The Global FlyFisher has recently been updated to a new publishing system, and there may be a few glitches while the last bits get fixed. If you meet anything that doesn't work, please let me know.
Martin - martin@globalflyfisher.com

The Mango

The Mickey Finn is one of the first streamers many beginning fly tyers learn to tie. Kasper Muehlbach never used it and for years a yellow and orange fly was missing in his fly box. Last year he was inspired to tie a replacement.

9 comments
Kasper Mühlbach

The Mickey Finn is often one of the first streamers, beginning fly tiers learn to tie. For some reason, I have never used it. I prefer zonkers or palmer hackled flies along with shrimp imitations.

So for years a yellow and orange fly has been missing in my fly box.
Last year I found materials, which inspired me to tie a replacement for The Mickey Finn. It stayed in my box for severeal weeks. I took a picture, uploaded it to our local site and named it The Modern Mickey Finn Zonker... probably a result of being less creative that day.
But when my girlfriend got a look at it, she exclaimed: It looks like a mango. Bingo! The Mango was a reality.

It is just a zonker and nothing particular. I like the colours and I like the two-coloured zonker strip.

I think it will be good for winter trout and in those waters where orange is a killer colour. Perch also like orange and so does cod (they seem to like any colour).

If you also like it, you should tie some following this recipe:

Mango

Cold saltwater fly
Kasper Mühlbach
sea trout (sea run)
steelhead (sea run)
Hook Streamer, size 2-6.
Thread Rusty, 8/0.
Underbody Red yarn.
Body Re-Flash Tubing, orange.
Tail Hackle fibres, mixed yellow and orange.
Wing Zonker strip, cross coloured, orange/yellow.
False hackle (throat) Orange hackle fibres, let them almost reach the hook point.
  1. Mix a tail from yellow and orange hackle fibres. Tie them in just above the hook bend.

  2. Tie in the yarn and turn it over the shank to form a nice tapered under body.

  3. Let the tube slide down the shank. Secure it just above the hook bend. Make 1-2 mm of the tube stand out from the secure point.

  4. Tie in the zonker strip. Let 1-2 mm stand out from the secure point. Avoid trapping the hair.

  5. Whipfinish.

  6. Tie down the tupe at the head.

  7. Tie down the zonker strip at the head. Make sure to stretch it, as it gets sloppy when wet.

  8. Tie in a bunch of orange hackle fibres as a false hackle.

  9. Form a nice little head and whipfinish.

Easy
Kasper Mühlbach
Kasper Mühlbach
Kasper Mühlbach

Submitted by Kasper Mühlbac… on

Permalink

Jelle,

Good to hear and nice report. I am glad you had so much success using the fly rod. Even though many of the fish were thin but shiny kelts I can see, that you also got some beautiful chromers.

The fly with the pink-white-pink body looks fine for cold water. What is your description/material list?

Kasper

thank you i was inspired through this article to tie a fly nearly like this in different colours and it brought me some good fish on our last trip to southern sweden you can read about the tour here and see the fly:
www.foerde-fishing.de/breisen06.html

thank you for the inspiration and in our german balticcoast it works also very well!!!

Submitted by Nathan N Wight on

Permalink

Chris from Canada, try www.feather-craft.com. They have about 18 colors. They work great for many diffrent zonker and double bunny flies, also try them on John Barrs meat whistles

Submitted by CHARLES MANN on

Permalink

I live in Maine, and yes we now have Northern pike in many of our waters. I think the Mango pike fiy is a great pattern. I will be fishing the the St Johns river in northern Maine next year and will try the MANGO.

Submitted by Guillermo on

Permalink

iam from Argentina, i live in the Patagonia and i new in the flyfhishing, but this fly it's amazing... my congratulations to the warsmith! There is a seccition with tying videos y this page? thanks...

Submitted by Frank Nazario on

Permalink

WOW!!
function and simplicity... what else can you ask from a fly pattern. Amazingly easy to modify in color ... do not substitute materials i have found it to be perfect for large mouth bass in central florida and incredible in smaller sizes for blue gill and crappie!!

Submitted by chris from canada on

Permalink

Amazing fly!!!

Please , can anyone direct me to a place that I can purchase some zonker strips in that color.

Thanks in advance,
Chris from Canada

Related content

Selected by the system, based on these keywords: Sea trout flies | Zonker strips

Since you got this far …


The GFF money box

… I have a small favor to ask.

Long story short

Support the Global FlyFisher through several different channels, including PayPal.

Long story longer

The Global FlyFisher has been online since the mid-90's and has been free to access for everybody since day one – and will stay free for as long as I run it.
But that doesn't mean that it's free to run.
It costs money to drive a large site like this.
See more details about what you can do to help in this blog post.