Brown trout across the nation are on the move—fall is when they’re most active and most aggressive as they’re preparing to spawn or defending redds. And, often, the best way to elicit strikes from big browns is to chase them with streamers.
And there might not be a better leach pattern than the Conehead Bunny Leach. It looks fishy in the water, gets down quickly and sports great action. It’s a dependable “big fish” fly in most rivers and streams where brown trout might be staging to spawn or defending redds (actively spawning fish, by and large, should be left alone).
But the CBL is also a great pattern for other predatory fish. I used a bright yellow version in the swamps of southern Georgia to target toothy bowfin, and when it came to tie up a mess of streamers late last summer in northern Saskatchewan after the pike had done a number on our fly boxes, I tied up a several CBLs, and my group enjoyed great success.
The version tied in the video above by Tim Flagler of Tightline Productions is a bit more involved than the version I generally craft at the vise, but it does produce a clean finished product that will more than likely catch fish.