Clown Egg (Rag Egg)

Manistee River float-fishing guides

A multi-color yarn rag egg that Hawkins calls 'a deadly fly' under a float on the Manistee and that 'will fool most salmon and steelhead.' Chuck Hawkins sizes it dime-sized in pinks and oranges before runoff, quarter-sized in chartreuse, orange and bright yellow during runoff, and muted afterward; Kraimer fishes a quarter-sized Clown as the attractor above a smaller realistic egg. Fish it under an 8 to 20 g float or chuck-and-duck from fall through April.

#6–14Pink/orange (pre-runoff, dime-sized)Chartreuse/orange/bright yellow (runoff, quarter-sized)Muted natural (post-runoff)stained water

What the pattern looks like

Reference photos of the Clown Egg (Rag Egg) tied by others, shared by their photographers. Not our flies; our own product photos replace these as they are shot.

Clown Egg (Rag Egg) reference photo — Photo © Quinn, used with permission

Season

Months this pattern is in play across Michigan, derived from what it imitates.

Imitates

Eggs

Chinook salmon eggs6.36–8.36 mm
Coho salmon eggs6–8 mm
Steelhead eggs4–5 mm

Fish it for

Steelhead Chinook salmon Coho salmon Brown trout

Setups

Indicator nymphing
Chuck and duck

How it's tied

Clown Rag Egg. Michigan's multi-colour rag egg: several colours of egg yarn cross-tied and left loose, so it sinks, shows several egg stages at once and gets seen in stained water. Our own write-up of the standard tie, checked against the sources below. Recipe by Ted Kraimer, Current Works Guide Service.

Materials

Hook: TMC 105, sizes 6 to 10, or Gamakatsu C14S (Kraimer); Nomad Anglers ties it on a Gamakatsu C14S size 8; Daiichi 1640 size 6 when it will hang under a floatOur sizes 6 to 14.
Thread: Uni 6/0 in a colour of your choice (Kraimer) or Veevus 100 denier white (Nomad Anglers)
Yarn: Glo Bugs yarn, three to five colours, each piece 1.25 in long and thinned down so no full strand is usedKraimer's colours: Chartreuse, Steelhead Orange, Cerise, Flame, Shrimp Pink. Named combos: Oregon Cheese with Steelhead Orange; Egg with Sockeye; Oregon Cheese, Chartreuse, Pink Lady and Steelhead Orange together; Flame with Steelhead Orange (Light Clown).
Foam alternativeoptional: McFly Foam Clown package (pre-mixed multicolour), tied by the tube method in the Orvis video on a Dai-Riki 135 size 14 with UTC 70 fluorescent orangeGives a tight round clown egg rather than a loose rag.

Steps

1.Cut 1.25 in pieces of each colour of yarn and pull each one thinner; a full strand of every colour makes a fly far too dense.
2.Mount the hook and lay a thread base from behind the eye to above the point, then bring the thread back to about the middle of the shank.
3.Take the two boldest colours, lay them across the shank at right angles to it, and lock them down with crisscross figure-eight wraps so they stay perpendicular.
4.Move the thread forward a turn or two and tie in the remaining colours the same way, each crossing the shank.
5.Pull all the yarn up and back with your off hand and build a small ball of thread immediately in front of it to prop the fibres up and back.
6.Whip finish in front of the yarn and cut the thread.
7.Gather the yarn straight up and trim it to about the length of the hook gap or slightly less. Longer gives a looser, raggier egg; shorter gives a tighter one.
8.Fluff the yarn out with your fingers and stop. A rag egg is meant to be loose and see-through, not rolled into a hard ball.

From the tier

Ted Kraimer (Current Works, Traverse City) likes the rag style because it is translucent, shows its colours in an organic way, and sinks when wet instead of hanging in the column like a tightly tied Glo Bug.
Capt. Chuck Hawkins (Hawkins Outfitters) calls the clown egg the easiest and most versatile egg for Michigan spring steelhead: pre-runoff, pink and orange at dime size or smaller; during runoff, chartreuse, orange and bright yellow at quarter size or bigger because "they have to see them to eat them"; post-spawn, back to dime size in muted natural colours such as Jon Ray's Lemon Parade.
Nomad Anglers (Grand Rapids) reaches for it when the water is murky or when nothing else is working, and suggests natural colours too for a bigger egg-and-skein look.

How to Tie the Clown Rag Egg Fly Steps summarize Kraimer's Current Works tutorial; Nomad Anglers supplied the materials list only, and Hawkins the seasonal colour and size guidance. The Current Works page shows no date. Unconfirmed: Origin story (Manistee guides) not confirmed by any source. MidCurrent only says Michigan tiers run the widest clown colour arrays. Also checked against Nomad Anglers (2022), Clown Rag Egg Fly Tying Tutorial, Capt. Chuck Hawkins, Hawkins Outfitters (2024), Top 5 Spring Steelhead Flies, Orvis Learning Center, Salmon & Steelhead Fly Patterns - Clown Egg and MidCurrent, How to Tie Egg Flies for Salmon & Steelhead.

Materials to buy

Everything one Clown Egg (Rag Egg) takes, each item once: 3 items, plus 1 optional. Quantities are for a single fly. We do not sell components yet; when we do, these will link to them.

Hook and hardware

Egg or scud hook1
size 6 to 14; C14S size 8 is the shop standard · Gamakatsu or TMC
Hook
1

Synthetics, flash and legs

Glo Bugs yarn1 bag per colour, 3 to 5 colours
Chartreuse, Steelhead Orange, Cerise, Flame, Shrimp Pink, Oregon Cheese, Egg, Sockeye, Pink Lady · The Bug Shop
Yarn
1 bag per colour, 3 to 5 colours
McFly Foam Clown packageoptional1 pack
multicolour · McFly Foam
Foam alternative
1 pack

Thread and finish

Tying thread1 spool
Uni 6/0 or Veevus 100D white
Thread
1 spool

Sources