Umpqua's Midnight Minnow

Though snook is the primary species I target with these flies, they are good general purpose patterns day and night. I fish the Midnight Minnow almost exclusively with a floating line––and sometimes a clear floating line when the snook are particularly spooky. I strip it from up current for a natural presentation, but some nights erratic speedy strips are best while other times a dead drift in the surface film is the ticket. At most, I use a 20–pound shock tippet of fluorocarbon for this small fly, and even go down to 15 and chance the cutoffs just to get the bite.