# First attempts...



## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

Here's the first muskie bucktail I have tied, it ended up being about 9" in length. Sporting dual fluted #7 brass blades, a double bucktail body dressed with black bucktail and rainbow flash with a 5/0 VMC muskie treble to seal the deal, it turned out pretty good for a first run.










The tie-in point for the bucktail is a little rough and needs some work, but I'll get it down. Also need a real metal file to trim up the wire wrap at the top, I'll head to the hardware store tomorrow for that and some round-nose pliers.

Anyone have any hints on tying muskie bucktails? I'd love to hear 'em! Opener in less than 2 months!


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## NightWarrior (May 2, 2007)

Nice


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## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

Here's a Firetiger rubber-skirted muskie bucktail I did this morning. (It's so much easier to work with skirts than tying bucktails in, and less of a fume issue with the head cement...and no headache!)










A duo of Hammered Brass/Firetiger Mag Blades size #10, with two 7" MagFlash rubber skirts, adjusted for length to cover a 4/0 VMC Muskie Treble on top with a 5/0 VMC Muskie Treble on the bottom.


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## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

The marathon continues! 

Here's a spinner dressed in orange and chartreuse bucktail over red Krystal flash and black bucktail on a 5/0 VMC treble. The dual blades are #6 nickel willow blades. It's about 8 3/4 inches long.










On this one, I remembered to flare the bucktail more. Make more wraps together, and less lengthwise to get a wider bucktail. You can clearly see the difference from the tail in my first post to this one.


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## MallardMayhem21 (Mar 8, 2006)

Nice Work!!! How much do you have in materials for each bucktail?


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## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

Alright, last one for the day. A #10 Mag blade in hammered brass above a 7" chartreuse/black mag skirt and a 5/0 treble.


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## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

Right now, they're averaging about $3.70 apiece. The ones using the mag skirts and mag blades are closer to $5.00.

The bucktail is fly tying material I've had for years, but got it out of the Cabela's bag o' bucktails product, so not sure on price there.


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## Bigdog (Aug 13, 2003)

They look nice, I have not tried the double blade style yet. For hints, I found a head cement at Cabela's a couple years ago that was flexible. It seemed to hold up better than the standard cement. Use many, many coats so that the thread looks almost encased in plastic and they will hold up much longer. I even do the heads on purchased bucktails. Most of my bucktails have the hook attached via a split ring. So I tied up a bunch of spare hooks and replace when needed.


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## njsimonson (Sep 24, 2002)

Bigdog -

Long time man, good to see you're around still! I was thinking the same, I'll have to add some more coats to the tie-ins. The double-bladed cowgirls were all the rage last summer. My bro caught a nice one on them and we had numerous follows...there's a ton of vibration, so I figured I'd follow suit. But I think from here out, I have to use single blades til my shipment of silver #7 blades comes in, dang backorder.

Here's two from this morning. A skirted one with dual brass blades and the pink one for my fiancee.


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