User talk:Mike Cline/Articles Under Contemplation/Bucktail flies

Bucktail flies, often called bucktail streamers, are a broad, generic group of sub-surface baitfish patterns used by fly anglers to imitate forage fish that are preyed upon by larger fish. The defining characteristic of both historic and contemporary bucktail flies is the use of long hairs from the tails of Northern white-tailed deer or other long hair from mammal species to create a long, winged fly. Bucktail styled flies tied for atlantic salmon and steelhead are often called Hair wing flies.

History
Early accounts documented by Joe Brooks in Streamer Fly Fishing in Fresh and Saltwater (1950) relate that the Ona Indians of Tierra del Fuego used hair from Guanaco to craft crude bucktail flies by impaling a strip of hide with hair on a hook to catch fish in local waters. In the 1920s, Frank Dufresne, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife staffer working in Alaska, described an Eskimo fishing lure that used polar bear hair to take lake trout through the ice. Dufresne later crafted a more modern version of the Eskimo lure that became known as the Alaska Mary Ann.

General description
Bucktails as a class of artificial flies have historically been defined by the use of bucktail (typically hair from northern white-tailed deer) or other long fibered mammal hair used to create winged baitfish patterns. Classic bucktails used only hair, yarn and tinsels in their construction but modern bucktails have evolved to include other fibers, feathers, synthetics, etc. Although a technical distinction, baitfish flies using feathers for wings have been traditionally called streamers. However, that distinction has faded and bucktail flies today are routinely referred to as streamers as well as bucktails. The classic bucktail has a tail and/or wing of hair and a body of various combinations of yarn, floss and tinsel. Classic bucktail flies are typically tied on 3X-4X long streamer hooks. Heads may or may not have painted eyes or eyes of Jungle cock.

Historic patterns
As described in Streamer Fly Tying & Fishing (1950), Joseph D. Bates As described in Tying & Fishing Bucktails and Other Hair Wings (2016), Mike Valla As described in Carrie G. Stevens, Maker of the Rangeley Favorite Trout and Salmon Flies (2000) Graydon Hilyard
 * Bumblepuppy - One of the earliest documented bucktail patterns designed by American angler Theodore Gordon in the 1880s.
 * Black nosed dace - An Art Flick pattern
 * Bucktail royal coachman
 * Bucktail silver streamer
 * Ray Bergman bucktail
 * Mickey Finn
 * The Brooks Blondes (Argentina, Black, Honey, Pink, Platinum and Strawberry)
 * A.S. Trudes (Red, Optic Variation, Green, Black, Black/Red)
 * Brown and White Bucktail
 * F.R.S. Special
 * Reverse-tied Bucktail, freshwater style
 * Reverse-tied Bucktail, saltwater style
 * Shiner

Coastal cutthroat trout bucktails
• As described in Fly-Fishing Coastal Cutthroat Trout: Flies, Techniques, Conservation (2004), Les Johnson

• Bed and Breakfast

• Blair's Baiter

• Ferguson's Green and Silver

• Johnson's Beach Fly

• Lambuth Candlefish

• Puget Power

• Ray's Fly

• William's Point Sandlance

• Crystal Mickey

• Golden Needle

• Holder's Sea-through

• Red-tailed Hawk

Atlantic salmon bucktails
• As described in Tying & Fishing Bucktails and Other Hair Wings (2016), Mike Valla

• Ally's Shrimp

• Atherton Squirrel Tail

• Big Intervale Blue

• Black Bear Green Butt

• Black Bomber

• Black Ghost

• Blue Smelt Streamer

• Blue Charm

• Copper Killer

• Cosseboom Special

• Grizzly King

• Laxa Blue

• Miramichi Special

• Rat (Blue)

• Rose of New England Streamer

• Tanner's Blue Smelt Streamer

• Warden Watcher

Steelhead bucktails
• As described in Tying & Fishing Bucktails and Other Hair Wings (2016), Mike Valla

• Brad's Brat

• Chum fly

• Golden Demon

• Green Butt Skunk

• Kispiox Special

• McNeese Madness

• Pink Matuka

• Polar Shrimp

• Purple Brat

• Purple Peril

• Skunk

• Thor

• Umpqua Special