Swinging Mouse or Alaskan Mouse or Kat. N. Mouse (Katmai National)
Mouse patterns have been a part of Alaska for many years for good reason. What is better than watching a fish eat a fly on the surface…watching a fish chase down and eat a Mouse pattern on the surface. With my love for bass fishing and poppers I have been drawn to mouse patterns for as long as I can remember. Mercer’s Lemming was the first of these flies I can remember seeing as a child. I remember seeing them in a catalog first then on some TV show on fishing Alaska. To this day I can picture watching Rainbows smashing the fly as it swung across a riffle. Mercer’s Lemming made a decent popper in the Largemouth Bass world, but it wasn’t until I came across Whitlock’s Mouserat did my love for mouse patterns truly happen. These flies had the same platform as a wide gap hook.
For bass this was the preferred technique for tying. Many bass have been caught on these mouse patterns, but the design was not perfect for all fish. Once I started using these flies for my local trout the need for a hook further back was obvious. Not all situations provided aggressive strikes to the whole fly. Other patterns started to become popular in the industry with stinger loops placing the hook further back towards the tail.
I combined this design with my love for tubes to provide the greatest versatility. On a tube I could utilize the appropriate hook and rigging for the target species. Most of the time just having the hook eye directly in the junction tubing toward the back was enough though. On a tube if you need a hook far back on a stinger loop simply thread your tippet through the tube and tie a Perfection Loop or Duncan Loop and seat the knot into your junction tubing. Girth Hitch the eye of your hook to the loop and you are ready to fish. This way I did not need to tie 5 different patterns with various hook sizes or with or without stinger loops. This versatility was very helpful in Alaska. Sometimes the Rainbows took the entire fly as they jumped out of the water. Other times they or the Char would chase the fly down striking at the tail as it crossed the riffle.
With a single short shank wide gap hook the fly can be adjusted to provide better hook up rates for any of these situations. Give this pattern a try the next time you find yourself in need of a swung mouse pattern that pushes plenty of water getting the attention of opportunistic fish anywhere.
Swinging Mouse Recipe:
Thread- UTC 140 Black- Click Here
Tube- Pro Tube Nano Tube: Black Float- Click Here
Tail- Kiley’s Spiked Rolla Tail- medium- Click Here
Back- Rainy’s 2mm Black Closed Cell Foam- Click Here
Under Body- Crosscut Rabbit Strips in Chinchilla- Click Here
Head- Senyo’s Laser Dub- Sculpin Olive- Click Here
Junction Tubing- Pro Tube Hook Guide (sized for the hook of your choice)- Click Here
1. Place the tube of your choice in your vise using an appropriate adapter or vise option. Start thread covering the tube back to the junction tube area. Tie in tail material. This case we are using Kiley’s Spiked Rolla Tail in purple, but any dark color will work.
2. Trim two long strips of 2mm sheet foam in the color of your choice. Typically, black, brown, Olive are good choices. Cut up the ends of the foam strips about ¾ of the desired fly length.
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