need help deciphering a recipe

[crawfly]

i know thats how i tied it in the fly above

You certainly do Normand and quite nicely tied!

[Normand]

Normand,

Here is a link to a shoulder on a dry fly. See page 49.

http://books.google.com/books?id=deW...%20fly&f=false

thanks for the link but that "shoulder" is different to the "shoulder" specified in my original post

[saltydancindave]

Looks as if: from a black ostrich plume take a single filament & wrap it like chenille to form the shoulder.

[NJTroutbum]

Nice pattern. I was going off of the example recipe you said, would have assumed it was the front herl portion of a "coachman style" abdomen as well. Seems that would lend itself to a wetfly hackle application too, since ostrich really doesn't float well on it's own merit, but has great movement when wet.

Norm.....what is the ribbing? Black flat-waxed?

[kbproctor]

i think its similar to tying a royal wullf

Hook - standard dry fly sizes 8 - 18
Thread - black
Tail - natural brown bucktail
Butt - peacock herl
Body - Red Floss
Shoulder - peacock herl
Wings - white calf tail (or white calf body hair)
Hackle - dark brown hackle

Pardon me if I am mistaken, but it does not look to me that this fly was tied to the given recipe. The wing and hackle do not appear to be as called for.

It may be a dry fly, but the analogies are still correct. A Royal Coachman wet or dry are tied the same until you get to the wing and hackle. The body is the same on both.

[Normand]

Pardon me if I am mistaken, but it does not look to me that this fly was tied to the given recipe. The wing and hackle do not appear to be as called for.

It may be a dry fly, but the analogies are still correct. A Royal Coachman wet or dry are tied the same until you get to the wing and hackle. The body is the same on both.

the fly i tied and posted above is tied exactly in accordance with the recipe in perraults standard dictionary of fishing flies, page 113, pattern name is "gray hackle special". the part of the recipe for the "gray hackle special" that threw me off was this: Body: lemon yellow floss with black ostrich shoulder the key word here is "SHOULDER"

after an exhausted search using GOOGLE and Bing, i had a hard time finding descriptive photos of the parts of a fly. then i stumbled on the recipe for the "royal wullf" and then it hit me what was meant by "SHOULDER"!

thats why i posted the royal wullf recipe and indicated "similar" in the sentence above the recipe because it contained what the "SHOULDER" of a dry fly is

now after almost 30 years of tying flies i know what a dry fly "SHOULDER" is

i hope this explanation will end any confusion caused by my original post

[NJTroutbum]

Thats why we stick with for a lifetime:^)

[kbproctor]

Normand,

My apologies. I was fixating on the white calf hair wings and the dark brown hackle and not paying attention to the rest of the recipe.

I sure hate when I stuff my foot in my mouth like this.

[Normand]

no problem

[saltydancindave]

In the Glossary of The Book of Fly Patterns, Eric Leiser on page 349 is shoulder : " In salmon and streamer fly nomenclature, a construction made of any feathered material ( and occassionally hair fibers ) which is tied in on the side of the shank near the head and extends rearward usually for a third or half of the body length of the fly........................ "