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I began experimenting and developed a much easier to tie pattern that has turned out to be so much more effective I called it the Suicide Sculpin. It is fished deep with short strips of the line. Strikes are solid smashes that stop the retrieve as if you had snagged a rock.

I prefer a size #8 streamer hook (Mustad 79580 or equal). I use mixed amber and g olice rabbit for the dubbed body, mottled brown hen saddle feathers for the tail and brown olive saddle hackle, including the filoplume portion at the base of the stem, for the dorsal and pectoral fins.

Sculpin colors generally are mottled brown and tan and green. Select colors to match your local sculpin colors.

TIP: Here’s a cheap source of eyes for streamer type and crayfish flies. Go to your local Dollar General type store and buy some plastic hairbrushes with various colored bristles for $1 each. Take them home and cut off all the bristles down at the base. When you need a pair of eyes, melt the base end with a cigarette lighter to form a ball equal in size to the bead end of the bristle. Figure eight them on the hook. Presto! Nice beady eyes of the color needed.

Tying Instructions

Step 1

Place hook in vise with hook point up. Put down a thread base and make 10-12 wraps of .025 lead wire in the thorax area. Cover with a few wraps of thread to hold wire in place. Advance thread to about 1/8" behind eye of hook and figure eight tie in the plastic dumbbell eyes (see Tip above). Take your pliers and squeeze the lead wire to create the flat base for the sculpin thorax. Turn hook over into conventional tying position.

Dub the body from the tail forward to about 1/8" - 3/16" behind the eyes.

Palmer the saddle hackle up the body to the end of the dubbing and make multiple wraps at that point to make a collar of hackle fibers and filoplume.

Gently stroke the filoplume back and dub the head of the fly, figure eighting around and between the eyes, finishing at the eye of the hook. Whip finish and cut thread.

Remove fly from vise and pick up you scissors. Trim saddle hackle fibers and filoplume from the bottom of the fly. (Remember, top of shank is bottom of fly as hook rides upside down in the water.) Trip hackle fibers only, not filoplume from the sides. Trim filoplume and interspersed saddle hackle fibers from the top of fly. Now trim to shape the filoplume and interspersed hackle fibers on the sides to form the pectoral fins. The saddle hackle fibers on the back create the impression of the dorsal fin and the filoplume pectorals move with the water as the fly is stripped in. Go fishing!