulated shank.

Materials for articulated head

G	Slide an articulated shank through the eye of the hook. Fish Skull shanks have an offset eye. Make sure that when you slide the shank onto the hook that you position the offset eye so that it is facing up so that when the dumbbell eyes are tied they will not ake it hard to tie the fly to the leader.

The articulated shank needs a bit of weight which is provided by the dumbbell eyes that are tied in under the articulated shank and a fair bit of volume which is made up of FNF chenille ... you need that weight and volume to create cavitations around the fly, as it is retrieved, to get the marabou in the tail working..

H	Place the fly into the vice by locking the articulated shank into the vice by the rear eye of the articulated shank. Build up a bed of thread on the first quarter of the articulated shank. Turn the fly over 180 degrees in the vice and put a drop of superglue toward the back of the bed of thread.

I	Tie in a set of dumbbell eyes on top of the drop of super glue using tight figure of eight 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. Tying in dumbbell eyes

J	Continue winding the thread in tight touching turns to just in front of the rear eye of the articulated shank. Tie in a length of Wapsi Palmer chenille. Wind the Wapsi Palmer chenille forward a third of the distance to the dumbbell eyes and tie the Wapsi Palmer chenille off.

K	Trim away the excess Wapsi Palmer chenille and tie in a length of red FNF chenille.

L	Wind the red FNF chenille forward in tight turns to just behind the dumbbell eyes and tie the FNF chenille off with tight wraps of thread and a couple of double hitches of thread. Apply a drop of superglue to the tie off of the FNF chenille and trim away the excess.

{{end}}