Balanced Minnow Leech

It has been about a year and a half since I first tied this bug. Ever since balanced leeches came onto the scene, I have been a fan of them. I tie and use a lot of different patterns in both stillwater and stream fishing. I’m also a big fan of minnow patterns, so it only seemed right to marry the 2 designs. That, and I needed a minnow pattern that I could use without stripping it but that still gave me good action to attract a bigger fish. The first one I tied up I used it for Lahaontan cutthroat out at Omak Lake. After some trial and error, I was getting the reactions I was looking for. I have used this pattern at a number of the waters in the area and have caught trout of different colors and both small and large mouth bass and panfish. It is a useful fly to have in your box.

Material List:

Thread: Ultra Thread 70 white
Hook: Tiemco U555 Jig/Nymph Hook #10
Bead: Hareline Red Metallic Tungsten 1/8”, 3.3mm / Hareline Cone head Brass Nickle X-Small
Pin:  ¾" Sequin Pin, silver color
Tail: Hareline Wooly Bugger Marabou Olive / Crosscut Rabbit Strip White
Underbody: Hedron Flashabou Pearl
Body: Troutsmen Simi Seal Dubbing Crystal & Silver Minnow / Hareline Senyo’s Fusion Dub Emerald

Video Transcription

Intro to the Balanced Minnow Leech

Keith here, from North 40 Fly Shop. Balanced Leeches have been making a steady progression as time has gone by. What I'm going to show you is... it's actually kind of a marriage of two things, a balanced leech and a minnow pattern. If you've ever fished a lot of the still waters or lakes, you'll find that, like anything, big fish eat little fish. I've said it time and time again.

Omak Lake is a prime example, but I've used the pattern I'm going to show you now in most all the lakes in the area. So what we're going to do is we're going to tie the Balanced Minnow Leech, and it's in an olive and white.

Step-by-Step Tying Instructions

Okay, let's get started here. We're going to take a size ten Umpqua U-series jig hook, 90 degree... oh and the numbers on this. You'll... all the description of material will be in the deal. So it's a U555, I believe.

There you go. And we're going to use 70 denier Ultra Thread.

And we'll get that started there. Laying a good thread base.

Then we're going to take a 3/4" sequin pin, and extra small nickel cone head... brass cone head, that is... sequin pin, and then where the real weight comes in is a 1/8" metallic red tungsten bead. The nickel itself does not have enough weight to counterbalance the fly, so the tungsten does.

So now that you've got that all loaded like that, you've got to figure out your distance, to balance this out.

So if you were to say the distance between here and the bend of the hook right here, I would probably... what I'm going to do is what I've done on this is, to figure out the balance, is I go one full distance of the head. So I'm going to go out about there. So what that is is... that's taking... oops. There we go. That distance there, and putting it behind there. If you understand that.

And we're going to strap this down real good. You want to make sure it's centered over the top.

Anytime you're using/designing your balanced leeches, the first thing you do is exactly what I'm doing. Figure out some distance here where your weighted portion is, so that when this is sitting in the water, it basically sits just like this. And so sometimes there's trial and error. You may tie it on and it's... the head is actually like this when you put a piece of mono in there, or some tippet in there, to see if it'll balance. If the head is going up, then you need to take your bead and stuff further out, or you need to actually go a bigger bead.

If, what you're looking to achieve here is... so that's either straight like this or just cocked down just a little bit.

And we're going to lash this down real good. And I use a 70 denier because I'm going to be putting some stuff into a dubbing loop, and I just like the 70 a little bit better.

Now before I go any... too much further, I am going to take a little bit of super glue, I'm going to pull that red tungsten bead out, and I'm going to apply some on there.

And then I'm going to push that back up underneath... or not underneath, inside that brass cone. And that'll help hold it in place.

Then, I am going to wrap my thread all the way forward. And you don't have to wrap a bunch of thread here to hold that beading stuff in place. Once you get going, your material that you're going to wrap forward is going to hold that all into place.

So now we're going to take this all the way back.

You can use other pins, regular sewing pins, or whatever you want to use. You'll have to clip them... you just want to make sure there's a big enough head that'll hold the bead in place, or your brass cone in place. The thing you've got to watch out for, and this is why I like the sequin pins, is that it has a natural point here, and it won't cut your thread.

So the other thing I do, is I apply a little super glue to my thread wraps, and just to... it'll soak down in there, just give it a little more strength, there, to hold it in place.

Now normally, if I was tying a number of these, you know, half a dozen, a dozen, I'd whip finish this off real quick, set this off the side so that that glue can dry. But since we're not going to be doing that, we're going to just keep plugging away.

So next thing is the tail. And I'm using olive Wooly Bugger Marabou. If yous see any of my other videos, anytime I'm tying smaller stuff, I like to use that Wooly Bugger Marabou a little bit more than anything else.

The other thing too, is I do, is I just kind of find where the tip of the feather is, and I pull that out. It just lays down better, I think.

And what we're looking for is we want to go... the tail needs to be the hook length. So that's going to be not the overall length of this, but the hook length, from here to here. And that's about right there.

