The Mop Fly

Ah, the infamous mop fly. You either love it or hate, not much in between on this one. I haven't personally fished a mop fly before, but I think it might be time to give it a try. I couldn't find the origins of the mop fly, but it has been something really popular this year. I kept seeing posts about it in Facebook, all different variations. So I decided what the hell, let me see what I come up with. The video above is what I ended up with. To date it has been my most popular video on YouTube with over 1.1k views as of today in 5 months. For a channel that only has just over 5k views, this one video makes up 1/5th of my views. Insane right? So why is this "fly" so popular. Well from what I read of people fishing this, is this, it catches fish. I have seen people say they have thrown every pattern in the box at picky trout with no hits; use live bait, no hits; then they pull out a mop fly and boom fish on. Most traditional fly fishermen hate it, but as more younger people are getting into this sport, they are willing to try it and it works. So maybe we should move past the non traditional aspect of this fly and give it a home in our fly boxes. If it catches fish, use it. Just makes you wish you could get into a trout's mind and see why they like it so much. More than likely, we will never know, but to a trout it probably just looks like a big meal.

The one I tied in the video uses a jig hook with a 3.5mm nickel tungsten bead, great for getting down to the bottom and since it is on a jig hook, there is no risk of snagging on the bottom unless you get the bead stuck in between some rocks. I used black ice dub for a thorax since I love the look of black ice dub, but also to give some contrast between the bead and the pink body. Pink mop material is what I found here and for some reason fish in the winter time on the Missouri river love pink.

I for one am going to give this fly a chance this winter and I hope you all open up and let this love to hate fly into fly box. Catch you on the fly!