If the average modern streamer is an exotic dancer, then the Bunny Bullet is a stay-at-home Mom who gets shit done.
It’s olive. It looks exactly like something trout love, and it’s designed to look vulnerable. (It seems like an easy meal.) The cut points of the deer hair head provide the angler visibility from above, it fishes well with or without split shot, and it looks good stripped or drifted.
We’re on a mission from God.
There’s 106 miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark out, and we’re wearing sunglasses.
— Elwood Blues
Hit it!
Be sure to choose HD 1080p for best quality on the video above.
Bunny Bullet Recipe
Hook: Daiichi 2461, #4 (or similar)
Bead (optional): 4mm tungsten black nickel
Lead: about 10 wraps of .025” lead over the back half of the shank
Thread: Olive Danville Flat “A” (210 denier thread) to cover the lead, Olive Uni-Thread 8/0 for the back half of the fly, and Veevus GSP (50D) for the deer hair head.
Body: Hareline Dubbin Olive (HD11)
Rib: 5x tippet
Disco: Black Krystal Flash
Tail: Olive Magnum Rabbit Strip (trimmed to a triangle)
Gills: Hareline Dubbin Red (HD20)
Collar and Head: Olive Deer Body Hair (cleaned and stacked)
Belly of the Bunny Bullet
Hook
A Daiichi 2461 is the perfect choice for a single-hook streamer. I like it for the wide gap, black finish and straight eye.
I use a #4, but the same shank length is a #6 on most other streamer hooks. Importantly, the shank is 3 cm long, and the overall fly, from nose to tail, is about 6 cm (2.5 inches).
Because trout toy with streamers so much (since they swipe and turn, half-bite and spit our streamers) a super sharp point and a wide gap are especially important. The Daiichi 2461 has a gap that is extra wide, but not so much that it changes the weight or proportions of the fly. I also like the Aberdeen bend. Many popular streamer hooks (like the Gamakatsu B10s) have such aggressive hook bends that much of the shank is unusable — the bend of the hook takes over the fly. But the bend and gap on the 2461 is perfect.
I also like the black finish. Honestly, I’m not sure why we all use bronze finished flies anymore. Black is as stealthy as it can be. Why are we so accepting of flashy bronze hooks that add more shiny metal than a copper bead would?
Lastly, the straight eye lets a bead sit evenly on the hook (if one is used).
That’s a lot of love for my hook of choice. But it took a while to find my favorite, and I’m not looking back. Deviating much from the #4 Daiichi 2461 will change the fly. The Tiemco 5263, #6 is a good substitute.
Bead
I add a tungsten black nickel bead to about half of my Bunny Bullets. For the other half, I simply tie the fly without one. I choose a bead rather than a cone for good reason. The bead allows the deer hair head to keep its mushroom shape, but a cone forces a taper into the head — and that’s no good. The 4 mm tungsten bead adds significant weight without changing the look or performance of the head (much).
Lead
I always wrap lead on the back half of the shank. I took this idea from the Chuck’s Sculpin a long time ago. Not only does the lead help get the fly down, it acts as a counterbalance and makes the fly teeter, (like a sculpin trying to find its bearings — yummy.)
This seesaw action is especially effective on versions without the tungsten bead. Split shot placed 4-8 inches in front of the fly constantly pulls the nose down when it’s allowed to sink, while the lead wraps bring the butt down as the head rises on a strip or jig. That’s a really great action.
Olive Hareline
No flash is necessary here. Just Olive Hareline dubbing looks a lot like the lighter underbelly of a sculpin when wet, and it provides good contrast to the rest of the fly.
Mono Rib
5X tippet gets the job done. Counter wrap the mono to hold the rabbit fur on a little longer, to protect the dubbing from big, sharp trout teeth.
Black Krystal Flash
One of my favorite materials for building flash into streamers, black Krystal Flash is subtle — but it’s there. It doesn’t add any extra motion to this fly, and that’s a good thing.
