I’ve been fishing streamers for as long as I’ve been fly fishing. When I was young, my father fished only streamer patterns with his fly rod--no nymphs or wets, no dries, just streamers. And the first flies he taught me to tie, the first flies I used to catch trout, were simple marabou streamers.

I still love to fish streamers. It just seems magical when a flash of reflected light suddenly appears behind your streamer as it strips through the water, and then you feel the angry pull of a large fish. You don’t need a perfect, delicate, 7x tippet presentation. Slapping a big streamer to the water on 2x tippet will usually work well. There are few subtleties required when you fish streamers.
One of the streamers I now use most often is the Zuddler. The Zuddler was formed by taking two great fly patterns, the Zonker and the Muddler Minnow, and combining them into a new fly. Joe Emery and John Rode designed the Zuddler for catching Great Lakes steelhead. But I’ve used it to catch many other fish species. Brown trout, rainbow trout, steelhead, small mouth bass, fallfish, carp, suckers, rock bass, and even a couple muskies have all been lured into eating this great pattern.

Zuddlers can be tied in many colors. My favorite is black, closely followed by white and then olive, but other color combinations will also catch fish. The fly has many elements in its construction. And though I prefer to tie it as its creators intended, you can choose to leave out an ingredient or two (such as the round rubber legs) and the fly will still catch fish.

I used a white Zuddler last Monday to catch a fat 15” Penns Creek brown trout. It was the only fish I caught in an hour’s fishing on a windy, snowy, 19 degree day. I knew I wouldn’t be able to fish all day in the brutal winter weather. But I really felt the need to catch a fish after not fishing for 10 days, waiting for a break in the weather that still hasn’t arrived. My decision to tie on the Zuddler is a testimony to my confidence in this fly pattern.

The first time I fished a Zuddler was on the Upper Delaware’s Main Stem. I caught two memorable fish that day, an 18” smallmouth bass and a 21” brown trout, on two consecutive casts. The Zuddler was my lucky fly, catching more fish than any of the streamers my companions threw. And it has brought me a lot of luck on many fishing trips that followed. I hope the Zuddler makes your next fishing trip feel lucky too.