PROJECT FLY Tutorial: The Midnight Reaper - A Night-Fishing Fly

A night-feeding 24-inch Rainbow caught on the Midnight Reaper fly

After returning from another successful night fishing trip at a lake in June, a co-worker at the shop told me that I should write a tying tutorial on the fly we had so much success with. I told him that I thought the fly was too easy to tie, to spend time writing about it and he replied; “That’s why you need to write it”, so here it goes.

This experimental fly has been refined over the last 6 years to the current version which is fishing so well in lakes at night that I have finally decided to give it a name. I am calling it the “Midnight Reaper”.

First of all, most trout fishermen don’t fish in the dark, so this is not the type of fly typically found in fly shop bins or even online. This fly has never seen the light of day on any body of water – not that it can’t be fished during the day, it’s just that I’ve only fished it at night! This fly is big, black, ugly, noisy and looks like an unkempt Woolly Bugger on steroids.

Before going into the recipe for this 3 ½” fly, I think I owe the reader a brief explanation of why I selected some of the unique materials used to create it. The Midnight Reaper uses a jig-style hook with a weighted head.  Most all of the materials used on the fly are black – because dark-colored flies are more easily seen by fish against a dark sky. The tail uses marabou and the body is dubbed using extra-long, blended fibers normally used on large saltwater streamers.

Since this fly is fished at night, the way it looks matters less than the way it sounds. Fish have neuromast receptors on their lateral line and on their bodies that sense frequency, vibration and movement to help them locate prey, therefore a bulky, noisy, water-pushing fly is in order when fishing in the dark.

A few sound-producing features are available to the creative fly-tyer that help trout find your fly in the dark. A trick used by Pike and Bass fishermen is to incorporate rattles into fly design. This is a secret weapon for the non-purist night fisherman seeking trout. That tiny rattle may not sound loud to human ears, but to fish it’s like ringing the dinner bell.

Another noise-producing feature of this fly is its legs. I have replaced the silicone legs on the original Midnight Reaper with metal bead chain legs. With the slightest underwater movement, these metal micro-chains collide together, creating noise commotion that brings in curious nocturnal fish, like the one caught by my brother Eric, below.

 Double-digit Rainbow fooled by the Midnight Reaper fly

-------------- MIDNIGHT REAPER Material List ----------------

• Hook: KEITECH Tungsten Super Round 1/16 oz #3/0 Jig Head
• Hook (alternate): GAMAKATSU Round 26, 1/16 oz #3/0 Jig Head
• Thread: VEEVUS GSP 100D, Black
• Tail: FULLING MILL Premium Marabou Blood Quills, Black
• Tail flash: CASCADE Silicone Micro Mini Legs, Black/Blue Flake
• Rattle: SPIRIT RIVER 3mm, 3 steel bearing glass rattle
• Body: SPIRIT RIVER UV2 Seal-X Ice Dubbing, Black Ice
• Body (alternate) MFC Arizona Simi Seal MEGA Dub, Firecracker
• Body: STEVE FARRAR SF blend, FBL 45, Black
• Legs: 1.5mm Steel Ball chain, Black

INSTRUCTIONS

1. With hook facing point up in vise, tie in one Marabou plume tip, then add 4 silicone Micro Mini legs (or alternative rubber legs) on each side of tail. Add second plume tip, covering silicone legs.
2. Tie rattle to hook shank touching front collar, encapsulate rattle in UV resin.
3. Cut six 2 ¾” lengths of bead chain. Drape them in three pairs of 2, equal distance from each other over hook shank. Lash them down with tying thread using figure eight wraps. Seal lashings with super glue.
4. Build a 6-inch-long dubbing loop using Simi Seal dubbing and lay 2-inch SF Blend fibers perpendicular over dubbing.
5. Twist into a double-thread dubbing loop and wind around and between bead chain legs, constantly preening the fibers back. Tie off right behind the head and whip finish.
6. Finished Midnight Reaper fly, ready to fish.