The Krystal Flash here serves to prop up the rabbit strip and keep it separate from the shank. That’s nice too.
Magnum Rabbit Strip
Here’s the motion. The rabbit strip brings the Bunny Bullet to life. It doesn’t need extra rubber legs or hackle to add motion. The rabbit strip undulates and breathes life into the fly. As I’ve argued before, our streamers do not need more motion than what a natural sculpin has. Just imitate the baitfish, and show the trout what they’re looking for.
Extend the strip so the fly is about 2.5 inches, from nose to tail. I taper the last quarter inch of the strip to a triangle. Keep the rabbit strip on top of the body and don’t let it roll to the side when you tie it in, or the streamer’s action will suffer on the retrieve.
A magnum sized strip is necessary. Thin pieces just don’t have enough fur to achieve the required motion.
Red Hareline
Why wouldn’t you? Red is a trigger for trout, signaling injury and life itself. You don’t need much. Just a short band behind the head finishes off the body of the Bunny Bullet.
Deer Hair Collar and Head
Deer hair heads on streamers will never go out of favor — because they catch fish. I’ve tried sculpin helmets and various materials to form a head on the Bunny Bullet, but nothing comes close to the production of deer hair for the head of this fly.
Importantly, the head should have a mushroom shape — not flat or triangular. There seem to be a few popular shapes for trimming deer hair heads. The Bunny Bullet doesn’t look right with any other shape. Look at a few sculpins in the palm of your hand. This is what they look like.
Tie in the collar with one clump of hair, then two other clumps for the head.
The head should not be dense. It doesn’t take much hair to form the profile. Just use what’s needed. Any more than necessary, and the head floats too much. The deer hair should not be packed tightly.
As a bonus, the angles at the tips of the cut deer hair reflect a little light and provide visibility to the fly. In shallower water, I often see the Bunny Bullet’s head. And for an olive fly, that’s an unexpected advantage.
Photo by Austin Dando
Justification
I have a lot of stories about the Bunny Bullet, and many of them are scattered here across the pages of Troutbitten. Without question, it’s the best streamer in my box. (A couple year ago, it caught a 25” wild brown trout that I named Honey Bunny.)
It’s a natural, perfect match for the sculpins that trout feast upon. It’s a convincing, easy meal (when it’s fished that way). But it’s also a great searching pattern for big water — go ahead and jerk-strip it off the banks like you would retrieve an articulated beast twice its size, and see what happens.
More than most streamers, trout commit to the Bunny Bullet. They don’t just chase it — they eat it.
That’s a Bunny Bullet
For the record, my neighbor, Mark, named the fly. It took its final form back in the summer of 2001, as I sat perched at the kitchen counter, tying flies for a trip to Montana with Dad. After work, Mark walked through the side door and passed behind me. And on his way to the fridge, he stared at the streamer in my vise.
“That looks like a bullet,” he said.
“It’s mostly rabbit fur,” I replied.
“Well then it’s a Bunny Bullet,” Mark said flatly . . . and he handed me a beer.
Fair enough.
Fish hard.
Enjoy the day.
Domenick Swentosky
T R O U T B I T T E N
domenick@troutbitten.com
Real nice and relatively easy for an intermediate tyer. I enjoy your videos, too. There’s no tired old bullshit. Hey, I just want to know how to tie the fly. Who was singing and playing in the background. You knew someone would ask, ha!
Thanks Bruce. Yeah, fast motion is key. I don’t want to watch a 12 minute tying video either. 🙂
The song is by my friends Ted McCloskey and Molly Countermine. You can see the song credits at the end of the video.
Thanks a lot for sharing! Always been interested in this one!
Cheers. Let me know how it fishes for you.
Any chance someone is willing to make some and sell these? Let me know!
Let me know, too! 🙂
How many do you want?
