Mysis Shrimp

I was doing a little research today, both online and in books, and was reading about how effective mysis shrimp are supposed to be for steelhead. While not in the rivers we fish, they are prevalent in the Great Lakes and steelhead supposedly imprint upon them as a food source. One web site said that they prefer them to eggs 7 to 1! I'm not sure how accurate that is, but decided it was time I had a few in my flybox.

So... off to the vise I went and after a few attempts, came upon my own version. It's pretty easy to tie and offers a little more detail then some of the other patterns I've come across. I experimented a bunch with different ways to fashion the black eyes that are a pretty dominant feature found in all mysis shrimp imitations. After fooling around with glass bead eyes and mono eyes, I finally came across the idea of melting the ends of a cut piece of black larva lace. It's fast, and delivered the effect I was looking for.

Here are the tying steps; I just hope they live up to the hype!

Materials:
Hook: Tiemco 2457 #12
Thread: White 6/0
Eyes: Black larva lace
Thorax and abdomen: pearl white ice dub
Shellback: Mylar
Rib: Stretch lace .5mm
Tail: creamy white antron



Attach the tying thread to the hook


Attach the eyes to the rear or the hook, above the bend


Tie in some antron for pearl krystal flash for the antennae




Tie in some mylar (or similar) for a shellback, and some stretch lace. I found this stuff called Stretch Magic, that I bought at the local Michael's Arts and Crafts store. This happens to be .5 mm, clear


Add an antron tail, then dub the thorax and abdomen


Tie down the shellback, then rib





The finished fly