The Chubby Muffin is a sculpin imitation which uses a craft fur dubbing brush for the head. Craft fur is inexpensive, comes in a large variety of colors, and takes markers well. But more importantly, it has a neutral buoyancy after being soaked through.

A few summers ago, I noticed a small mouse swimming in my pool. He struggled and fought for dear life, nose barely breaking the surface, legs churning like it was on a hamster wheel. I was inspired by his heroic efforts and chose to create a fly that mimicked his final death dance. Most mouse patterns have the mouse floating on top of the water, while this is great at imitating a mouse which is dead and bloated, I wanted something that would fire up the bass and cause the …

What’s the saying? Necessity is the mother of invention? This little bug fits in there somewhere. I had been searching my creative place for a very simple to tie, light colored nymph that offered just a bit of that “ooohhhh yyyeah!” look when wet. The typical light colored dubbings, quills, biots, and threads just weren’t doing what I had in my mind. I wanted sexy, not cute.

Pressured fish see lots of cute!

The Ragin’ Craven was originally developed as a permit fly that could be fished both on the drop and the retrieve. See, most permit flies are to be dropped in front of the fish, and act like a crab as they drop, but lack the movement and profile to entice a grab after the fly hits the bottom. I have never had a permit eat a fly once it touched the bottom, although they generally will eyeball the hell out if it and it gets a bit frustrating. Therefore, I went to work to come up with a fly that would drop like a crab pattern, but then have the movement and profile to morph into a shrimp or other flats critter once on the bottom, allowing the angler a chance to move the fly without blowing his cover. The Ragin’ is my answer.