Tom Rosenbauer coined the phrase “slutty flies” on one of his Orvis podcasts. He also has been posting on Instagram with it as a hashtag. I think it’s pretty funny.
Otherwise known as “junk” flies, these are flies that some consider non-traditional. A few won’t fish them.
As I’ve written before, I will not fish a pellet fly. It isn’t something for me. (I also fish only flies that I’ve made.) But, I will fish Squirmies, eggs and Mops when other flies aren’t working.
Noel wrote a fantastic blog post on the Mop a bit ago (here), and it has generated a huge number of hits. There’s so much great information in that one blog post.
I have different Mop fly colors and tie them both with weight and without, as Noel suggested. One version I tie is cream-colored, with a thorax of black UV ice dub in a dubbing loop and a chartreuse thread collar. I pick at the ice dub to make it spiky.
Some days the Mops don’t work for me. But, there have been a few outings when those flies are the only producers. Floated up top or below the surface, these flies offer seductive movement to trout.
Whether they’re junk, slutty or non-starters, that is up to the angler to decide. But, these flies can work and work well.
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Not sure what all the hate on mop-flies is for… I mean, in technicality all they are, are a funky streamer pattern. Like Steve said, it could be used as a hellgrammite imitation this thing probably would slay fish, from trout to smallies!
Love the jig-hooks on these, they give the fly a meal-wormy movement in the water.
True. It has taken me some time to get there, though.
I’ve been digging into crane flies a fair amount lately and have gotten it stuck in my head that mop flies are likely imitating crane fly larvae. These are ubiquitous on all the rivers I fish.