Tying Instructions: Slumpbuster

1. Use the vise to remove the barb from the hook. Debarbing helps the fish and the angler with hook removal without excess tissue damage.
Step One
2. Slide a large conehead onto the hook and set the hook within the vise with the point of the hook extending past the jaws.
Step Two
3. Attach the thread behind the conehead and lay a thread foundation to the bend of the hook and back again to the starting point behind the conehead.
Step Three
4. Place a 5 inch section of copper wire, Brassie size, to the top of the hook shank just behind the conehead and secure with thread wraps. Then, secure a 5 inch section of Flat Diamond Braid to the top of the hook shank at the same location with additional thread wraps.


Step Four
5. Lay both the wire and diamond braid on the top of the hook shank and secure with thread wraps to the bend of the hook. Step Five
6. Wrap the thread back to the conehead and prepare to wrap the diamond braid with overlapping wraps forward.
Step Six
7. Wrap the braid evenly. Step Seven
8. Wrap the braid up the the conehead and secure with thread wraps. Secure the end of a Pine Squirrel Zonker strip by the tip of the hide just behind the conehead with tight thread wraps.
Step Eight
9. Lay the strip on the top of the hook shank and secure the strip with the ribbing wire. I like to use a bobkin to split the fur for a clear pathway to wrap the wire. Make a tight wrap.
Step Nine
10. Applying the second wrap of the ribbing wire.
Step Ten
11. Applying the fifth wrap of the ribbing wire.
Step Eleven
12. The sixth wrap of the ribbing is over the front of the hide strip, with two more wraps of the ribbing and securing the ribbing with thread wraps behind the conehead.
Step Twelve
13. With the wing secure, I am clipping off the excess strip to get the length of the wing that I desire, about 2/3 the hook shank length. This pattern can imitate a baitfish with a short wing or a leech with a longer wing.
Step Thirteen
14. Utilizing the tag end of the hide strip that was just clipped, attach the end of the hide to just behind the conehead. Secure with thread wraps. Step Fourteen
15. Apply some Zap a Gap to the inside of the conehead. This method will insure a tight seal between the collar and the conehead.
Step Fifteen
16. Start to wrap the collar with 1-2 flat wraps up to the conehead. Preen the fur back as to not trap any hair.
Step Sixteen
17. This photo shows the collar with two wraps up the the edge of the conehead.
Step Seventeen
18. Tuck two more wraps into the conehead with the fur preened back. The hide is filling the conehead void and the adehesive that was applied earlier is locking everything into place.
Step Eighteen
19. Trim off the excess strip close to the edge of the conehead.
Step Nineteen
20. John Barr has plenty of faith in his zap-a gap and just trims off the thread. I don't.... I will place a whip finish and then trim off the thread.
Step Twenty
21. Apply some pressure squeezing the conehead back onto the collar.
Step Twentyone
22. Preen the fur with a dubbing brush to get all of the hair flowing back from the conehead.
Step Twentytwo
23. The Finished Slumpbuster
Step Twentythree

©2023 Steve Schalla
This page is not to be copied without my explicit permission.