Looks a lot like a Dahlberg Diver; am I correct? thanks
With due respect, I don’t feel it’s much like a Dahlberg Diver. The weight, the bead, the lack of hen feathers, the bunny strip, the krystal flash used as a prop, the dubbing, and the way the hair collar is cut are all different.
But . . . everyone sees something different.
Kinda had a discussion about that in a post last week:
https://troutbitten.com/2018/06/05/is-your-new-fly-really-new-what-makes-a-fly-original/
I don’t know what’s original, technically. And I’m just sharing a pattern that works for me.
Also, cheers. I liked the stay-at-home Mom part too. 🙂
Domenick
According to the new-fly classification system, your Bunny Bullet is an “original multi-cross”
Meaning your fly has multiple desecendants: Dahlberg Dier; Zoo Cougar; Zonker; Muddler Minnow
Either way, it looks like a real kick ass streamer to me.
HA! I like it.
P.S. Your ‘stay at home mom’ analogy was fun!
Great Sculpin, I cent wait to tie some up. How do you typically fish it- on a sink tip?
No. For around here I hate sink tips.
I fish streamers mostly like this. It works best in my waters.
https://troutbitten.com/2017/01/18/streamers-easy-meal-old-school-streamer-thing/
Thank you so much! Great pattern and technique!
Thank you for creating and sharing this awesome pattern! It really knocked em out today- drifted slow, stripped fast, upstream or downstream the big dogs couldn’t stay off it. Bravo
I love it.
Nice tie. A toned down kiwi muddler; different enough to give her a name. I’m going to have to get some magnum rabbit. Have you ever fished the Trow Minnow or Dore’s Mr. Glister?
Ever fish these in black? I’m thinking it’d make a great night fishing fly
Hey Dom Any chance of adding your Bunny Bullet to your shopping page or getting someone to ty them for sale Thanks Brian Mac
Hi Brian. Yes, Troutbitten flies will happen. I’ve been working with some people for over a year to get enough product ramped up. Things like this year a lot of time. But I’ll get there.
Doesn’t it ride hook side up being your using a jig hook? Is belly facing up? thanks great articles
Hi there,
Thanks. It’s not on a jig hook. It’s on a Daiichi 2461. Straight eye.
Make sense?
Sidenote: if you do want a fly to ride upside down, you don’t need a jig hook. Almost all nymphs with a bead invert:
Here’s the Troutbitten article on that:
https://troutbitten.com/2020/03/15/nymph-hook-inversion-and-the-myth-of-the-jig-hook/
Cheers.
Dom
Nice tie for a beginner like myself. Looking forward to getting it wet. I already had some success with your full pint and am sure I can move a few with this one. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Cheers.
Dom
Hi Dom
Sorry to go on about the Bunny, but I don’t think it’s clear how it lies in the water. I saw your answer to Eamon above, and also went on to read :
https://troutbitten.com/2020/03/15/nymph-hook-inversion-and-the-myth-of-the-jig-hook/
But even that is not conclusive, although you do say the Bunny tied on a jig hook is likely to travel right side up due to materials, etc.
I think the inference is that the Bunny travels right side up? Please confirm.
It would help to attach a picture of the Bunny in water in the reference above when you do update the piece.
Kindest regards.
Hi David. Thanks for the question.
The Bunny Bullet rides hook point down — not inverted.
The jig inversion article you referenced is about nymph hooks.
The Bullet rides normal because the hook is longer and thicker than standard.
The Bullet also rides normal because of the materials. The head and the tail force it that way.
I welcome you to test for yourself, and share the pictures here.
Cheers.
Dom
Many thanks Dom. Will do, materials coming. Appreciate the reply.
By the way, who is the artist singing when you’re tying the Bunny?
Cheers,
Dave
Sure thing.
Good friend of mine. Ted McCloskey. Credits are always there in the info below the video.
Cheers.
Dom
Dom – thank you for the article and video on this pattern. Do you ever tie/fish this in other colors (i.e. brown, black, tan) and, if so, how have those colors performed?
