John & Scott: thank you very much...

David: its a gamakatsu SL12S... really one of the best hooks there is...

here we go... instructions... which are similar to the diamond hair streamer,

here are the items you'll need (in 2 parts)

tying materials:



Steve farrar flash blend, flash, short shank hook and lead wire. you can substitute the SF blend for kinky fiber, flash and slinky, i think you get the picture there's a myriad of fly tying materials for the job!


to finish the fly


no epoxy as i think the soft head is more realistic for the fish to chomp on i think softex or thinned silicon would make a good substitute for the head.. i have tried un thinned silicon and in my opinion, it isn't too easy to work with.



okay! tying steps proper are as follows :

step 1: start the thread near the hook bend, and tie in a length of material (shuffle the strands to achieve a taper), this length you tie in will determine the length of the whole fly. having tied in the tail, tie in some flash, one length the same as the fly tail (bunch A), another length long enough to cover the lead wire wraps (bunch B) that you'll tie in the next step or 2 .





step 2: tie in some lead wire and wrap it forward, leaving a small gap on the shank in the front of the fly. the gap should be just big enough to tie in about 3-4 bunches of material. the great thing about this fly is you can wrap in easily 2 layers of lead wire if you need the fly to sink quickly or you can even leave the fly unweighted. if you wanted a surface fly, maybe even some foam would be a good option!





step 3: wrap a length flash that was tied to the hook in step 1 (bunch B) over the lead wire.

*sorry i forgot to take a picture here*


step 4: flip the fly upside down (if you've got a rotary vise), grab some white H2O products SF blend, fold it in half, and cut it, then tie it in, spreading the material around in a semi circle shape, this bunch will form the belly. turn the fly the right way up, and tie in a dark coloured bunch of SF blend material, again cut in half (here i used brown). This bunch will form the back of the fly. then, i tie in another bunch of material the same colour as the belly. the fly should now look like this: of course if you wanted to graduate the colours and top the fly with black and have the "shoulders" as brown, tie in the topping material first, then the "shoulder" material.





step 5: push all the fibers into place, ie, they should now no longer point forward over the hook bend, then pull them tight. this is to help form the shape of the head and the profile of the fly. the fly should now kinda look like this.





step 6: while holding the material back, wrap the thread a few times around the hook, in front of the material and whip finish. now the tying is all done, let the gluing begin!