I haven’t spent a ton of time fishing mice. Other than a few nights looking for big browns — bushwhacking through the north woods with a underpowered headlamp just to lose most of my flies to unseen trees — my experience is pretty much limited to chucking these bugs into lily pads for largemouth.
I’ve drooled over videos of leopard trout pouncing on mouse patterns swung through Alaskan streams, and more than once those videos have sent me to the tying desk. Once I’ve finally turned out a few mouse patterns, it inevitably looks like an unknown quantity of small, furry animals lost a fight with a weasel in my office, and I spent the next few weeks vacuuming up stray strands of deer hair.
Tim Flagler’s simplified version of the Morrish Mouse is sure to save my desk from the awful miasma of deer hair and head cement that often follows my excursions into tying mouse patterns. With no hair spinning and no flared trimmings to work into the carpet, this pattern will cut my mouse production time in half. Plus, I love zonked pine squirrel. It’s light on the wallet and easy to work with.
Maybe I’ll even tie enough to make up for all of them I’m sure to donate to the cedar trees on my next moonlit mousing expedition.