How to Tie the Goby Baitfish Streamer

Gobies are a type of baitfish made up of a variety of different species and live in freshwater systems. Similar to sculpins, these baitfish tend to hug the bottom of creeks, streams, rivers, and lakes and they provide excellent forage for anything from smallmouth bass to trout and even oddball species like catfish and crappie. These baitfish are generally in the 2"-5" range with a round profile, making them excellent forage for fish of nearly all sizes. The Goby Baitfish Streamer imitates the natural profile of these baitfish while providing lifelike motion in the water. Easy to tie and even easier to adjust to match the color of the gobies in your local system, this streamer is a solid choice whether you're stripping it for hungry smallmouth in the middle of summer or dead-drifting it for lazy trout on a cold winter day.

Material list:
Hook: Gamakatsu B10S, size 4 (can be tied in sizes 2 through 8)

Weight: .020 Lead Wire

Thread: UTC Ultra Thread 70 Denier (color: olive)

Tail support: Hareline Black Barred Marabou Feather (color: olive)

Tail: Keough's Tyer's Grade Cape (color: grizzly dyed olive)

Body: Senyo's Laser Dub (color: olive)

Collar: Hareline Black Barred Marabou Feather (color: olive)

Step 1. Wind between 15 and 20 wraps of .020 lead wire on the hook shank, leaving enough room to tie the tail in and enough room to build a collar. For larger flies, you'll need more wraps, and for smaller flies, fewer.

Step 2. Begin your thread base with a jam knot directly behind the hook's eye and in front of the lead wire, then continue the thread over the entirety of the lead, adding a dam of thread just behind where the lead ends. This will prevent your lead from moving along the shank.

Step 3. Select a Black Barred Marabou Feather that's roughly the length of the shank. Tie it in on top of the hook and trim the excess.

Step 4. Select two grizzly feathers roughly two times the length of the hook shank. Tie one on each side, above the marabou tail support.

Step 5. Grab some Senyo's Laser Dub and trim it to be proportional to the fly you're tying (in this case, we cut the dubbing in half), and then rip stack it into a nice, even bunch. Now tie the bunch of dubbing in in front of the tail–it's important to tie the dubbing in at the halfway point, so you have enough fibers facing the rear and enough fibers to pull rearward.

Step 6. Pull the dubbing fibers that are facing towards the eye of the fly rearward, then build a dam with your thread to angle them back.

Step 7. Advance your thread roughly an eye length ahead of this bunch and repeat the previous step.

Step 8. Repeat the previous step. For larger flies, you may need to do this more than three times.

Step 9. Strip some Black Barred Marabou and insert it into the Swiss CDC Multi Clamp, or a similar tool.

Step 10. Now build a dubbing loop with your thread and insert the Black Barred Marabou into it. Spin the dubbing loop with your tool to create the loop.

Step 11. Wind your dubbing loop to create the collar. After wrapping the collar, be sure to use your bodkin to pick out any trapped fibers.

Step 12. Whip finish your fly off and add head cement.

Video Transcript

Hello, I'm Carl at Trident Fly Fishing. Today we're going to tie the Goby fly. This is a baitfish streamer. I don't know the history of the fly, but it presents a great teardrop-shaped baitfish pattern. I've chosen to tie it in olive colors to tempt the smallmouth bass in my home waters. Tie it in colors to match the baitfish in your area. I would suggest sizes one through six. Here's the fly in the vise.

The hook we're going to use today is a Gamakatsu B10S size 4 - it's a stinger hook with a nice wide gap to it. To help get the fly down a little bit quicker, we're going to put in about a dozen wraps of .020 lead wire. Wrap this up to a couple of hook eye lengths behind the hook eye.

Our thread today is UTC 70 Denier in the color olive. We'll start our jam knot just behind the eye and form a thread dam in front of that lead to keep it from creeping forward. Then we're going to wrap back over the lead and form a thread dam behind it. That'll keep it in place. A few more securing wraps, and we'll wrap back to the start of the bend of the hook where we're going to tie in our first material.

That first material is going to be some Hareline Black Barred Marabou in the color olive. This is going to support our tail feathers and keep them from wrapping around the hook. We want these to be about a hook shank in length. We can cut a lot of that off and get it out of our way. We'll tie this in on top of the hook. That looks good. Get rid of the excess material.

The tail for our fly is going to be a Keough's Tyer's Grade Cape, grizzly dyed olive. I've pulled a couple of feathers out from along the edges - they don't get used for much else. We want them to be about two hook shanks in length. We're going to tie those in right on top of the hook shank.

The body of this fly is going to be made up from Senyo's Laser Dub. This is their yarn dispenser, and the color we've chosen is olive. We're going to tie in probably four clumps. You can see it's pretty long stuff - longer than we need for this fly - so I'm going to cut that in half, lay it back over itself, and kind of blend it all in together. We're going to lay this on top, take two loose wraps, pull it tight, and that will pull the material around the hook shank. Then pull your material back and form a thread dam in front of it to force it to lay back over the shank. Come forward an eye length or so and we'll do it again. Lay it on top, two loose wraps, pull it tight, pull your material back, form another thread dam, go forward, and repeat. Two loose wraps, tight. One more.

The last material we're going to tie in is going to be our collar. For that we're again going to use the Black Barred Marabou. I've put it in a clip, and we're going to form a dubbing loop and get that marabou into the loop. We'll start wrapping once we get to where the marabou is. We'll probably make about three turns - that's probably enough. Cut off our dubbing loop, sweep it all back, and we'll form a head in the process, forcing that marabou back over the body of the fly. Get our whip finish tool, do a four or five turn whip finish, take our knot, cut our thread, and get rid of those two small pieces right there.

Take a brush and kind of even this out. Once this gets wet, it has a really nice teardrop shape. The marabou gives it a lot of movement. A little head cement to finish off the fly, and our fly is finished.

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