The Muddler Minnow was originated by Don Gapen of Anoka, Minnesota in 1936, to imitate the slimy sculpin and fool large brook trout in the Nipigon River.

Gapen tied the fly by lantern light in his camp, using materials available in his portable kit, after watching First Nations guides capture sculpins and explain to him their importance as forage for the large, piscivorous trout in the Nipigon.

On March 14, 2008, a size 4 muddler minnow was used by Dr. Brian Yamamoto of Fairbanks, Alaska to catch a 41.66 lbs., 46 inch-long brown trout in Argentina's Rio Grande.

The versatility of the Muddler Minnow stems from this pattern's ability to mimic a variety of aquatic and terrestrial forage, ranging from sculpins, to crayfish to leeches, to grasshoppers, crickets, spent mayflies, emerging green drakes, stonefly nymphs, mice, tadpoles, dace, shiners, chubs, and other "minnows," along with a host of other creatures.

Besides the traditional deer hair, many Muddlers are tied today with heads made of antelope, spun wool, dubbing, chenille, or other materials.

This pattern is most often used to catch all species of trout, steelhead, Arctic char, large grayling, both Atlantic and Pacific salmon, taimen, lenok, smallmouth and largemouth bass, pike, redfish (red drum), tarpon, and almost anything else that swims.

With a tiny piece of split shot in front of it (or an intermediate flyline) the Muddler can be made to swim slowly over weedbeds and shallow gravel bars.

When imitating sculpins, Muddlers must be kept right on the bottom and fished slowly, with occasional fast strips of maybe a foot to a yard, as if trying to escape a predator.