The realization on the Mini Fish Whacker came about for two reasons. One is people who fished the regular Fish Whacker were asking for a smaller version mostly to be able to fish on lighter fly rods as well as a need to have a smaller sized fly for when the water was super clear and to trigger strikes from a little less aggressive fish.
I had also noticed that when getting fish to chase the Fish Whacker there were times where they would turn away at the last second and I thought it was due to the larger size of the fly so I started tying it in the 2” to 2.5” length as opposed to the 3” to 4” length of the Fish Whacker and found that it did indeed elicit lots of strikes when I might otherwise not get a reaction.
I also fished the Mini Fish Whacker along with the Fish Whacker on a two Whacker rig and found there were times the Mini Fish Whacker would get taken first even though it was the top fly in the two fly rig.
