The
Sockeye Shiner is a first cousin of the Knucklehead Sculpin.
It's basically a sparsely tied and heavy Thunder Creek Minnow tied on a snelled hook instead of a long shanked streamer hook. And, for the most part, tied with slick slippery synthetic materials instead of bucktail, so it sinks as fast as possible. The snell hooks more reliably than a long shanked streamer hook. And sinks faster too. I can't say why the snell sinks better. Perhaps it has something to with flexibility and water resistance. The Sockeye Shiner does sink like a stone.
Snell a barrel swivel to a wide gape walleye hook. Flatten the rear loop of the swivel with needle nose. Put the front end of the swivel in a vise. Wrap some spawn sack around the rear end of the swivel with thread. Wrap a bit of lead wire on top of the spawn sack or put on some barbell eyes instead. It does need some weight. Make a Thunder Creek minnow on the rear end of the swivel--and on the wrapped spawn sack that extends back down the snell a 1/4" inch or so. Good fly. One of my favorites. First wrote about this in Dick Stewart's Fly Tyer in mid '80s sometime. It's been refining for a long time now.
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