Fulling Mill Muddler Minnow

Skate it on top and leave a wake behind it

Don Gapen spun the first deer hair head in 1936 on Canada's Nipigon River, and that head is still what makes the fly work: it floats, it pushes water, and skated across the surface it drags a wake that brings fish up from a long way down. It doubles as a hopper or a beetle when terrestrials are about through summer. Fish it on a floating line and give it enough speed to hold the wake, or grease it and treat it as a big dry.