Thanks, Nate
Hi Nate,
I have tied and fished other colors. It never made a difference in hook ups.
Cheers.
Dom
I intend to tie that one. Some flies…you just look at them and you KNOW. I’m a lifelong muddler man; but this rabbit-bullet thing just has the look. Sophia Loren strutting through an army barracks–it’s gonna get attention.
Hey now!
Maybe I missed it somewhere in the article, video, or comments, but it looks like you use some sort of adhesive on the hook shank before spinning the deer hair head. Is it just super glue or something else?
Hi Kyle. Yes, for most deer hair heads, I put a very small bit of super glue on the shank right before laying in the hair and spinning. It works very well to hold the hair in place while you are fishing it. Makes for an much more durable fly, in my experience.
Cheers.
Dom
Dom,
Last couple weeks, I finally had some weather to work some pellet heads so I tied a handful of the Bunny Bullet Sculpin fly.
I adjusted the deer hair after a couple because, I stink at the deer hair and the clean up is frustrating. I substituted Olive/ Brown wool and tied hook point up on all the flies. During my tests after the rains, I caught rainbows on a couple different streams here in Ohio. The fly worked as well as I expected and some eats were fierce though the biggest was a 17 incher.
My observations are the wool sinks deeper than the deer hair so I’m sticking with it. I also tied some with dumbbell eyes that get deeper still and have a pronounced jigging motion. I cannot wait to try here for Steelhead and in PA for some browns in Spring. I think the colors mimic a brown trout fry also. I also tied in Black head charcoal zonker type to mimic the sculpins I see. That fly didn’t work as well in the cleared up water.
When I paired this streamer with a recent video by Kelly Galloup on Streamer techniques in the right stained/ higher water conditions, This fly is everything I imagined it would be. I had equal eats casting upstream and popping back or casting across stream and popping down and across. If I saw a fish and it didn’t eat, I didn’t see it again so I moved on.
Thank you for your input Dom,
Rick
That’s all great stuff. I’m glad it’s working for you. It’s fun to experiment. The deer hair head on the Bunny Bullet, and on any streamer with that kind of head is there, in large part, because it slows the decent of the fly. Yes, wool gets down quicker. But we don’t always want that. Yes, the Bunny Bullet doesn’t drop like a fly with dumbell eyes, and that’s for good reason. With the Bunny Bullet, I don’t want a fly that drops quickly and goes head down all the time. I would argue, that the deer hair head is a large part of its success. Certainly wool heads and others catch trout too. I use ball jigs for those kinds of presentations, because flies that drop like that do work well. But again, I don’t always want that look. I would say I think there’s not enough emphasis these days on the drop rate of streamers. Too much talk about just getting the fly down. But when you overweight a fly, its action changes — a lot. Many anglers like streamer that hover or drop slowly when there’s no tension. That’s a big deal, and it’s a really different look. You can still get that kind of fly deep, with split shot or a sinking line, but when you back off the tension it doesn’t go nose down to the bottom.
Lots to think about, right?
Cheers.
Dom
Of course, I can see that neutral buoyancy with deer head. Maybe I use a sinking tip or shot to get it down. I may tie a couple more to keep experimenting. Great fly and thank you for sharing.
Rick
You might also not want to get down there, and that’s part of my point. My latest streamer presentation, drilled into my head by my buddy Bill Dell, starts with a fly built to drop slowly but have enough weight to cast on a tight line without shot. The slow drop rate of maybe 1-2 inches per second, allows for a VERY different look to the fly. Move it and then watch it almost hover in place. That’s the absolute opposite of the trend right now for “jig streamers.” I love using these flies, even in big water, but I target the banks and the structure. If you cast a fly one inch of the bank, that water isn’t very deep, no matter how big the river is (in most cases). I’m having a lot of fun with this approach. Anyway, a standard Bunny Bullet, with no bead and only the lead wraps is a really good fly for this approach.
Cheers.
Dom