What it is
Hareline Finn Raccoon Zonker is a zonker strip cut from genuine Finn raccoon fur with the hide left on as a backing. At the bench you’ll notice the fur is soft and dense with long guard hairs, and in the water it absorbs water and comes alive with a pulsing, natural swimming motion. The hide is soft and flexible for wrapping, and the dye is colorfast.
What to tie with it
Use it anywhere you’d normally want a moving strip: streamer strips, wet-fly bodies, and nymph bodies. It can be wrapped around the hook shank for a full fur body, or cut to length and tied in as a strip along the top or sides of the fly to add length, bulk, and movement.
Flies and the fish they're for
Finn raccoon zonker is right at home in “minkie” style baitfish and leech patterns and in snake-style flies where that long, wet pulsation is the whole point; those are commonly fished for trout in rivers and stillwaters, and for smallmouth in streams and lakes. It also shows up in Scandinavian-style salmon flies tied on tube platforms, where the strip gives a flowing profile and motion for Atlantic salmon and other migratory salmonids in larger rivers. When you want a fur strip fly that soaks up water and swims, this material supports that kind of fishing in both fresh and salt-adjacent streamer applications, depending on the pattern.
