Mosquito Tute

Ever since I seen this pattern it looked buggy to me. Though it doesn’t look at all like the pattern’s name, those blood thirsty insects, it looks insectly to me. With its contrasting colored body and Adam grizzly tail and hackle it has to bring some curiosity to maybe bring some trout to the surface.
I’m headed down to the Davidson River in North Carolina to fish with my son this weekend. I’ve done my research and read that the Davidson can be frustrating at times being it gets fished frequently and the fish get to see all kinds of patterns. Being that they get finicky, thinking out of the box, by showing then something different, could make for a delightful day.


I once read that being fish have no hands they can only inspect something by sight. If it looks like food they have to mouth it to feel the texture and determine if it’s digestible. In this respect sometimes the imitation just has to look buggy or curious enough to get the trout to taste it. I feel this pattern might just fool a few of them finicky trout to the surface.
I’ve used the stiff Moose Body hair before for Drake tails, Adams parachutes, and antennas and on crayfish patterns. When I pulled four strands of moose mane, and seen the diameter, I thought ’how was I going to wrap this on a #18 hook shank for a body.’ to my surprise moose mane is real soft. I found spinning the hair with my hackle pliers, a couple of times, and then wrapping it around the hook shaft was easy.
So here’s an easy tie for thinking outside the mayfly and basic terrestrial box.


Hook; standard dry fly #14-#20 (if there are #14 mosquito’s around I think I’d find somewhere else to fish) I used Orvis big eye #18 hook for demonstration.
Thread; black or gray 8/0
Tail; grizzly hackle fibers
Wings; optional. I tie wings on the #16’s
Body; moose mane, dark and light hair
Hackle; grizzly


1. Base thread on hook shank and tie in grizzly tail. (Length of hook shank)


2. Pull four moose mane hairs off in light and dark colors mixed.
3. Align tips together and trim straight across where the hairs won’t be to thin or weak.
4. Tie in, by the tips, at tail extending the tips along the shank for bulk.


5. With hackle pliers spin the hairs two full turns and wrap the hairs towards the hook eye in close wraps.




6. Leave room for the hackle and tie off.
7. Tie in a stiff grizzly rooster hackle feather as shown


8. Wind hackle one in front of the other (about 3-4 wraps) leaving room for the head and tie off.


9. Make a nice thread head and whip finish.
Pretty simple and I hope effective.





Hopefully we can make a few of them finicky trout rise.
I suppose in the afternoon, under the hot Carolina sun, my son and I might just relax along shore sipping Carolina sweet tea, sharing our fish excursions and smoke’n Vintage Cameroons!!




______doubletaper

they made quite a few fish rise in the slower pools on the Davidson River in NC. i was just late in the hook ups.