The Mata-Crappie

Also Great for Bluegill

Mata-Crappie gets eaten by a chunky bluegill

About 10 years ago, Cheech and I were fishing for Crappie and Smallmouth bass on Brownlee Reservoir along the Idaho/Oregon border. I had tied up a bunch of these panfish-friendly wire-bodied patterns and brought them along. As it turned out, these little bugs did some damage on the Crappie that trip. Since that time, I've used them on White Bass, Bluegills, Carp, Largemouth and Smallmouth bass as well as a few trout here and there.

It's a fun pattern to tie that sinks quickly enough to get down to fish while the legs flutter and add good action to the fly.

I recently made some changes to the original pattern (I get bored of tying things the same way sometimes) and took it for a spin. It ended up working very well and ended up catching blugill, largemouth and a couple of rainbow trout.

I usually fish this on either an indicator rig mooched slowly along or I'll fish it with an intermediate or midge tip type line depending on the situation. The fish above took it on a vertically retrieved midge tip line just off the bottom in 8 ft of water.

Give it a whirl and go chase some warmwater critters!

Material List

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Hook: Hanak H 400 BL Jig Hook - 10
Thread: Veevus GSP - White - 50 Denier
Eyes: Double Pupil Lead Eyes - Extra Small - Chartr w/ White & Black
Tail: EP Trigger Point Int'l Fibers - UV Green
Body 1: UTC Ultra Wire - Chartreuse - Medium
Body 2: UTC Ultra Wire - Black - Medium
Legs: Grizzly Flutter Legs - Black Barred Fl. Green Chartreuse
Throat 1: Extra Select Craft Fur - White
Throat 2: Ripple Ice Fiber - Chartreuse
Body Coating: Loon Fluorescing UV Clear Fly Finish

Other tools from the tutorial:
   

Renzetti Master Vise
Loon UV Infiniti Light