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Married Wing Mickey Finn

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Married Wing Mickey Fin

Edition:December 2025

Written by: Eric Austin

Photographed By: Eric Austin

Creator: John Alden Knight

The Mickey Fin was a bucktail streamer popularized by author John Alden Knight in the '30s. It was not original to him, and versions of the fly had existed for years. However, it soon became all the rage as a brook trout staple. Joe Bates, in his book Streamer Fly Tying and Fishing from 1950 shows this version of the fly, done with wings fashioned from goose quill rather than bucktail. It can be considered a Canadian fly, as the one tied for the book was done in Montreal by Fin, Fur and Feather Limited, a Canadian tackle dealer. I find these quill feather wings to be a lot of fun to tie, and hope that you will too.

Download PDF Version

MATERIALS

Hook: A smaller streamer hook, #12 Mustad

9671 used here

Tail: Red Goose or Swan quill segments, cut from left and right feathers

Ribs: Oval silver tinsel (small)

Body: Flat Silver tinsel (medium)

Throat: A yellow hackle tied in as a beard

Wings: Two wings, one made of slips cut from left quill feathers, the other from right quill feathers, each wing containing a strip of yellow goose quill top and bottom each married to a red strip in the center

Head: Black

Step 1. Start the thread 1/8" behind the eye and wrap back to the bend of the hook. Tie in strips taken from right and left goose quills, each 3 strands wide. Tie them in tips up and tips together (concave sides together). The resulting tail should be about shank length.

Step 2. Tie in a piece of small oval tinsel just in front of the tail, on the far side of the hook. Hold with one turn of thread. Trim a piece of medium tinsel to a long point and tie it in in front of the oval tinsel, again on the far side. Wrap thread forward to a point a bit short of the thread starting point, binding the tinsel down underneath the hook as you go.

Step 3. Wrap the flat tinsel forward and tie off. Don’t trim the tinsel yet. If the oval tinsel pulls out later, you can reuse the flat.

Step 4. Wrap the oval tinsel forward to form 5 ribs or so and tie off. Trim both the flat and oval tinsel.

Step 5. Tie in a piece of yellow hackle by the tip. The strands should extend to the point of the hook or slightly beyond when the hackle is wound later.

Step 6. Wrap the hackle and then bind it down into a beard. Joe Bates specifies that the beard should be created this way, not tied in as a bunch under the shank as is done on some streamers.

Step 7. Change to black thread.

Step 8. Tie in the wings tips up and tips together. Tie them in low on the hook and as level as you can get them. They should extend to the end of the tail as shown. Trim the wing butts close and form a head with black thread. Whip finish and trim the thread.

Step 9. Finish the with a good penetrating head cement. Then follow with a lacquer based coat like Sally Hanson's Hard as Nails or Healthy Hoof Laquer.

Other Married Wing Flies from Joe Bates’ Streamer Fly Tying and Fishing

Parmachene Belle: An argument can be made that Henry P. Wells intended this fly to be a streamer from the start. This is a variation of the wet fly version.

Trout Fin (Orange): First in the Canadian Trout Fin Series

Trout Fin (Red): Second in the Canadian Trout Fin Series

Harlequin Streamer: Third in the Canadian Trout Fin Series (imitates a chub)

Note: This fly bears no relationship to any other Harlequin historically. See the original Harlequin salmon fly below for a comparison. I’m not sure why Fin, Fur and Feather Limited decided to call it a Harlequin.

Harlequin: There have been many versions of this fly, but the multicolored body ties them all together. The single exception is Fin, Fur and Feather’s fly on the previous page.

Editor's Notes: Comments from the editor.

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