Some of the best flies contain an element of luck in their development. Al Troth once told me that he invented the Elk Hair Caddis as a wet fly but could not make it sink. My Norm’s Crystal Schminnow also fits this category.

This unprepossessing streamer pattern — which I invented 18 years ago for snook — has also caught 63 other species in fresh and salt water, from blowfish to stripers, steelhead and even sailfish.

The Schminnow was born about a year after my family and I moved to Sanibel Island, Florida. I had begun sight fishing for snook along the beach near our home and was unsatisfied with the local tackle shop’s fly selection, heavily weighted (pun intended) toward Clousers and a few Deceivers. I had observed that I got many refusals when I cast to cruising snook and that, in the case of Clousers, the fish would often spook if the fly landed closer than six or seven feet. There had to be a better way, I thought.