Few flies are as ubiquitously potent as the Clouser Minnow. Invented by legendary fly angler Bob Clouser in the late 1980s, the pattern quickly proved it had far more uses than originally intended.

The first time I went fly fishing, my buddy summed up the sport in five words: “hurling money into the river.” That definitely felt like the case as I proceeded to lose $10 worth of store-bought flies ...