And what I'll do is I'll kind of get rid of some of this extra stuff here. So I'm going to lash that down real good.

What that'll do, is it'll fill in some of the space that your sequin pin leaves between where it ends and the bend of your hook is, because I want that to be kind of a smooth transition, as much as possible. Because when we get going here, we're going to be wrapping an underbody here. So let me get that wrapped down as tight as we can. Just remember, you're only using 70 denier, so you can't wrap it too tight.

The next part of the tail, which is going to be the belly, is just... I just use Crosscut Rabbit strips, in white. And I'm just going to take just a little bit... like that. And the reason why is, if I put Marabou under there, it gives it a bit too much weight, and for some reason, just this little bit of Rabbit kind of helps balance out the whole fly.

So... just like that. There's part of your belly, will extend underneath your tail.

So the next thing is we are going to put in a dubbing loop.

Now, if you want to, you can put a couple of straps of... strips, excuse me, of flash in the tail. And if you are, pearl Flashabou, pearl Crinkle Flash, mirror Crinkle Flash, or what I've been using more and more now is the pearl UV Flashabou. It just adds a little bit better to it. But in this pattern, I didn't use any.

And so, for the underbody, same thing, is you can use pearl Flashabou, pearl Mirror Crinkle Flash, or you can use pearl tinsel, and that's what I've got a spool of here, is the Pearl Flat Tinsel.

We're going to tie that in. And this is going to be the underbody. I'm just going to add a little flash to what's underneath. I got just a little bit of a bump there, but that's all right.

The other thing too is when you're wrapping this... the underbody material, the tinsel, you do not have to worry about it being perfect, because it's just going to be something underneath that adds to a little bit of that flash that minnows show through.

And if you're using Flashabou, you could add, you could use one strand or you can do two or three, just to fill it up more.

As I said, you don't have to be exact here. You want to wrap them as close to each other as you can, a little overlapping, but if you miss a little bit here and there, that's okay.

And I'll go back a little bit, just to kind of use up some of the tinsel, and also to add a little bit of bulk up there on the front.

There we go.

Two behind, three behind, a couple in front. There we go.

Okay. So for your dubbing, which is your body, I use two types of Simi Seal. One is the silver minnow color, and the other is the Crystal. And I mix them together, and I use a coffee blender. And then once I come up with it, I put it into its own bag and usually, if I'm going to be doing a lot of it, I'll... it's two equal parts, and then I mark the outside of the bag so I know exactly what it is.

I just found that those two colors seem to work better than just one color, versus the other. So I blended them together.

All right, we load up our dubbing loop. Give that thing a twist. And we got to brush it out a little bit.

We're going to go one full... maybe one and a half... actually, it's about two. In the back. And in order to keep that tinsel to shine through, we're going to space this out, probably a quarter inch... well maybe not quite a quarter inch. Eighth inch or so, and wrap that thing forward.

We're just going to kind of spiral that forward. That should bring us right to where the hook meets the overhang. Come around. Continue on until we get up right behind the front bead. And then we're going to do a couple good turns there. And we'll tie that off, secure it.

Two behind, one in front. Two behind, one in front.

Clip off that excess. Throw in a couple wraps for good measure.

And then I'm going to come back, before I go any further on this particular design, I want to get that brushed out a little bit. And you can see how that pearl tinsel shines through. It gives that body a lot more shine to it.

Okay, last item that we're going to be tying in is Senyo's Fusion Dub, in emerald, which is kind of an olive color. So we need a dubbing loop. Let's see, we're going to get this squared away here.

And we're not going to need a lot, because this is just going to be... whoops. Might want to turn that the way we want it, because what we're going to tighten this in for... we got a little ahead of myself. Not going to need a lot, because what I want to do, I want this to come over to match the tail. And this is the back.

Put a dubbing loop there. Lock that in. And what you want to do here is kind of get an idea of where in that dubbing loop, when you make that first wrap, it's going to put this right on top.

Whoops. There we go.

That's right about where I want it, right there. And the next thing is, is I'm going to add just a little bit, behind it, just to kind of add a little bit underneath. And with that, I am going to take a little bit, cut it in half, because I don't want it as long.

See that? And we're going to spin this up a little bit, just to kind of lock everything in.

Twist that over. Should come in right about there, like that.

A couple of wraps over.

And then we'll tie that off.

Trim off the excess. Clean it up a little bit. And superglue to the thread.

And about four turns for a whip finish.

And then we're going to take and brush that back a little bit, both sides. Do that olive back look. It might not looked exactly like a minnow, compared to what we know, but it seems to work pretty good. I haven't had too many complaints about it.

Always good to... like I've always said, it's always good to have a little red. The red bead just kind of gives that gill look up front.

So run these under an indicator. You can run it straight and cast it, if you're going to fish the river, cast out, let her swing.

So you're going to run it under the indicator, shallow water, you know, depending on where you think... where you're seeing minnow action. Also, like I said, you don't have to run it. Even if you're in a lake, you don't have to run it under an indicator. You can cast out and jig it back. That up and down movement puts a lot of action into it.

There you go. That's your Balanced Minnow Leech.

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