The Mickey Finn Bucktail

Hook:            Streamer hook such as Mustad 9672 or 3665A, size 10 – 2/0

Thread:         Black

Body:            Medium flat silver tinsel ribbed with narrow oval silver tinsel

Wing:            Small bunch of yellow bucktail, over which is a small bunch of red bucktail, over which is yellow bucktail bunch about twice the size of the first.

Head            Black           

Variations include addition of a throat hackle, tail or jungle cock “eyes”, mylar Diamond Braid or Flatbraid substituted for the metallic tinsels, orange bucktail substituted for red bucktail, feathers, calftail or synthetic hair substituted for bucktail, and so on. Like the Muddler, this is another “universal” fly, great for all trout species, fall Atlantic salmon, and even some salt water species.

The fly originated in the 1930s and was first named the Red and Yellow Bucktail, then the Assassin and later it was rechristened the Mickey Finn by Gregory Clark, noted feature writer and war correspondent with the Toronto Star. Joseph D. Bates, Jr., in his 1950 Stackpole book Streamer Fly Tying and Fishing, quotes Mr. Clark as saying “A day or two after I named the fly the Assassin I recollected a story that recently had been published in Esquire Magazine about how Rudolph Valentino had been killed by Mickey Finns administered to him by the resentful writers of New York and Hollywood and I rechristened the fly the Mickey Finn.”

Mr. Clark publicized the fly in a 1937 fall issue of Hunting and Fishing Magazine that sold out in two days during a New York Sportsmen’s Show. Organizers estimated that between a quarter and a half million Mickey Finns were dressed and distributed during the show. By Friday of that week not a single bit of red or yellow bucktail could be purchased from any of the New York supply houses.

Mr. Clark goes on to say, “During the next few months the entire facilities of the Weber company were stretched to the breaking point trying to keep up with Mickey Finn orders. One outfit in Westchester actually saved itself from bankruptcy proceedings by specializing intensively in the manufacture of Mickey Finns … I still use the fly and find it to be a consistent fish-getter.”

Please stay on the line …